Last day at the clinic #2

So this is the story of Friday continued. Sorry for all the typos but blogger is giving me a little bit of a hard time, I seem to select an copy and paste things I don't want to. But here is the continued story, copied from a draft in my email because we had about a 24 hour period with no wifi (horrors!)


So home to dinner and it was a long wait for the ladies to cook it and we were all tired and hot and dirty and I was VERY cranky. I wondered if the Prestige had been such a good idea. But eventually dinner came & it was pretty good, but the meat was scary again, we thought maybe goat but later Ada figured out it was ox tail. While we were at the restaurant earlier Jonathan had bought a pineapple upside down cake and we had that for dessert, so much for losing weight in Haiti, I ate my piece and then Maureen didn't eat most of hers so I ate that too. The. We went to pray and discussed going to the orphanage, some went but I just couldn't. I felt guilty. It I felt like I had said goodbye to that place earlier and I just couldn't do it again. Later I heard that Jonathan, Shantia, Ada and Jenn had gone and they were there for he children's nighttime prayers. They sing songs and stand up to pray and half the children were so sleepy the adults were holding them up. Shantia had one child on either side she was holding up and Jenn was sitting down with one child laying on her lap, another one cuddled up on her side, and two more stretching their feet out to touch her. They just want that loving human touch. They must be so lonesome. Earlier in the day whe the little one (one of the two Marvin's, I think) was sick he couldn't eat his cereal so he sent his friend in to eat it, so they do look out for each other. But it is not the same. They need a mommy and a daddy figure at least at the orphanage and that would be a huge job for someone. Right now there is really only one person who serves in that capacity. There is Pastor Ranell who oversees it and visits often, and someone must cook for the children and do their laundry, but no one person that the buck stops with. Two young missionaries have been filling those shoes but one just went home and that leaves Young Jonathan, who I think is around 25, responsible for 28 children between the ages of about 3 to 14. At 14 they "age out" of the orphanage and are expected to go out in the world and make their own way good luck I. A country with 90-95% u employment. One of the members of our group, David, is really concerned with this issue and hopes to move to Haiti someday to start a "halfway house" type thing for the 14 year olds to go until they are able to be more independent. One thing you notice in the school, which serves both the orphanage and the community, is that as the grade gets higher, the class gets smaller. There are around 30 in the kindergarten but only 8 in the 5th grade (I think, Maureen? Close?) as they get older and are able to beg or work at all that is the end of school for them. There is no public school in Haiti, it is all paid for by the parent so many cannot go to school at all. I was kind of sorry that I missed the good night prayers and cuddles but it was good for me that I stayed home and took a shower, relaxed, I was exhausted. I didn't do that. Ich physical work this week but emotionally it takes it out of you.

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