I apologies for the long delay since the last post. Times flies, even when you are not very busy.
April seem to be the month for birthdays here on the compound. Since Ella’s we have celebrated Haley’s 8th with a swimming party, Madeline’s 5th with a scavenger hunt and Heidi’s with cake at Michelle’s. We may be far from friends and family but we are each others extended family and spare no opportunity to celebrate. Happy birthday to Sofie back in Denmark and Sue in St Giles, not at all forgotten.
The last weekend of April was a treat for sure. We, our neighbours Marty and Larry, the Edmonds with Luke and Haley and Kate and Drew all went to a local resort across on the mainland. We left Thursday morning on the Weslyanna on a slightly wet crossing with Dolphins and flying fish to behold. The resort, Kaliko where we stayed when we first arrived, is only 15 minutes from the dock and Dan and Joy’s house. We were there and ready in swimming costumes before lunch. Weather was a little cloudy but that was quite nice as the sun is baking and seems even more so by the pool.The weekend brought some well deserved R&R for Julian and Greg and a chance for all of us to connect without the responsibilities of teams and compound management. Good food was had by all even ice cream on the last night and a couple of sneaky G&T’s for Julian and I. Saturday we crossed the water again back to La Gonave much refreshed and with a large bounty of fruit and veg from Joy’s local market, watermelon, tomatoes, lettuce and enough mangoes to feed an small army.
Before we left for Kaliko we had had a week of rain. It had not stopped for many hours since Saturday evening, making the visiting Scottish team feel very at home. Luckily it stayed dry long enough for them to establish a hair dressing salon on the guesthouse back porch. Thank you very much Janice and Justine…feel free to visit any time. The team also consisted of some great carpenters and brick layers. They build the well house for the newly dug well and finished the ceilings in the almost complete bedrooms of the new quest house. They were a great team and as I have mentioned before it’s great to have visitors from “home”. We always look forward to teams from the UK, especially when they bring Cadbury’s chocolate and KitKats….!
We have also had a spell of sickness on the compound. The last couple of days have been me with a poorly tummy but that is just part and parcel of living in Haiti. At least it does not happen often or last a long time. We have renamed our group of young adults to the Typhoid Trio……as the name may suggest they were treated for typhoid fever one after another through April. There is a very strong possibility that this is not in fact typhoid but dengue fever. The symptoms are similar but the all recovered quickly enough to doubt the lab test done at the hospital here in Anse-a-Galet. The tests here are not as sensitive as the ones we would be used to in the US or UK and therefor may have picked up antibodies rather than disease. They have all recovered well and are all 3 preparing to leave us in the coming weeks. Michelle, Rebecca’s, teacher has also been ill for over a week now but is finally recovering. I really hope we do not all have a round of this, it is far to horrible.
Kate, Ella’s beloved teacher, has now left for her summer break. She will return in October for another year but 5 months seems a long way away. It is normal for the missionaries to have home ministry over the summer to talk to their supporters and raise money for the next year. This is Ella’s Iast week of school until October…..! Rebecca will continue till end of May as her teacher, Michelle, is not going anywhere till August and has things she would like to complete before the summer. Rebecca and Joseph have done some great projects together these past few months. I cannot believe that we have only been here 4 months and the girls now have 5 months off, well not on my watch….! We have plans of carrying on doing a little most days, just so they wont forget all they have learned. Ella is also working on her times tables and I have suggested it would be really cool if she could know them all by heart when Kate returns for a new school year. Rebecca could do with a refresher as well so a little healthy competition is encouraged. As Michelle has been ill, we have in fact attempted home schooling this past week and I have to say it has gone much better than I had dared hope for. I’m no natural teacher and especially not to my own children but they have worked hard and although things have taken longer than they would have with Kate or Michelle, I’m very pleased with the work they have done. We will continue to do an hour or 2, 3 times per week until we go home in July.
Cassie Adams has left for college in the states and Drew is finishing her 2 1/2 months of looking after the little ones. This means that for quite some time there will be mainly children and proper grownups. Its nice when the young adults bring a little silliness to our lives at times. Last Sunday we had a fabulous graduation party for Cassie. Her dad slaughtered and roasted a pig and we all brought sides of salad, rice and puddings. It was a real feast and as a surprise to Cassie we had decorated out back porch in Luau with flowers, bright colours and fruits. Rebecca had made a Ley from the trees outside our house. Julian of course did not want to be outdone and turned up topless with a paper ley and was the first to try Cassie’s present of a coconut bra. He also introduced the compound to Flip-flop. Those of you who are not familiar with this silly game should know that all it consists of is 2 people hitting each others backside with a flip flop as hard as they can. The first to give up and stop the game looses. I believe Delirious were once thrown out of an AA-airport lounge for playing this.
Julian then proceeds to teach the visiting teams Flip-flop.
The girls have both done very well in school this year. Reading is coming along very well for both of them and maths is most of the time fun, although Becca is now doing real maths with problems solving and finds big multiplication and division too much like hard work. I’m very pleased I am not doing the schooling and both Julian and I feel the change from a class of 30 to 2 and 3 has done wonders for the girls education. This week also saw a farewell pizza party for Kate and a award ceremony at school. Where Ella took home the award for Multiplication Master…as she has been working very hard on her times tables term.
Last week Rebecca and I had a shopping trip to PAP but as Rebecca has said she will do a blog on this I will not write any more than to say we had a lovely time with each other and I will definitely take them with me again one by one.
Julian has bought two baby goats, I am sure this one is smiling for the camera. Ella has named them Daisy and Spud.
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