Living Haiti

Better late than never...

Last week was the first week of school and I took a bunch of pictures to share with you all...of course a bajillion things got thrown in front of this blog, but today was a gloriously non-eventful Haiti day. Well, I think our cook for the kids quit. So that was drama, but Gertrude and Brinel cooked and I even helped chop some onions and carrots. No worries...we got this!

So school! School here is an interesting situation. As far as I know there are tenchically no public schools here in Haiti. Not the way those of you in America understand them to be. That means if you're going to school here, you're paying. It usually ends up costing between 300 and 600 US dollars a year for a child to go to school. It can be a HUGE price for most families and a lot of kids don't go to school all the time. They might start and not finish a year. They might go one year and not the next. Most of the times it's a toss up.

We have 10 kids here who are school age. My friend Joanna found sponsors for all of these kids through the Haiti Mission Project, and all 10 of our school age kids were ready for school. Backpacks and supplies were sent, uniforms were sewn and ribbons, belts, and shoes were bought.

The morning that school started there was a flurry of excitement...trying to find pants, and belts, and lunches, and bottles for water, and pencil sharpeners. It was a little insane, but the kids were SO excited to be getting ready for school. And some of the kids who weren't going, were sad. We have some kids here that would benefit from the Special Ed system in the US. My one little buddy looked so sad as he watched the other kids head off...he even had an old back pack on his back because he wanted to be caught up in the excitement too. Some of our kids with special needs are wicked smart...I wish we had resources for them here.

But there are ten young minds that are getting an education for a better future...and that's no small thing!