4/22/15 - Observations of the day

Hello, Mary Cate is writing the summery of today so I get to write about our observations of the day. Today we left Port-Au-Prince and traveled to Bon-Repo (please excuse my spelling). We passed over a bridge with a brown river surrounded by trash. There are huge pigs milling around in the trash. We have all been a little surprised about the trash. There is no trash pick up Or recycling system in place here. Abbie commented that maybe taking care of the Earth is a privilege. We were driving during before school time so we saw many students walking to school in their uniforms. One boy walked right in front of our van and held up his hand motioning don't run me over. One thing we all have noticed is the hundreds of. Brightly painted lottery stores. The Haitians are strong believers in dreams and the lottery is a way to get enough money to leave Haiti. Carla said that the real Haitian dream is to move to the US. The lottery is not run by the government but is a huge business. Once we arrived, we were given a tour of the school. The kindergarten took up a third of the building and had three small classes. Their ages ranged from 3 to 7. They all sang us welcome and proudly counted to fifteen in French. We have noticed the difference between creole and the language they learn in school, French. All Haitians speak creole but only those who go to school speak French. No where else I. The world is creol a national language so it is useful to learn French however French is used a a class barrier here.
        In the school we were welcomed warmly. All the teachers allowed us to speak to their classes. The grades 1-6 were all in one room separated by blackboards. The schools are so different from in the states but everyone wants to be in school and have an education.
   As normal, Monica found a child to entertain, Emily used her French. Mary Cate finally was able to play soccer, juggling with our bus rider, James. Painting g was fun. We decided to do the outside first. Next time anyone needs something painted just invite 22 people over. There was so many of us that we finished the walls on the inside and outside of the church. Painting was nice because we were working together, it was not us standing around, or us doing something for us. After the teachers passed out the school kits we brought the dynamic changed slightly. The kids realized we had brought the kits, even though we did not pass them out, and asked if we had more. The painting supplies that we had brought was not enough to do both the outside and inside if everyone had something to paint with. We use most if our rollers and all the trays on the outside so I had fun scrubbing rollers and trays clean in the empty paint buckets now filled with water. It had never occurred to me how simple it was to scrub the disposable roller and let it dry to reuse. Everyone that we worked with was so incredible. We criss-crossed paths never managing to accidentally paint each other. We were however covered in paint. Our sunburns are spotted because tiny spots of paint were on our skin. Another thing we saw a lot of were the colorful pick-up trucks and school buses that serve as the taxis and buses for the city( aka tap-taps). They are often painted with slogans about Jesus and religious sayings. On one I saw a picture of Messi.  It is amazing people manage to hop on to the right one and never fall off. We have seen people standing clinging on with one arm who look like if they hit one if the larger bumps in the road they will fly off.We all had a great day and enjoyed rewinding in the pool and playing cards.  See you all in a few days- Noelle