Fwd: Haiti Day Two Continued

[Phyllis Kalifeh]

Thank you to Paige and Meg for their work there this week and for sharing their experience.

Best,

Phyllis

Phyllis Kalifeh

President & CEO

The Children's Forum, Inc.

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

From Paige:

Meg gives a wonderful description of how Project K.I.D. works in Haiti.  This is an account of our second full day here.  Love, Paige
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: megwa...@comcast.net
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:28:00
To: <pai...@msn.com>
Subject: Fwd: Haiti Day Two Continued

Haiti Day Two - I just realized that only two small paragraphs of my journal was sent out and the other four or five have been lost forever in cyber space.  I will attempt to complete day two at this time (Thursday morning)
 
My day began by falling down the last two steps of the stairs leading down from our room.  I was so lucky and only managed to get a large bruise on my right shin.  My shoes are big - hiking shoes and the stairs are a bit narrow. 
 
Today we went to a desperate tent city on the outskirts of Port au Prince.  In front of their settlement was another tent city that is well organized and has funding through World Vision.  This camp has virtually nothing material, but you could feel their spirit filled with hope and gratitude for our visit.  We went with the group from New Life Mission (where we are staying).  They brought two nurses who were providing medical checks on all of the children.  Some of the children appeared lifeless in the small tent used to "doctor" them, but when we brought out balls, and other toys, most everyone began playing.  We were blowing up and giving out small beach balls and everyone wanted one - not just the children- they were actually desperate to receive one and I thought it is just wrong to know that kind of desperation. 
 
I also spent some very valuable time in the tent with three moms and their infants.  I had no doubt that they loved their babies, but I saw no interaction between them.  I asked if I could hold one baby and the mother said no.  I understood completely - would I want some stranger holding my baby?  A second mom with an infant and two year old said yes I could hold her infant. I began to talk and coo with the baby and was able to get a little chuckle and smile out of him before I had to give him away - what a joy to see a baby smile in this desolate area.  I was told that little interaction happens between adults and babies in this culture so I continued to model this appropriate practice with this baby and was delighted when a second mom said I could hold her baby too!  So I had another wonderful opportunity to show others the joy of "making a baby smile and stimulating their brains"!
 
THis is the location where I left most of all the donations given to me by my wonderful CSC family.  I know every item was gold!  I selfishly wanted to hand out everything to the people and make my own decisions about who to give the things to, but was told this was inappropriate.  I am so glad I listened because I would have been mobbed and things would not have been distributed by need.  The one in charge would make those decisions after we left.  And I realized when we left that it was not the material that we brought that was the most important, but the experiences we had together.
 
The people in this camp were taking the rocks that are EVERYWHERE and make it hard to walk and decorating around trees and actually performing a landscaping task with the rocks.  It was very pretty and  an outright symbol that they cared about their homes.
 
After we left there we went to a pizza/bakery place called Epi-dor.  The pizza was amazing and they had Diet Coke!  It was warm, and had expired two weeks previously, but I drank it down anyway!  Yummy!  This restaurant in Port au Prince was completely unharmed by the earthquake while most things around it were destroyed.
 
My last full day is tomorrow and I am looking forward to it.  We are going to see an orphanage up in Kenscoff.