It's been a few days since I've blogged. We've been a little busy and the internet has been sporadic as usual. When we can actually get on we are dying to talk with our family so we spend a lot of time talking online.
Monday we attempted to fly Rachel out on standby. We got to the airport at about 6:40. There were already 2000 people there ahead of us. They were lined up (not single file mind you) for more than a hundred yards. We had my father-in-law call American Airlines to see if they were adding any new flights. He called us back and said that so far there were no extra flights scheduled and he doubted if they would add flights because they were sending planes to Mexico to get people out of the way of the hurricane. With that knowledge we decided there was no chance Rachel was going to leave that airport on standby that day. So we headed back to the hotel. We found out from some other folks that night (who didn't make it out of the country) that the airport got kind of ugly that day with people desperate to leave the country. We were glad we didn't waste our time. When we found out her flight was cancelled my father in law immediately booked her on the next available seat out which was not until this coming Saturday. This means she will miss the first two days of classes. However, she is going to just wait and take that seat rather than taking the chance of getting a standby flight. She has emailed her professors to let them know the situation. Although I didn't want her to have to miss her classes, it is nice to have her stay for longer. And she's staying until Saturday which is when my father-in-law is now flying in for another visit.
After we came back that day, we had school in the morning. Our lesson was about following arrows. Rachel and Erin set up a little "treasure hunt" for Kerwin. He had to follow the arrows out of our room and at the end of the course there was a little prize for him. He enjoyed it and seemed to understand the concept of the arrows. We swam for hours that day and then headed up to the restaurant for dinner. While we were up there, we got a storm that we would have expected to come during the hurricane. It rained hard and fast for a long time. The restaurant is an open air kind of place. We were sitting in the back corner and before long we had water under our table.
Yesterday was a busy day. Erin has a friend who is interning at a mission here in Port-au-Prince. He came by to pick us up, take us to lunch and show us the mission where he is working. We went to the bakery that we had been to once before. They have American style food and then lots of bread and pastries. Plus its fairly clean and air conditioned. We got five different kinds of desserts and split them between all of us. My favorite was the strawberry tart. Then we went back to the mission to get the tour. It's called House of Hope and is a home for girls. A few of the girls are being adopted. Otherwise, they live there, get food, shelter and an education. On the whole, the girls seemed very happy and healthy. The facilities there are small but nice. I was impressed by how clean and neat everything was there. However, that may have been due to the fact that they were expecting an IBESR inspection the day before. IBESR is kind of like the Haitian social services. It is the same organization that granted us our adoption.
Yesterday we met another adoptive family here at they hotel. They are also adopting through Barb. I had met their son before when we were staying at Barb's village. They are also young and this is their first child. They are staying for a few days or up to a week as needed. They already have David's passport. We hope to be able to catch up with them some more here at the hotel. Sadly today, all the other adoptive families that were staying here are leaving. There was one family in particular that we really bonded with. They are from California and are adopting two little boys. They were a lot of fun to sit up with and talk and laugh with at night.
A few notes on Kerwin. He is now counting from 11 to 20 by himself. Yesterday he found a new number that he loves. It was the 21st so I taught him 21 when we were doing calendar. Well, 21 in sign language is similar to the sign for gun. So naturally he loved it. He was "21ing" everybody in the room. He has also traded in his Playdough love for pipe cleaners. He does the same thing with them. He gives them to us to make things out of then we play with them. Yesterday we made a bike, an umbrella, a football, a soccer goal, a baseball bat, a baseball glove. He wanted a football tee and a helmet but I couldn't figure out how to make those work. Kerwin made a pretty good kite himself.
The story from Archives is same old, same old. They told Barb to come back Monday to pick up the paper. When Mirlande went in on Monday they were closed. If you have managed to keep reading to this point, I am sure you are wondering why. Well, I'll tell you. It was Archives birthday and they were off. So now you understand it as well as I do. So, yesterday, Mirlande went back to pick up the paperwork and now they want more money for something else. AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!
Today is our last day with Erin. She goes back to the mission on Thursday. If you made it to the end of this, I'm impressed. I hope you enjoy the pictures.
No comments:
Post a Comment