Haiti - Day 2

6:10am - Well, I've already been awake for at least an hour, and the electricity is off again, so I just decided to get up. Honestly, I think I might of slept a couple of hours last night, and that's being generous. I laid there forever and just sweat and sweat and sweat. There are two rooms here, separated by a door. The little window ac unit is in the back room with a queen size bed and two bunk beds. I'm in the front room with two twin size beds...and no ac. I kept telling myself to just suck it up, but I was so wide awake and hot. Sleep just wasn't happening. It could of had to do with the 6 inch gap at the bottom of our door letting light and sounds in, the giant bugs, the Haitian heat, or probably the entire bag (yes, BAG) of watermelon licorice I ate for dinner right before I went to bed. Anyways, I got so hot and frustrated, I drug my plastic mattress (like the crunchy sounding ones they have in cribs) on to the floor and over in front of the doorway to the other room where the cool(er) air was - sometime around midnight. It helped a little, but then Samson (the dog) decided to murder some small animal right outside our window, then someone was blowing an air horn (seriously, what's up with the air horn??), dogs started barking, roosters crowing... Yea, it was a rough first night - and a rought day yesterday. I'm struggling today for sure, but I am still really excited to be here and see what interesting things this trip holds for me. I also wonder how many bugs crawled on me last night? I woke up to the biggest cocroach I've ever seen just hanging out on the wall. Seriously, its huge!

The gap under our door...

The seriously huge cocroach on our wall

Okay, well I'm going to change clothes (no running water = no shower or anything) and head outside to get some breakfast. Its pancake day, and some people who have been here before say they are amazing! This morning we're going to head in to Port Au Prince to see a little bit of the city, then we're going to an orphanage in Leogane (an hour or two on the other side of Port Au Prince) which was the epicenter of the earthquake. I've yet to play with, or hardly even see, any of the kids here at this orphanage. But I do hear some of them playing soccer outside now!

The balcony right outside the door to our room

The boys playing soccer this morning

10am - After breakfast (pancakes with peanut butter - yum!), we got a little mini tour of the orphanage. There is a water filtration system in a building that Living Water International built, two boy dorms, two girl dorms (the cement rooms have triple bunks), a boys and a girls bathroom/shower house, a school, a little medical clininc kind of thing that is really just a room with medicine in it, a newly opened sewing center, and a church that they also use for storage.

Breakfast!

The one-room 'clinic' full of medicine

The water filtration system the Living Water International built

One of the boys' dorms

The boy's shower

One of the girls' dorms

Inside the girls' dorm

The school in the distance (the roofs are to the girls' dorms)

I really didn't excpect the kids to have much, but I was kind of surprised that they don't have one single thing to call theirs besides their bed and the clothes on their back for that day. That is IT. Nothing in the rooms. No closet of clothes or shoes, not a toy around besides some soccer balls. No bright paint on the walls, no soft rug on the floor, no cute bed sheets. It was so hard to see so many beautiful kids who don't have anything - not even a family to love them. :(
We all had kids hanging on us during the tour. Literally hanging - they'd grab your hands and just hang until you either drug them or picked them up. And they all wanted pictures taken!

Laying on the floor, just begging to be held

She really wanted to show me her bed

Hanging on me until I picked her up

After the little tour, we went in the church, where we all sorted through our big bags of donated items (even though we are missing SIX of our bags still.) We brought a LOT of stuff down here! I was impressed!

Then we got about another hour or so to just play with the kids. I printed out the letters to spell THANK YOU on paper before I left, hoping to get the kids to hold the letters for a picture to turn in to a 'Thank You' card to give to everyone who donated items. It sounded easy enough. Turns out its not when you don't speak any Creole! The kids wouldn't sit still or hold the letters the right way - or in the right order. They were fighting over them and trading letters - it was NOT working. I finally got an older boy who knew a little English and he got some of them to sit still long enough for a couple pics, but it wasn't quite what I had in mind. Maybe I'll try again later!

"No, no.  You sit here and hold this letter!"

This was as good as I could get - cracks me up :)

With a little translation help, this was the final product

Mesi is "thanks" in Haitian Creole

We played a little more, took a few tons more pictures of the sweet kids, and now we're just trying to cool off a little and waiting for our van to come so we can head in to the city and then to the other orphanage in Leogane.

"Can I please wear your watch??"

Kimberly's mom is a 14 year old orphan and former restavik (child slave) who was raped...I can't even begin to imagine what her life was like until she was found the day of the earthquake.

Kimberly LOVES sunglasses and cameras

Jamison might be the cutest and sweetest little guy at the orphanage.  He is half white, so some of the kids pick on him and throw rocks at him.  Just breaks my heart...

While I'm sitting here, I think I will share with you the new thing I learned today.  Do you know how to flush a toilet if there isn't running water??  I DO!  Well I do now anyways...but I had no idea that you could actually get a toilet to flush by quickly dumping a lot of water in it!   How cool is that!?  I mean all of us girls peed in that toilet plenty - it is dark yellow and smells nasty now.  But when someone has to go #2, I mean you can't just let that sit there.  "If it's yellow, let it mellow.  If it's brown, flush it down."  Isn't that how it goes??  So anyways, they gave us a lesson on how to flush the toilet, and I was enthralled.  You have to hold a 5 gallone bucket, half full of water, about waist high, and then just dump it really fast in to the bowl.  I partially missed the bowl the first time, and plus when you do that, the nasty water splashes out anyways.  So yea, our bathroom floor is wet, but there isn't any #2 in our toilet!  I've gotten better at flushing now, and I don't really miss that bad.  But we still have a towel on the floor in the bathroom anyways (soaked in nasty toilet water, ha).  So yea, that is what I learned how to do today:  how to flush a toilet with no running water. :)


3pm - Its raining and we're just leaving the orphanage in Leogane. We ended up leaving the Jumecourt Inn a little before 11 and went in to see Port Au Prince. It was pretty eye-opening and shocking honestly. Tent cities and crumbling buildings everywhere. I think Haiti might take the cake for the poorest living conditions I've seen, next to Africa. This place beats the favelas of Brazil and the villages in Nicaragua. I think what really sets Haiti apart from all of the other countries I've been to is that there is NO PLACE nice here - not that I've seen anyways. I mean everywhere else I've gone, there are like little pockets of nice places. A nice hotel here, a nice house or school area there. Not in Haiti. This whole place, as far as you can see, down every alley way and up all the hills, is poverty. Buildings half falling over, people living under tarps from Samaritans Purse or in plywood homes. I just kept waiting to see something at least decent, but I never did. Trash lined the roads and they just burnt it right there when it got big enough I guess. I couldn't take a lot of pictures for several reasons. First, I was in awe and really just wanted to take it all in myself (selfish, I know, haha). Secondly, our team leader really cautioned us against taking too many pictures, especially ones with people in them. (Just for the record, its almost impossible to take a picture in Port Au Prince without a person in it. There are people EVERYWHERE.) These people have been exploited by so many nations, and they've had cameras in their faces for 18 months now. If the roles were reversed, if I was just struggling to survive, would I want a van full of white people to drive by gawking with cameras hanging out? Probably not. And third, I had an 9 year old girl on my lap for the majority of the trip! We took a momma and her two kids to their home, and since I was in the front seat and the van was full, she got to sit on my lap! Traffic was stop and go for awhile, per the usual in Port Au Prince, so I got out a bottle of nailpolish and painted her nails green!  She wasn't so sure what to think about me in the beginning (as I anxiously grabbed her and plopped her down on my lap), but by the end of the trip, she had slid her little hands in to mine and leaned back against me. Made my heart melt. :)

A 'tap-tap' - or Haiti's version of a taxi

They have some serious barbed wire in Haiti

A beautiful old church that crumbled during the earthquake

The government palace - still in ruins

Green fingernails!  I was impressed with how well they turned out for being done on a moving bus!

The closer we got to Leogane, the worse the conditions got. There were giant cracks and crevices in the roads from the earthquake. There were even MORE dilapidated buildings and people living under tarps (not even tents). Its just.not.fair. We pulled down a bumpy dirt road for a mile or two, then turned down an even smaller road (more like a path) and came up to the Leogane orphanage.  I guess most of the buildings were damaged in the earthquake, so a team of Canadians built these temporary shelters that the kids sleep in.  GOP is building new, nice buildings and a bathroom, but they aren't finished yet. There isn't any room to play here (just rocks), but then again, there aren't any toys to play with. This orphanage has over 100 kids, and they were all sitting down (boys on one side and girls on the other) when we pulled up.  You could see the excitement in their eyes. 

Getting closer to the orphanage...

The kids - all patiently waiting for us

The boys dorm

The girls dorm (outside)

The girls dorm (inside)

The new buildings GOP is building

The new bathroom - nicest one I've seen in Haiti!

After we walked around and saw the place (pretty small area, especially for so many kids), the kids sang songs for us.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ4UKaI7r8Y).  Then they did the hokey pokey in Creole - it was too cute!  Here is the link to my YouTube video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGEYRxdXYuU.  When they finished singing, we all walked out to the kids to play, and I got "picked" by a whole row of little boys.  It's interesting how the kids just choose one person and latch on to them.  I was actually heading to the girls side of the tent when several little boys attacked and climbe don me.  We made little sun visors that they could decorate with foam stickers, and then we blew up balloons and tried to make things out of them.

When I was sitting there with my boys, I saw a pretty little baby just crying by himself.  His name is Paticko, and he is obviously sick.  His belly just jets out of him and is all swollen - the poor little guy obviously doesn't feel good (and he has a wet diaper).  I couldn't get him to smile at all, but he did warm up to me a little bit after awhile.  I finally had the translator ask one of the older boys why he was so sad.  The little boy said, "He is new here.  He is sad because his momma left him and isn't coming back."  Ugghh - seriously, I don't know how many more of these awful stories my heart can take.  No one could ever make him smile the whole time we were there. :( 

Before we left, I had the kids take another "Thank You" picture with the help of the translator - it turned out pretty cute I think.  These will make great cards when I get home! 

So we're off for the 2.5 hour drive back to Croix de Bouqetes (the orphanage we are staying at).  There is a big truck in front of us and the side of it is just lined with LIVE chicken hanging by there feet!  Holy cow - I can't imagine what kind of a wild ride that must be, ha!

The side of the bus is lined with live chickens!

You can see the big cracks in the road from the earthquake...

5:30pm - We just got back to the orphanage / inn...and our bags are here!! Yay! I've got the rest of my food! I'm off to play with the kids for awhile now before dinner. And I'm taking my green bottle of nail polish - I'm sure it will be a hit!

6:40pm - A storm rolled in so its actually somewhat cool. There is a breeze and the sun is down, so I am NOT sweating! We just had dinner - some sort of corn meal hash casserole thing, some rice, spicy cole slaw, some beef, and mango. My dessert is some fruit snacks and a nutter butter thing that Amy brought. We're sitting up on the top deck enjoying the evening breeze now. We're having "movie night" tonight with the kids. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - in French I guess! Should be interesting. I kinda just want to go to bed honestly, but I'd much rather go spend a little more time with the kids!

Dinner

10:15pm - Movie time just got over. It wasn't Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, it was some super cheesy American made sing along videos with sweet dance moves (kids singing Christian songs) and then a low budget Haitian film in Creole, that I have no idea what was even about. Those poor kids are so tired! Most of them were falling asleep in our arms before it was even over. Once I sat down, a girl came up behind me and instantly latched on to my hair. I've been lucky enough to escape that up until this point. She grabbed a dirty comb from some girl next to her and started just yanking on my hair clip and hair band in my hair. Ugghh - they are certainly NOT gentle, but I guess all those years of my mom yanking on my hair when I was little paid off tonight. I only cringed a couple times with all the pulling. And all she ended up doing, after ripping half of my hair out with that stinkin' comb, was pulling most of it up in to a pony tail and one piece sectioned off in front got twisted to the side and clipped at the base of my neck. I was SO happy she didn't start braiding and twisting (and breaking off) my curly hair. Definitely lucked out! Once my hair was done, a little boy came up and crawled in my lap and wrapped my arms around him. The kids here are so sweet and cuddly. They just want to be touched and held and loved. I have to remember, these kids are ORPHANS. They don't get attention and love all day from parents. And it breaks my heart to know that when I go home in three days, they will still be here...still without a family.

They used a projector and a wall to watch the movie outside

That reminds me of one of the things we talked about tonight while sitting up on the deck tonight... Do you think God is maybe smiling down on the people of Haiti more so than on us Americans? I mean if maybe their lifestyle almost makes him happier than ours does?  They have less barriers, less layers of distractions to deal with in their lives.  They don't have cell phones to text on and emails to check.  Most of them don't have jobs.  They don't have houses to clean.  They hardly have anything to get in the way of or to distract them from their relationship with God.  They literally don't have anything else to put their trust in.  All they have is their faith and hope.  I mean they wake up in the morning and literally have to say, "God, please provide food for my family today."  I don't think we have that kind of trust and faith back home.  We have other things to distract us and other ways to provide for ourselves...  Maybe the people in Haiti have it right and we'v got it all wrong, trying to live our fancy lives with all the material "things" that don't matter one bit when we're gone...  Anyways, I'm going to stop - that's too much deep thinking for tonight. 

Please God, keep the dog from murdering other animals, and please keep the air horns to a minimum. Oh, and if you could keep the electricity on tonight too, that would be fantastic. So would running water and a toilet that we don't have to flush ourselves. Thank you. Good night.

Haiti - Day 1

5:20am - Ooohhh its SO early!! My alarm went off at 3:45 and I was slightly confused. For like half a second. Then I was PUMPED! I threw my clothes on, washed my face (didn't even touch my hair, but my mom braided last night), grabbed my cameras and bags, and was out the door by 4am - which is entirely too early to get to KCI. I mean an hour and a half early for a 6am Thursday morning flight?? I don't think so! But the girls I am meeting there and traveling to Haiti with (Amy-24, Christa-27, Kara-20, and Amelia-30) were meeting THERE at 4am!! So I thought getting there at 4:30 was a compromise for me. I parked the car and my mom helped me drag my bags in. They were HEAVY! I could have managed on my own, but it wouldn't of been pretty. The cheap suitcase from Goodwill that is missing a wheel made a terrible loud dragging sound the whole time!

Turned out when I got there, the girls were still waiting in line because the check in gate didn't even open until 4:30!! I didn't have to wait in line too long, maybe 15 minutes ... and then the bag shuffle / rearranging began! It was somewhat of a disaster because the line behind us was getting super long, and we each had two huge bags. Some were over 50 pounds and some were under. So, like I said, we all had our bags spread out (in the front of the line) pulling heavy stuff out and putting it in the bags that were under, etc. I'm happy to report that one of my bags was slightly under 50 pounds (and one was slightly over).



Kara, me, Amy, Amelia, and Christa



One of my bags, weighing in at only 47 pounds!

After about 10-15 minutes of this mayhem (throwing bags on and off the scales), we got ALL of our bags right around 50 pounds each and they let us go! The airline workers were so over it, they let several go with a few extra pounds. I'm sure the people behind us were just a little irritated with us, but oh well, ALL of our stuff is officially on its way to Haiti!!  No line at security and we were at our gate by 5am. SEE! This is why I don't come to KCI this early! ;) The wait really wasn't too bad. We sat around and talked a little, and boarding actually started on time!  I was in my seat by 5:40am. We took off before 6:15 and the quick flight to Dallas was pretty uneventful, but it was a completely full flight, which kind of surprised me for so early on a Thursday morning...

1:30pm - Landed in Dallas at 7:25 and took off for Miami around 8:40, so not much down time between getting off the plane, finding a bathroom, getting a snack, finding my gate, and boarding the next plane! 2.5 hour flight from Dallas to Miami, and I slept for maybe an hour. We had some super greasy (and super good) chinese food at the airport, and didn't have too long to wait for our flight to Port Au Prince - maybe 30 minutes. The gate definitly looked more Haitian than America. 

Its really been an easy day of traveling so far. Flights haven't been too long, not much waiting around, and my back pack isn't near as heavy as it usually is! Oh yea, and Tori Spelling, Dean McDermott, amd their two kids came by on one of those little cart things in the airport here in Miami. I didn't recognize them, but the three Tenpenny sisters did and were all pretty excited about it! I thought you had to be old or sick or injured or something to get on one of those things.  Apparently you just have to be rich or famous!

4:25pm - Did I really have to say this has been an easy travel day?! I totally jinxed it! We have now been sitting on the plane - on the runway - for close to two hours. WITH the "fasten your seatbelt" sign on, ha! A big storm moved in right as we were boarding, and its kept us grounded. No estimate on when - or IF - we might get to take off - just lots of thunder, lightning, wind and rain. I've always heard those horror stories of people being stuck on the airplanes for like 8 hours or something crazy like that, I've just never experienced it.  2 hours and counting now - I hope its not much longer. This is getting old. (The guy next to me said American Airlines has a policy of only allowing passengers to sit on a plane for 3 hours. I think I'm going to find out if that is true or not...)

7pm - Hallelujia! Exactly 2 hours and 50 minutes after we were supposed to leave Miami, we actually took off for Haiti! All that waiting made the 1.5 hour flight to Port Au Prince seem much longer! We were actually lucky we got to take off at all. We were the last flight out for the day, because Haiti's airport shuts down at night. I guess its not safe to be out and about in the evening.  Awesome. ;)  Anyways, we landed, walked through the "nice" part of the airport, which really wasn't too bad. However, you could see the other side of the airport, which had cracked walls and some broken out windows. Crazy.

cracked windows at the airport

We all had to squeeze in for a spot on the bus to take us to another building (more cracked walls and cement floors) where immigration and baggage claim was. Utter chaos is the best way to describe it really. Well actually, immigration was a joke. It went super fast and they didn't even really look at me, my form (that I messed up on) or my passport - I just got a stamp and was waived on through. The chaotic part was the baggage claim. There are only two baggage claims and three planes had just come in. One was a HUGE one from Air France.  So people were just packed in this little blazing hot area trying to grab their HUGE bags. And the airline workers just chucked them all on the moving ramp and stacked them, so as they went around, they were falling off and knocking people over. People were actually climbing up on the moving ramp and walking around trying to get them! Nuts, I tell you! Aaand I'm sweating to death. Too many Haitains and not enough air!! Okay, Amy and I are off to fight the madness of baggage claim to try and find our bags - since none of the other girls want to jump in the middle of that.

Immigration

The madness of baggage claim


 10:15pm - Holy cow I am tired!! Actually, I was tired about three hours ago. Okay, so the update from the airport... 6 of our 9 bags did NOT make it here. I stood there for a long time...and the same 2 or 3 leftover bags kept coming around...none of which were ours. How do they lose THAT MANY bags?? I started wondering if someone else just grabbed them, so I kind of walked around and looked at what bags were on the other peoples carts that were still there. No luck. Didn't see them. And then I remembered just HOW that many bags get left! When we were sitting on the runway - FOR OVER TWO HOURS - I saw a big cart full of luggage sitting right by our plane. And we were all like, "Oh, well we can't leave until they get our luggage on here..." But then we left. And we just assumed maybe that wasn't our luggage after all. But yea, they just left an entire cart full of luggage on the runway in Haiti. Pretty sweet, American Airlines.

So anyways, Wes (guy from KC who has lived here for 9 months with GOP) took our baggage claim stickers and boarding passes and went to talk to the gal at the American Airlines desk. They got in to it about needing ALL of the boarding passes, from KC on, which I had already thrown away. And he was arguing saying she didn't need them all because he does this every week with them and all she needs is the baggage claim stickers. This was mostly in Creole I think, he filled me in after. So we had to leave without our bags. Thank goodness I had all my stuff in my carry-on (except for some more food). Everything in my big checked bags was for the kids, and it should be here on the first flight in in the morning.

Wes talking to the AA lady about our missing bags

 So I mentioned earlier how the airport closes at night and we were the last flight in. That's because it gets dark so early here! We finally got out of the airport right at 7, and it was pitch black! I couldn't believe it! There was a newer looking big chain link fence separating the people on the streets from us as we walked along this long corridor thing, which I was thankful for. Also thankful it was late (not so busy) and dark out and very poorly lit, because I couldn't see all the sad faces of the people clinging to the fence asking, "Please sistah, gimme one dolla! God bless ya..." One little guy, probably 8 or 9, followed me most of the walk, saying that over and over. It took all I had to not give him some money - but I know, that's only encouraging the begging and not really helping at all.

Just outside the airport - the fence separating us from the street

We got to our big white van - which is really nice - pretty unscathed by the beggers. There weren't really that many people hanging around the airport anymore. The only bad thing about getting in that late was that I didn't really get to see much of the area. I mean it was dark out! It wss kinda cool to see a little of the night life though I guess. There were SO many people just lining the streets! Lots of activity, people cramming in to little "tap-tap" taxi things - basically a little pick-up truck all decorated with a topper on it piled full of people. Lots of crumbling buildings, and LOTS of barbed wire. I don't mean just regular barbed wire, I mean like the biggest sharpest barbed wire they make, and it lined the cement block fences of any building worth anything I guess. We drove along bumpy pot-hole roads, and drove right by a giant tent city. I knew there were tent cities, and I knew I'd probably see one. But it still caught me off guard and made my heart sink clear down to my toes. :( I can't even describe it. 18 months after the earthquake, and there are still MILLIONS (literally) of people living like this?? In a little square separated by a tarp?! Youv got to be kidding me, right? What happened to all of that money Americans raised and donated? Where did it go? Why do so many people still have absoutely nothing to call there own, living without electricity or running water, getting cholera. Its such an injustice and makes me sick to even think about, so I'm going to stop for tonight - for the sake of time (and my thumbs typing this on my phone).

We pulled off the main road on to an even bumpier road for a few hundred feet, honked the horn, and the cutest little guy opened the big gate. I thought the kids would be in bed already, but they were definitely still up and playing a little after 8. So it turns out, we aren't actually staying AT the orphanage. There is a little mini-motel kinda thing, called the Jumecourt Inn, that is right next to the orphanage (in the same compound or surrounded by the same big cement fence/barrier, its just across the parking lot) that we are staying at. Normally, there is ac and running water...but not tonight, haha! The pump broke today, and the electricity is on and off. So not water, no flushing toilets, lots of bugs, and I'm super tired. Yea, that's all I have to say about tonight! ;) I'm gonna wash my face and brush my teeth with the water I have left in my water bottle, and call it a night! (They warned us several times to not use this water for ANYTHING, even if it was running, because there is a big cholera outbreak right now.) Maybe, just maybe, if I kill a couple more cocroaches (already killed 2) and crickets (just killed one giant one) around my bed, I'll stop sweating enough to try and get some sleep.

Welcome to HAITI!! ;)

The gate outside the orphanage/inn

The front room - my bed is the blue one on the right, Amy's is on the left

The back room - where Emily and Erin (sisters from CO) will stay

Haiti Here I Come!

I know, I know...I just went on a trip last month.  But this is a much shorter trip (only five days) and it's a (little) closer destination!  HAITI!  I leave at the crack of dawn tomorrow, and will come back Monday night.  I am traveling with 5 other girls from here in KC (three sisters around my age and two other girls) through The Global Orphan Project - they are an amazing organization and I love the work they do.  We will meet up with several other girls from Colorado, and will be staying at an orphanage with over 90 kids just outside of Port Au Prince.  We will also be visiting three or four other orphanages in the city (I believe) and we get to go to church Sunday in the city!  I'm SUPER excited to get down there and love on those kids! I really have no idea what to expect, as I've never stayed at an orphange before, let alone one with so many kids.  And I don't speak one word of French or Creole...so it could be interesting. :)

Weather wise, it's not ever supposed to be below 80, not even at night...and we only get two meals a day - breakfast and dinner.   (FYI, I normally eat something almost every two hours.  Forget clean clothes - my back pack is definitely half full of food.)  I know I won't have access to the internet there - they said even electricity is hit or miss - so I will just have to write my updates on my phone again and get them up here when I get back next week!  I'll try to keep my pictures under 500, but I make no promises. :) 

So many people have been SO genergous with giving me things to take down to Haiti for the kids (mainly my awesome church).  My dentist gave me tons of toothbrushes, a family from church gave me lots of peanut butter and their daughters made over 100 bracelets, one for each kid at the orphanage!  It's really been an amazing experience already - just to see the generosity and love people here in the states have - and I havent' even left yet!  I've got soccer nets, blow up toys, jump ropes...I could go on.  Hey, you know what, I think I WILL go on!  Last Sunday I actually took inventory of everything I've received!  I was getting a little worried about how it was going to all fit in two suitcases (and be under 100 pounds), so I just decided to document it all to see what exactlly I was dealing with.  So here's the list: (I'm warning you, it's long...)

-110 hand made bracelets
-28 pairs of flip-flops
-3 soccer balls (I deflated them), 1 air pump, and 2 soccer nets (the soccer nets were a special request, as the orphanage just recently got soccer goals put up)
-4 jump ropes
-8 hacky sack balls
-4 blow up beach balls
-2 inflatable bat and ball sets
-2 sets of Disney princess twin size sheets
-2 sets of white twin size sheets
-4 full size towels, 4 hand towels, and 22 wash clothes
-1 book of smiley face stickers
-1 sticky notes memo set (for house mom)
-3 sets of markers (36 packs)
-3 sets of huge markers (6 packs)
-3 sets of glitter glue pens (10 packs)
-12 glue sticks
-3 packages of multi-colored beads (400 pieces each)
-8 jars of peanut butter (that stuff gets heavy really fast!)
-6 packs of toothbrushes from my dentist (17 in each pack - that makes 102 toothbrushes)
-12 tubes of toothpaste
-22 tubes of chapstick
-12 pack of combs and a 10 pack of combs
-6 bottles of body wash
-2 bottles of baby shampoo
-14 bottles of regular shampoo
-1 bottle of baby lotion
-14 bottles of regular body lotion
-at least 200 bars of soap (I stopped counting at 50 when I realized I hadn't even made a dent in the bag!)
-8 packs of first aid ointment
-30 boxes of hand sanitizing wipes
-5 boxes of bandaids
-6 boxes of gauze
-3 packs of disposable washclothes (8 packs)
-1 digital thermometer
-$70 cash

I told you it was long! 

deflating soccer balls

I bought a big suitcase at the Goodwill store that is missing a wheel and has a hole in it for $4, so I can just leave it down in Haiti.  My other bag is a HUGE black duffel bag I borrowed from my brother.  In order to keep it under 100 pounds (well, I THINK it's close to being under 100 pounds - guess I won't find out until I get to the aiport tomorrow because I don't have a scale), I got rid of EVERYTHING that wasn't needed...  I mean everything came out of boxes and bags, all tags were removed, etc.  That stuff is CRAMMED in those bags/suitcases, and all my personal stuff (ie lots of food and a couple tshirts) is in my trusty back-pack which I will be carrying on with me.  Don't ask me how I possibly think I am going to carry more weight than I weigh myself.  I'll cross that bridge at 4:30 in the morning I guess...



all my luggage



So that's it - I'm off to Haiti tomorrow! :)

(Oh yea, and today is my birthday!  I'm officially O L D - 28!!)



My whole family came over for dinner to celebrate!