Black Friday

"Black Friday" doesn't mean much here in
Haiti! Well, except that all the people are black and I can say that because every time they see me they shout, "Hey Blanc!" I've begun to reply with, "that's not my name!" (nor is "Hey you!" OR "Give me one dollar!")

Bill picked us up this Black Friday morning, but not to go shopping! He took us to an LACC school here in Port-au-Prince! We had a blast! Then we loaded up and headed to Cite Solei. We'd heard and read so much about it that we were a little worried that we weren't headed out in and armored car! Seriously, watch the documentary Ghosts of Cite Solei and see if you aren't afraid for our lives even though we're already home!

Bill was a great host and calmed our nerves radically as he pointed ahead and said, "See that round about where the traffic is stopped? We're not going to go that way today because last week I had a team in here and the traffic stopped like that and someone shot the people in the car in front of us and took their things and the team was pretty freaked out!" The girls on either side of me wiggled nervously and I saw three different hands check to see if their doors were locked! I spoke up and said, "Thanks for taking us a different direction today! Is there anything else?" "No not really, " he replied, "except if you have a necklace on, one day a lady had one on and someone just reached in here and tore it off!" I slipped my necklace in my pocket and resolved NOT to ask anymore questions for the mental health (of my team of course)! "See that water tower up there? That's the entrance, you can always tell the entrance to Cite Solei because of all the smattering of bullet holes! Yep, big eyes all around! We pulled in...

No gunshots! No mobs! Just Haitian business as usual, granted it's 10am!

We pulled up to the school and headed straight to the kinder room because well, they're the CUTEST! They were soooo quiet!

I asked the teacher if they were always this calm- I wish I had a picture of the look on her face! (Chuckle!) Let's just say the answer was NOOO!!! ha! And within about 5 minutes we found the answer on our own!

Bill had told us that it took a week or two to get the food distribution set up in this school and that after the kids had been fed for a week the teachers called wanting to know what was in this food!? They reported much increased activity, behavior problems, loud children, rowdy children, fights, silliness! It's amazing how food will change the life of a child!

In the US if we stopped feeding our kids so much we wouldn't need as much Ridalin! (I kid! I kid! While in the kinder room I heard people talking in the other room in a language I could understand!!! I made my way into the classroom to find a team from King's Castle from the Dominican Republic, they were hosted by MLB's NY Yankee Damaso Marte which we got to meet of course!

I was more excited to see some fello King's Castle peeps than the MLB guy, but needless to say it was an AMAZING day for me!

Ima venture to say my Black Friday was better than your's!