Happy American Turkey Day!!

I think it's a little funny that the first time I've ever celebrated American Thanksgiving has been in Haiti, of all places! We took part of the afternoon off and made some amazing decorations, cookies, and lots of Thanksgiving food (I made gravy - with quite a bit of help actually, haha). The turkey was amazing; I swear I could eat turkey & mashed potatoes & stuffing for dinner every night. Although we food we get is really good, I have started missing food from back home... poutine, steak and mom's spaghetti are high up there on the list.

Besides that, things have been going really well around here the past while! This week in particular has gone by very fast. I can't believe I only have 2 more weeks left in Haiti!

Orphanage excursion

Last Saturday I had the chance to go on a food distribution trip to a bunch of other Haitian orphanages, in the Leurbourg area (past Port-au-Prince). I stopped counting, but think we visited around 10 different orphanages of varying sizes. The food distribution trips, organized by an orphanage in the same neighbourhood as ours, happen every Saturday and reach hundreds of kids. They give out boxes of lentils, which as I understand it are pretty nutritious (I've been reading "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond recently, which has given me a whole new perspective on the different grains and foods we eat, but more on that later).
The kids were all very friendly, and always sang us a song or two. Many of these kids were orphans is the strictest sense, without any family at all. The trip made me realize how lucky our kids here are; it's most likely that all of them will end up in loving homes in North America or Europe, with the chance to go to great schools and have a great shot at living a long and healthy life. Every kid we met had some tragic story. It's hard to imagine thousands of kids are living in conditions like this only a couple hundred km south of Florida. It was also shocking to get a glimpse of the sheer number of makeshift orphanages here; every neighbourhood has at least a couple of places housing 30 or 50 abandoned kids. There must be thousands of such houses in Haiti. It's disenheartening to start to understand the scope of the problems here in Haiti, none of which are likely to disappear anytime soon.

Me with some of the kids at one of the first places we stopped

Marie-Ange's orphans

Couple of sisters helping a malnourished mute girl have a drink of juice

Baby found on pile of garbage

It's been another action-packed week here in Haiti! We did the November photo shoot (my third one now), which went quite well, with only minimal stubborn non-smileyness. I think the ease with which most kids here can be made to smile is probably a good indication of how well the kids are treated here... although making them pose and smile and look towards the camera all at the same time is sometimes a different story :)
One other exciting thing that happened was that the parents of one of "my" 8 kids came to the orphanage for the first time! Haiti introduced a new regulation a few months ago requiring all adoptive parents to make a trip to Haiti to meet their adoptive child and fill out some paperwork before the adoption can be completed; so in essence, parents now have to come down once to visit, and then again to bring their kid home 6 months to a year later. It seems like a bittersweet couple of days; the parents are of course happy to spend some time with their child, but then heartbroken to have to leave. Without trying to sound too corny, I find it quite touching to see time and time again how much parents can love a child they have never technically met before, but will one day be taking home. Many seem to bond instantly, but it sometimes takes a few days for a kid (especially 2 to 3 year-olds) to warm up to these new people, and sometimes will throw a fit, or cry for hours, or refuse to be touched. So it can be pretty hard for everyone involved.
But back to the parents coming to visit "my" kid (who obviously is much more "their" kid); they did an amazing job with him, got him to smile and everything, and it made me so happy to see what wonderful parents he will have. I'll bet he'll have a wonderful life. The visit also made me realize how much I've gotten attached to some of the kids here. I've found myself imagining what it would be like if I brought a couple home with me (always knowing that legally of course I wouldn't even be allowed, as I'm not even old enough), or hoping that if I have kids that they end up being like some of my favourites here. Well who knows, maybe 35-year-old Michelle will end up bringing a baby Haitian back to Canada. Never know!

This week has been going by especially fast! Partly because my kids have been particularly well-behaved and smiley, but also because I've been helping out with some other random tasks around the orphanage, which always makes the day go by a bit quicker. I helped out with the Toddler House photo day this morning (dressing the older kids up for their monthly photo shoot), and I also did some food and clothes sorting. I also helped out a little with the child sponsorship program; if the adoptive parents of a child want to, they can sponser the biological siblings (if any) of their child, which covers their school fees etc here in Haiti. Good stuff!

In other news, I have yet another cold, along with most of the other volunteers. That's one thing I hadn't considered; how fast colds and stuff can spread in an orphanage setting. Within just a few days, most of us adults and a good chunk of the kids are all sniffling away. At least I wasn't here the time chicken pox went through the entire nursery!

Can't get much cuter!

Fro-Hawk

Attention all: I would like to announce to the world my invention of the latest hairstyle craze to hit Haiti... the Fro-Hawk! Part frizzy afro, part classic mohawk, it showcases 80s flair with a modern twist.

This baby's got attitude

But I decided the nannies were likely to be somewhat more conservative than I when it came to innovative hairstyles, so I had a go at a more mainstream look. Here's a pic of my very first braiding job in Haiti! (note: I'd only done the middle row here). The nannies redid it later that day I think (oh well), but to be fair they did a much better job than me :)

A few figures for thought...

Total number of kids at the orphanage: ~160
Number of diapers used per month: ~18,000
Monthly food bill (for kids, nannies, staff, volunteers): ~30,000$
Monthly rent bill: ~40,000$

Haiti's population: 9,035,536 (2009 est.)
Population density: 328 people per square km
Literacy rate: 62.1%

GDP per capita ($ USD): 698.70$ (2007)
Population living under the poverty line (<2$/day): 80%
Population living under the abject poverty line (<1$/day): 54%

It would have been hard to understand how expensive it can be to live down here before arriving; in most third world countries, the cost of living is quite low. I remember thinking when I was in Yogyakarta (Indonesia) that I could live there quite comfortably, in a nice guest house and eating good food, for only about 15 US$ a day; not bad! But here, since almost everyone is so poor, the infrastructure necessary to make even basic utilities like running water and electricity affordable just isn't there. And so we need to ship water up by the truckload and use generators for electricity, neither of which are particularly efficient or cheap ways of securing access to those basic needs, but necessary nonetheless. And 'luxury' items like baby formula and medicines are expensive to import. Just about the only thing that's cheap is manpower... Well that and street food. Mmm.

The week's off to a pretty good start! The week-end went by really quickly; we went shopping on Saturday, and had plenty of time for relaxing, hanging out, playing the Bean game (gotta love that Bean game) and playing with the kids. We even managed to get a bit of volcano talk in; one of the other volunteer's brother just got back here from the Congo, where he was staying right beside this wicked volcano called Nyiragongo. It's one of only 5 volcanoes in the world which currently have a lava lake (basically an open pool of molten magma in its crater). The lava lake was last catastrophically drained in 2002, and because of the unusually fluid nature of this lava, it rushed down the volcano's slopes at over 100km/h, and caused some pretty serious devastation. Anyhoo, speaking of geology, the rocks around here are pretty boring; almost everything is limestone (apparently parts of Haiti are basalt though too). No volcanoes, which is unfortunate for me, but probably quite fortunate for the Haitian people, who are probably plagued by enough natural disasters already.

In other news, a bunch of the kids got shuffled around in the nurseries this weekend. As the kdis get older, they get moved from the NICU (for babies) to Nursery A (usually for older babies who can't yet walk) to Nursery B then to the "Big Nursery." One of my little guys had the misfortune of being moved from Nursery A to the Big Nursery in one go. He looks so much smaller than all the other kids, and didn't seem too happy about it, but hopefully he'll adjust quickly. One thing about the kids here is that they're all really tough and resilient, much more so than your typical canadian kids. They can fall flat on they face and get right back up, smiling all the while. Hmm except when it comes to vaccinations and drawing blood, then they all scream their heads off like all kids would. :)