If You See a Turkey, Scrub It Cont.

July 3^rd, 2014 – 8:48 pm

Sorry about the delay guys! I was just having too much fun with all the kids last night to fulfill my duties. But I promise to make it up to you. And before I forget, thanks to all of you who have commented! It’s really awesome for me to show my trip buddies messages from their friends and family and well… I love all the complements… Keep ‘em coming – if you must (she says in a jokingly humble voice).

So continuing on from last night’s post:

We came back to Main Campus for lunch before heading back into the village. We were told originally that we would be going to see Leon (who is a former MOH Village Champion) and spend the entire afternoon helping out with his children’s club. In other words, we were supposed to be playing with the adorable Haitian kids for hours. You know how when there’s a kid who’s like, too nice, and all the other kids take advantage of him? That’s what became of Kensington yesterday afternoon. Instead of doing that, our leaders decided that we were such a selfless and flexible group that we would sit in the cantor for about two hours. Literally. I mean, we did do something, but it wasn’t what any of us had expected.

We picked up a bunch of boxes full of rice and beans in little packages that weighed 33 pounds each from the depot on Main Campus. This was after the cantor drove us all the way down the mountain, we turned around, and came back up to the depot. We then drove to the Bercy campus, which is a twenty-five minute drive, and dropped off the greater part of the shipment. The food is going to be used next week when MOH holds VBS for a ton of kids. We were there for a good fifteen minutes. After that, we had to drop off the rest of the boxes in Leveque, another fifteen minutes away. When we got there, we were all a little tired of being in the cantor and a lot kid-deprived. The kids swarmed our bus as we pulled into the school grounds, and we were told to just get the boxes off the bus, into the building, not play with the kids and get back into the bus as soon as the job was done. By this point, we were all getting irritated. Literally, we were all completely on the bus by 1 in the afternoon. We didn’t get to the Kid’s Club in Source Matelas until after three, and we needed to be back at Main Campus by four. So basically, we had thirty minutes with the kids we were supposed to spend the entire afternoon with.

The kids in our group (haha, I got out of it because I’m a legal adult!) had to put on four different skits in front of the children which were then translated to the Haitian kids. On involved sucking at sports, one was about getting a bad grade on a test, one about being lonely and another about being hungry and thirsty. Daniel played Jesus in all four skits, pretending to pray with them, talk to them, hug them and carry them to the finish line. They were really hilarious and very fun to watch.

Before that happened, a few of us adults got pulled into a small shack to make the kid’s snacks for the day. They were basically really ridiculous hot dogs, with giant, misshaped buns and “hot dog meat” that looked like snake in the way that it was skinny and twisted at the ends. Basically, they looked really unappetizing. Danni and I cut through the buns (and Danni with great difficultly due to using the equivalent of a butter knife), Dale put the meat in the buns, Evan sauced the buns with ketchup using another knife and Melissa and Dave wrapped the end product in napkins and put them into a bowl. It was hot and stuffy and awful. Then we ran out of meat, and Danni and I were out.

The really awesome thing that happened though was that I saw someone I recognized from last year leaning against a fence in the very back of the Kid’s Club. It was Stanley! Last year we met him on the day that we were picking up trash in the village. He was one of the older kids who told the young guys to stop chasing us with the tarantula and had a dance-off with Ed in the middle of the street. And the absolute best thing about him is that he speaks English! So there’s no awkward pauses and gazes as we try to communicate alone or use a translator. He told me how happy he was to see me, how excited he was that we were all in Haiti and he would take a few moments out of our conversation to separate some little boys who were fighting. A true gentleman. He even asked me to take a picture with him! I was really excited about that one. I mean, how many girls my age can say they got a personal picture with a Haitian?? I think it’s pretty cool anyway. He’s a sweetheart.

 

Unfortunately, we had like, ten minutes, and then it was time to leave. Bad planning. It seriously ruined my day and killed my vibe man. Not cool, not cool.

When we got back to the campus, a group of us decided to go down to Madame Cheap Cheap's. Emi and I bought the coolest presents for all our family members. Plus, she got a machete and I got a really cool painting that was made by a guy with no arms or legs. And it's beautiful. Unfortunately, we don't have the bargaining skills that our stepdad used last year, so we spent like, way too much money on everything. But it's ok. I like what we got!

Then we had dinner and guess what! We had a lot more free time. Like always. Danni and I went to watch our group play soccer with some of the Haitian kids that live on campus, and then we moved over to watch a 2v2 basketball game. And then we somehow missed the time where our group was cleaning up the kitchen. Which honestly, did not bother me. Eventually, we headed up to the rooftop for the larger group time, where all of the groups staying on campus share stories from their day, there’s a little praise and worship, and then there’s like a few words and some prayer. However, we were supposed to wait for Russell, who works at MOH and I have no idea what he does – but he does have some very cute kids that run around here. Anyways, he was like, running late from the same presentation at a different campus, so we were stalled.

I’m going to be honest, Jeremy had annoyed me all day. Until this point. He was the staller for the evening. He got up in front of all of us and introduced us to “Order Up” which is really just a different form of Simon Says. It was absolutely hilarious and awesome. We played two different rounds. The first round, Dave won. Kensington erupted into cheers. The second round, Joe won. Kensington erupted into even louder cheers. Basically, we dominated, and we wanted everyone else to know too. I think that’s why Jeremy moved on. This time, it was a “Repeat-After-Me-Song.” And this is how it went:

“I went down to the river

To take a little walk

Meet some turkeys

Had a little talk

Then I scrubbed the turkeys

And threw them on the line

Now we can have turkeys

Any old time!”

Yeah, if you thought that was weird, you should’ve been here to experience it! Jeremy actually came up with it himself and it was hilarious. Each time we repeated it, he would play with a different volume. And then there was some animalistic screaming, and then there was just screaming. And I was crying because I was laughing a wee bit too hard. And it was just the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

…you had to be there I guess.

Then we had team time and yeah. We played a lot of games and the kids hung out all night. It was really fun! We’ve quickly become a family in the last few days and I know it’s going to be really hard to part ways in a few days.

Be sure to comment!

Katie Coming to You from Haiti