Sunday, November 30, 2008

Back and back again

Haiti sticks to you in a beautiful way and our thoughts are there frequently.
On December 16 Sander, Carl and I will be heading out again, to return December 30 (spending our 38th anniversary at one of the lovely seaside resorts -- yes, they are there and fabulous) near Saint Marc before flying home.
Carl will be the pediatrician working with others, but mainly the one on call Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, in order for one of their peds to go home for the holiday. Carl is studying Kreyol whenever he can and I am sure he will do better than I. Sander is going with us because he is doing a photo shoot story of the hospital (gift to the Mellon Grant Foundation for fundraising). He will also do a story for Epson, who gave(!) him one of their new products: a portable, battery-operated printer. He will use that to give pictures to children and families. Many have never owned (or seen) a picture of themselves so this is a quite joyous occasion. All Epson wants in return is an article about his projet and the use of their equipment. Quite a gift!
Me? I don't know yet. I have been collecting "nonsense songs" (songs without real words) from different countries (such as tumba tumba etc, ) and hope to play with the kids in peds and in the village. And they love "head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes". The trick is to leave out the "and" or you get neezuntows, neezuntows" We , even in the wealthy US, do not have such body parts.
One of our lovely special persons, the mother of our triplet grand children who are not really our grandchildren, has provided the tuition for a lovely 8th grader who had to quit school (I know the family well). She wants to study music and theatre. Pretty unusual there. She playes trumpet well, has a voice like an angel, is beautiful and very motivated. Another great thing has been done.
My (our: Sander is godfather) Jean has discovered that there is such thing as books (with pictures!!) so we are inundating him with touch books and flip books and "find the puppy" type books that we actually found in Kreyol, English/Kreyol or French/Kreyol. Magical.

I/we will continue this blog after the 16th of December. Hope you will enjoy our new adventures!
Happy pre-holiday season to you all.