Patience

Today we got the opportunity to sleep in but sleeping in for us was 7. It very hard to sleep in here just because the sun rises so early. Also their are lots of animals outside our room we are always hearing chickens and dogs in the morning. We had our breakfast oceanside and then headed over to the orphanage and we took the tap-tap today. We were the only people on the tap-tap ride so that was really nice. We arrived at the orphanage and the kids were doing their morning chores. They are trying to teach the kids to pick up there trash and that they don't just leave it laying around. Many people just throw their trash out in Haiti. This is a very dirty country.

Once the kids were finished with their morning chores we brought out the chalk for them to play. They swarmed around us trying to get pieces of chalk. These kids are so eager to learn they were all working on their counting and writing out number lines on the sidewalk. They would say the numbers in both French and English. We also take some books out and read to the kids. They loved being read to and repeated every word that we said to them. These kids are so motivated to learn English and speak our language. All the little boys came up to me today and asked me to play tic-tac-toe with them. They get so excited over such a simple game. I am also going two days straight of being the tic-tac-toe champion. These little boys are so competitive and so am I.

Later on in the morning the older girls started playing a new game that involved singing. They would say a letter and then you had to think of a song that starts with that letter. The girls sang in French while the others sang in English. It was a lot of fun even though we didn't understand what other people were saying we had a lot fun singing and laughing at each other. We also pulled out a phone and started playing music and English and had a little dance party. After playing with the kids we headed back to our hotel. Our tap-tap ride back was a little more interesting. The tap-tap was full when we got on and some Haitian just pulled me down to sit down on his lap. While Haley was standing right in front me with no room to move. We also could not see out of this one so we were hoping the driver remembered where we were supposed to be dropped off. We made it back safely! We are truly getting to experience the Haitian culture on this trip.I wouldn't change that though because we are really getting an understanding of their lifestyle. Haley and I did some homework and then headed to the beach for about an hour.

The beach that we go to is not like a beach in the states. Its very very small maybe twenty people could fit on this beach. The beach is also very rocky and we take like ten steps into the water and then swim because the rocks hurt our feet so bad. We have also realized this beach is common place for Haitian's to bathe. It makes you feel real guilty when you are just going to the beach to relax and all of these people are going because its the only way they can get clean. You never truly realize how much you have until you see the life that other people are living.

On Friday nights our hotel has pizza night! We were all so excited to finally have pizza but man did it take forever to get our food. We had not had food since 7:30 this morning so by 5 we decided we couldn't wait any longer for our food. We ordered our food and waited this is very typical in Haiti it normally takes us and hour or two to get our food. After ordering our food it had been about an hour and we were getting impatient. One of the servers came over and said they did not have the ingredients for the pizza we wanted... So we then ordered a new pizza and did not get our food until 6:30. Let me tell you by that point in the day my patience was running so thin. All I wanted was food!  This whole Haitian time can be tough some times for us. We are so used to getting food when we want it in the states.

I am still amazed by the kindness by all of these people. They are so kind to us. We may look completely different then them but they are so welcoming to us. Walking down the street people are always saying hello and French and smiling to us. I sometimes wish that everyone was this friendly when we are in the states.

With Love,
Abby