Few days' worth

Greetings, all.
It looks like yesterday's blog went blonkers. Too bad.
In short: The boy who was hit was11 and his siter 9 years old. She has a nasty heawound but her brother died. It's a life for a life here and the police has taken the driver to an undisclosed location. After serving his sentence, he'll never be able to come back here.

It was nice staying with Gladys and Jean. She now has a two-room place and each room is considerably smaller than the previous "house", which was a shack made of matts, stone and pieces of corrugated metal. Dangerous.
She went to the market after I gave her my left-over gouds (from 'gours" - the manner in which they had to pay the king in days of yore) and she bought many fresh vegetables, fish, sausage (imported and in one piece from the USA), spaghetti, rice and fruit. All good purchases. As flies to a pie all her friends came to dinner, which was funny. She and I shared her double bed and I think, judging by how torn it was, that she will have a new one for Christmas :-)
Jean was in the 'terrible twos' and no different from other kids world-wide. Like all other Haitian children he still poops on the floor, which I find difficult and gave it a good scrubbing after the mild clean-up it had been given.
An accident to report as well. Gladys has a great new boyfriend. All her friends are really bright, by the way and well educated. Amazing for someone who couldn't read or write. Her BF is the head of accounting for the largest security firm in Saint Marc. He came in and I scooted back to make space for him. I apparently pushed the shelving as well and the TV came tumbling down from a 4-5' height(on my wrist - it's ok now) and roll/bounced over the cement floor. It now has more channels and a clearer picture. It's a Japanese TV :D, inherited from her parents when they died.

Today I went to the Baptist church, because our maid-friend invited me to. I have arranged for her 3rd daughter to continue HS (the other 2 are resp. in med school and in teacher's college-parents analphabetic) so I was invited to come with them. I didn't know the service was 4 hours long, so I am grateful that I brought my water bottle.
It was SO interesting. The 1st pastor was the teacher, the 2nd one the preacher. The teacher taught the history of Christianity, from early Catholicism through Marting Luther and Calvin to present day "everyone is truly the same" in Protestantism. Then he asked a series of questions to the congregation.

The music and singing was great. There was a visiting pastor, who went to another church after 30 minutes, and a visiting men's choir from the Baptist Bible College (5 years). There was also a really good band with 2 electric guitars, one bass, keyboard and percussion. There was one problem. One of the members of the men's vocal quintet couldn't sing nor keep the beat. Granted - he was only about 4 -7 notes off, but he went to the left when everone else went to the right and then at a different speed. Kind of like when you hear two things ticking and one synchronizes for a few seconds, then runs ahead to be the opposite. NVTZ- Nuts (Mel Brooks)
There was a visiting women's choir and they were fabulous. I couldn't follow a word from the 2nd pastor, except some reference to "free" American education. I gues it all depends.
The best thing about the church (the one we went to with Dawn, Carl) is that they now have 8 (!!) fans and that made a huge difference. Especially after the first 30 minutes.
The funniest thing was an old woman who yelled "belle" (female beautiful) throughout the service. People started chuckling, but at one point whe pointed at the preacher and yelled "li belle, wie?" "he's beautiful, right?" and everyone cracked up and applauded. The preacher thanked her. I gues everyone has someone like that, somewhere.

Two more days. And what I wrote is only such a small part of the smells, sights, sounds and warm touches of life here. I will miss it, but I am really ready to go home now. Mission accomplished and that sure feels good. Although the poverty is immense, and hard to understand, you start seeing the beauty and resiliance above all else.
Erlantz and I decided that what Haiti needs (seriously) is a King or Queen. There was actually one, and it wouldn't be bad to find his offspring. The people need a symbol, something stable with the elected government below him or her. (Women are very important here)

Going: the water is running for 45 minutes and I need a shower instead of a bucket!
love to all (Hi, Sari!!!)