Happy Halloween Lamardelle

Everyone was still in recovery mode, so I thought what better way to brighten people's day with a little note and a small treat. I prepared a small Halloween card with an assortment of candy attached to it. I passed it out to all the staff at the orphanage and school and also the children. Everyone had a smile on their faces and it was nice to see the good morale. I know that I needed that for sure after everything that's happened over the weekend. The sick babies and toddlers at the orphanage are stable at the moment, which is good news. I continue to supervise all the caregivers and making sure they are washing their hands and putting gloves on for every child.

I wrote on the back Gratitude, Respect, and Love in Creole for everyone!

At night time, I did an Halloween Mask coloring activity with the older children and adolescents. They all had a blast. We all chatted and goofed off together. It's been a long while since we all sat at the same table and just had a good laugh with one another. I gave them paper pumpkins to color as well and we all discussed the difference between the Haitian pumpkin and an American pumpkin. So an Haitian pumpkin is usually yellow or green in color and the American ones are orange. they all thought that it was fascinating.

I put up all their art work around the orphanage and there was some Halloween spirits about!

Pumpkin Colors!!!

 Happy Halloween Lamardelle!

Cholera Broke My Heart

I have no words for what happened this weekend....my heart broke. It broke into so many tiny little pieces that it is almost impossible to repair....

Where do I even start? 

Saturday morning was like any other morning here at the orphanage. Children were playing. Babies were crying. I was busy checking if everything was functioning alright at the orphanage. I went into the babies' room to play with little Precious* (the 4 year old little girl who is developmentally delayed and is in therapy of learning how to walk) like I always do. We played and laughed and I massaged her legs. She gave me the biggest hugs and kisses ever. She is a real sweetheart. I stayed in the babies room for about an hour or so and then I went to check the other rooms. I ate my lunch and then proceeded to the office to work on my reports for the children. At around 3pm, a nanny runs frantically to the office and says "Lori, come quick, we need you!" I ran over to the babies room, not knowing what I am running for? I was thinking that maybe they ran out of supplies again and need me to go get more in the depot for them or that a nanny didn't show up for work, so they needed my help to change the babies. As I got closer and closer to the babies room, something was not right. People were crowding in the incubation room and there were chatters all about. I got into the room and I see little Precious* laying on her back on the table with an oxygen tank hooked up. Her eyes and mouth wide open. 

She wasn't breathing.....

I immediately asked what happened? I started to give her CPR and yelled for someone to call for a driver to take her to the hospital. We didn't have the mouth pieces in stock so I could not give her mouth to mouth. Her jaw was locked and we did not have the equipment to put a breathing tube in her. I grabbed her and ran for the  front entrance. Of course, our driver was still in town, so no one was here to take us to the hospital. 

*There is no such thing as calling for an ambulance here in Haiti. The roads are in bad condition, there are no real addresses for people to identify, no one can afford it, and most of all, by the time they do get to you, you might as well driven yourself to the hospital in the first place to save time. It is always getting a Tap-Tap or use your own private vehicle to transport someone to the hospital. 

We finally got a hold of the president of the foundation and she came rushing to our aid. We all ran for the truck, two caretakers and myself. I held little Precious* in my arms and we sped out of the orphanage. The route to the hospital is a very long one. I was hoping that traffic today would be better, but of course it is not. It is just like any other day. Traffic everywhere and barely moving. We were all anxious because we had a dying child in the car. We saw some police officers go by on a motorcycle and we stopped them. We asked for their help to clear the roads for us. They were kind enough to do so. So we followed them into the  pileup of traffic on the main road. We were very lucky, because there just happened to be another police car right behind us. So there we were, weaving through traffic like a snake. There is absolutely no order in the Haitian traffic. No one follows the rules. If there is an opening, you take it! It doesn't matter if that opening is on the side of the road, on the sidewalk, or in the opposite direction. You take every chance you get! So what normally would take about 45 minutes to get through, we got through in about 15 minutes, thanks to the police officers. The police could only take us so far before we found ourselves in another traffic jam. At least we got through the worst part of it, I was very thankful for their help. Every minute that passed by I am getting more worried for little Precious*. I continued to give CPR but there was no response. Needless to say, it took us about an hour and a half to get to the hospital.

I ran with little Precious* in my arms to the hospital. No doctors were to be found. We finally found a nurse and she just took her time and looked at us like, "What are you doing here?" I told her that the little girl was not breathing and she just responded with, "Well, then why did you bring her here?" Oh my goodness!!!! Are you kidding me? The nurse just started to yell in Creole, saying what is this white person doing here with  a baby that is not breathing. So I spoke back to her in Creole and French saying, "We need help. If you cannot help us, please point us to the direction of someone who can!" She looked at me speechless and went toward the other room. She finally came back with a Haitian doctor. The Haitian doctor wouldn't touch the girl and said that she needs to wait for someone to get some gloves for her. OMG!!!! Are we not in a hurry here to save a life???? Why are people so unprepared and not caring???? Finally the gloves arrived, and the Haitian doctor said there was no pulse on the little girl. She just took her gloves off. I said, "Isn't there anything else we can do? CPR? Where is the Defibrillator to restart the heartbeat? Don't we have anything to save a life here at the hospital?" The Haitian doctor just looked at me and said, "Well, I mean if you want to try, I guess we can try." OH MY GOODNESS! I was so frustrated. I ran toward where she was leading me and apparently that was where the "real" emergency room was at. I ran in there and all I see are foreign doctors around. So I yelled in English, "Can someone help please! THIS LITTLE GIRL IS NOT BREATHING!" All the foreign doctors came rushing toward me and started to save the little girl. This was the normal reaction at an Emergency room. But it was too late....

The doctors said that she was already in Rigor state, which means post-mortem. It is where there is a stiffening and contraction of all the muscles and her pupils were dilated already. The doctor told me that there was not much they can do and there was no good to try to revive her because her organs had all failed by this time. It would not be a good idea, because even if they did successfully restart her heart, she would still be brain dead from the lack of oxygen all this time. We put a white sheet over little Precious* at the emergency room. I couldn't believe it. I was in shock. Her body was freezing cold, but her hands were still warm, because I had held her hands throughout the car ride. The doctors asked where we were from and I told him that we were from the orphanage by the border of Haiti and Dominican Republic. That was why it took us so long to get to Port-au-Prince. The doctor asked if there were any other sick babies at the orphanage and I told him yes. He told me that if it is at all possible to send them over as well, because we don't know if they had the same thing as little Precious*. We immediately called the orphanage and two children were in the process of being transported to the hospital. The doctor said that there was no possible way of knowing what caused the death of little Precious*, only an autopsy could find out. Since little Precious* was declared dead at the scene, the doctors needed to make a dead certificate for her in order for us to take her to the morgue for final procedures. Thank goodness I was there at the hospital, because none of the doctors could speak French or Creole, only English. They were all American doctors that were here for a week or two at a time. For many of them, it was their first day at the hospital. The doctors explained to me what I needed to do to clean the entire orphanage and what prevention measures needed to be administered for all the caregivers. I called and informed everyone and massive cleaning process started back at the orphanage.

The president of the foundation took little Precious* to the morgue in Croix-de-Bouquet, which was closer to the orphanage. I said goodbye to little Precious*, gave her a kiss on her freezing cold forehead, padded her hair, and shut her eyes for her. I whispered "You have been a really good girl in this life time. It is your time to go now. You are leaving this life with lots of love and be sure to come back soon with more love to give to others. You will be dearly missed! I will see you soon my darling! A Mi Tou Fou!"


I stayed after at the hospital with another caregiver to wait for the other two children to arrive. When they finally got here it was around 7:30pm. We quickly took them to the Triage center to be admitted. Both of the babies had been sick for around three days already with intense bouts of diarrhea and vomiting. They did not look good at all when they came. When the doctors were checking on the little girl, she had a really massive diarrhea on my lap. I was covered in diarrhea and everyone freaked out. I, however, didn't. This happens all the time, I am pretty use to it. I grabbed some baby wipes and wiped off most of it. The doctors suspect the babies have Cholera, but is not sure, because the color of the diarrhea doesn't quite look like it. Either way, the babies were losing fluid fast and they needed to be re-hydrated. So the doctors gave me and the other caregiver each bottles of Pediatrics Electrolytes to give to the babies. They needed to drink tons of fluids, because they were so dehydrated. We were put in an isolated area, because if it is indeed Cholera, it is highly contagious to others. So we sat there and gave the bottles of Electrolytes to the babies for about 4 hours at the hospital. They were having bouts of diarrhea every 30 minutes or so. We would change them every time and put the diapers in a sealed bucket. At around 11:00pm, the babies started to doze off to sleep. I didn't want them to sleep at all, because this was what happened to little Precious*. The nannies thought she was just sleeping, but actually she was slipping away. Couple of times I woke the babies up and they were just fussy, but at around 11:30pm, the little girl had no response! She wasn't waking up, no matter how much we moved her or squeezed her. She wasn't responding! I yelled out to the doctors and they quickly started to administer an IV in the baby's arm. I kept trying and after five minutes of trying to wake the little girl up, she finally opened her eyes! OMG!

I told myself that I AM NOT LOSING THREE CHILDREN IN ONE DAY! IT IS JUST NOT POSSIBLE! 

The doctors administered IV lines for both of the babies and they send us on our way to the Medicine Sans Frontier (Doctors Without Borders) in Delmas, where they have a Cholera Center. So there we were, two babies with IV lines with our driver in a Toyota pick-up truck, zooming through Port-au-Prince in the dark at midnight! I was cradling the baby with my left arm with her IV in and holding the actual IV bag with my right hand. I had the IV bag up high just outside the window. We had to force more fluids in the babies so we had to keep squeezing the IV bag to make the fluids go faster. The car was rocking back and forth due to poor road conditions and I kept yelling and shaking the baby to keep her awake during the car ride. It took us about 20 minutes to get to the Cholera Center. We ran in with the babies and we sat in the admission tent. They were kind enough to hang the IV bag on a hook for me! Oh my goodness! My right arm was burning from keeping it high up for the past half hour and constantly squeezing the IV bag with one hand. They asked all sorts of background information and once again, good thing I do the reports for the children, because I was the only one that could answer these questions about the children. The two babies were quickly admitted into what they called "The Observation Tent" at the Cholera Center. We got all settled and the on-site doctor said to stopped the IV drips! What??? Come again? Stop the IV drips??? Why?? This whole center is ran by Haitian doctors and nurses. They said that in the observation room, we only give the fluids orally. I told them that we almost lost these two babies in the first hospital we were at, that's why they had IVs put in. And also we had already lost another child this afternoon with the same symptoms. They just looked at me and said great, but we need to observe. OMG! I was, once again, very frustrated with the Haitian doctors. This seems to be a pattern today!

So the babies were still very weak, but we had to keep administering oral hydrating fluids for them. They gave me a syringe to give the fluids to the babies with. The other baby was doing a lot better than the one I was taking care of. She does not like to drink the fluids orally (This was why at the other hospital they gave her an IV line!!!!). I kept on forcing her to drink more and finally she started to take in more fluids. Thank goodness! The babies were having diarrhea every 15 to 20 minutes or so. The doctors kept on saying that it does not look like Cholera, it might be some viral infection. So this went on all the way till around 5am. We were giving the babies oral fluids every 15 minutes or so throughout the night. I would be changing their diapers every 30 minutes or so to clean their bottoms. We were surrounded by people with vomiting and diarrhea and there were a lot of them. The beds there were like emergency stretchers. They all had a hole in the center of the stretcher for easy access when you go to the bathroom. There is a bucket right beneath the hole, so the doctors/nurses can continuously see what color diarrhea you are having and how much. It is also easier for the people to clean, bucket after bucket.

*The typical signs of Cholera are vomiting and diarrhea. Which leads rapidly into dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. The diarrhea in a typical Cholera case is usually whitish in color, almost like rice water. For children, they are often accompanied by extreme drowsiness or even coma, fever, and convulsions. And in cases of extreme dehydration it can lead to shock, this is where low blood volume leads to a decrease in blood pressure and then a drop in the amount of oxygen that is in your body. Extreme shock can lead to death in a matter of minutes. 


The babies were looking worse and worse as the night went on. At around 5am, their pulses were getting very weak. I couldn't find a pulse in their arms, so I tried their feet. I found one, but the pulse was very weak. The babies eyes were sunken like they had not slept in months. According to the doctors in the first hospital, when a patience's eyes are sunken like that, it means that they only have 10% of fluids left in their body. It means severe dehydration! Life threatening. I yelled out for the nurses and doctors. They were about to switch swifts and just going through the transitioning process. I told the doctor that the babies do not look good and they need faster fluid in-take. They need IVs right now. I told them to take their pulse, because it was getting weaker and weaker by the minute. Their eyes were sunken so badly and their skin is very slow to bounce back, meaning SEVER DEHYDRATION! The doctor took one look and said, "Yeah, they don't look good. Let's keep observing!" So this was when I lost it! I didn't yell, because that doesn't help no one. I very calmly called the doctor over again and said, "We are going to lose these children if you don't do anything right now!" The doctor said that we must be prudent in what we give to the children, we don't want to give them something that they do not need and then make the situation worse. I responded with "Yes it is good to be prudent, but when one is too prudent, it becomes medical negligence." I begged the doctor that one child had already passed away and we don't want that tragedy to repeat itself. I told her that even though these children might not have confirmed cases of Cholera, but they are having symptoms that makes them dehydrated, so the treatment will still help. She went and got another doctor and finally after  an hour of talking, reasoning, and begging....two IV bags were brought in for the babies. They finally transferred them over to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in the Cholera Center. We got there and a new team of Haitian nurses and doctors greeted us. They were competent and nice, which was a good scenery change.

At around 8am, the babies started crying! This was the first time that they were crying and because they were HUNGRY! Thank goodness! Before, they had absolutely no energy to smile or cry. The fluids were doing them good. They are getting more energy back and their eyes are looking brighter and more alert now. I was so comforted to hear them crying. Everyone was trying to stop them from crying, but I just sat there, smiling with tears coming down my face. Everything was going to be alright little ones!

At around 9:30am, two nurses from the orphanage came to replace me and the other caregiver. I didn't want to leave, but I had more things to do back at the orphanage with the other sick children. I gave all the instructions to the replacements and said goodbyes to the babies. I felt slightly relieved because I know they were in good hands and now they were stabilized with fluids and medication. My job here was done!

It took us about an hour to get back to the orphanage and it was a silent car ride. I kept looking out the window and thinking about little Precious*. Her helpless face was forever stuck in my mind. When we got back I immediately went to take a shower. I put all my clothes in a trash bag to be washed and sanitized later. I scrubbed my skin so hard that it turned bright red. I had to get all the vomit and diarrhea residue that soaked through my pants and shirts off my skin. After the shower, I went and started to wash my clothes. It was the first time that I was actually looking at my clothing. There were vomit, diarrhea, and blood stains all over. No wonder everyone was starring at me at the hospitals. It wasn't just because I looked different than them, but more so that it looked like someone just gave birth on me.

We did all the nessassry cleaning procedures at the orphanage and more sick babies were place in the isolation room. The orphanage doctor came over and we started to administer all the Cholera medications. The doctor gave me medication for Cholera, as well, since I have been in high exposure over the two days. I gave a very strict talk with the staff and aunties on how to properly wash their hands and to put gloves on when they take care of the babies. We are not going to make the situation worse!!! Not possible under my watch! Bottled water were brought in to the orphanage until we can double check if the water is treated okay. I went all around the orphanage to make sure all the nannies were doing the proper procedures to protect themselves and the children. If any children showed any signs of diarrhea or vomiting, we had to observe and give medication. If it gets worse throughout the day, we needed to take them to the hospital immediately. I went over to the president's house to write up an incident report for what happened over the weekend and send it to the executive directors to inform them of the situation.

I remember when I was at the Cholera Center last night, the nurses were speaking in Creole saying that "This little white person should not be here. She should just go. It not her place. The child can be left here alone, not a problem." I looked at them and responded with, "I will not leave the child here all alone. The two babies here are my responsibility. I am not going to abandon them. It happens way too often and it is my job to be here to prevent that from continuously happening. I don't care that I am the only foreigner here, but I am here to stay until the babies are stable. You can say all that you want, but we are all the same. Just because our skin color is different, it doesn't make either one of us better or worse than the other. I am here to do my job and so please do you job to help the child get better, as well. Thank you!"


I went to bed that with a very heavy heart. I hugged each and everyone of the children at the orphanage and kissed them goodnight. Life is short! You never know if tomorrow is going to come first or the end of your life is going to come first. We must seize every opportunity and do good for others!

I looked at the moon night and blew a kiss for little Precious*. With tears running down my face, I closed my eyes. With flashbacks of me playing with little Precious* coming in and out of my thoughts. The frame stopped at her smile. Her smile will always be in my heart!

Goodnight little Precious*! Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite!

Halloween Masquerade Party in Kenscoff

Over the past couple of days I have been hard at work observing and playing with all the children at Kenscoff. This month’s art project was super fun! When I think of October, I immediately think about Halloween. Even though it is celebrated on the last day of the month, to me, Halloween is more like a whole month’s celebration.

The children have no idea what Halloween is and what we (Americans mainly!) do on this awesome holiday. I spent the weekend talking to them about pumpkins, vampires, black cats, costumes/masks, and candy. I am not sure how much information they absorbed, but they sure were excited about it. I had printed out some masks for the older children to decorate and they were ecstatic about the craft. They had five different choices for masks: mouse, Dracula, floral, Spiderman, and pirate. When I was printing out the masks designs, I was sure that every boy was going to pick Spiderman, but I was totally wrong about that. It was actually quite even across the board what each child wanted. They all colored their own masks and boy did they do a great job coloring!!!! We also colored different pumpkins designs. They were all curious about the “orange” pumpkin, since the pumpkin that they know in Haiti is actually light green in color. For the toddlers and babies, we did handprints. Not just any handprints, but orange handprints, naturally. I painted all the children’s hands and they were all giggling out of delight to see their hands painted with orange color. Some of the toddlers even wanted to lick their hands. The handprints turned out fantastic.

All the children and I had a ball together! At the end of the day, we all wore our masks and had a masquerade party!

HAPPY EARLY HALLOWEEN KENSCOFF! 

Electricity 101: How To Clean A Battery

Kenscoff is located in the mountainous areas of Haiti. So the weather is always cold, since we are so high up, and electricity and hot water are huge luxuries. Most of the time when I am up in Kenscoff, there is no electricity or hot water. I have learned to equip myself with all types of battery operated devices to help me function when night time falls. The only thing that gets tricky is my camera’s battery. I usually charge it full and that can last me through couple of days here in Kenscoff with careful use. This time, however, there was a huge problem, because I was not able to charge it fully before coming to Kenscoff. We didn’t have enough gas for the generator in Lamardelle, so for a couple of days we didn’t have electricity, which was why I couldn’t charge my camera’s battery. Then at Delmas 41, there was no electricity either, on the day that I was there. And now I am in Kenscoff, there’s always never electricity. So there we have it. Now I am in Kenscoff and I have to take monthly photos of all the children for their adoptive parents, and I have only one bar of battery left. Oh boy! What to do? What to do? So out of desperation I spoke with Ms. Deleau, the leading nurse here, and she talked to Roberto to come and turn on the power inverter.

Today I learned that both at Lamardelle and Kenscoff, the generators run on gas, but in Kenscoff we do have an extra power inverter that runs on eight batteries that is hooked up on the side of the orphanage. Being the inquisitive girl that I am, I found myself hovering over all the electricians when they were getting ready to set up the power inverter. Oh boy, it was quite a sight! The electricians were pouring all kinds of liquids and powders on the batteries to clean them. I always thought that you couldn’t pour water on a battery in fear of getting electrocuted, but apparently that was not the case. I have so much to learn! I was so excited at this opportunity to further my knowledge on electricity.

So here’s how one cleans a battery in Haiti:

Step 1: Twist off all the washes and screws on both the negative and positive knobs.

Step 2: Grab a handful of baking soda powder and place a good amount on each of the knobs.

Step 3: Pour a small amount of white vinegar on the powder. Wait for it to react!

Step 4: Scrub profusely with a brush on the knobs and handles of the battery.

Step 5: Pour water over the battery to clean off the residue.

Step 6: Screw back all the parts to the battery.

During the cleaning process.

After cleaning! 

It took about a good 45 min to clean all eight batteries. It got quite difficult to see toward the end since the sun was setting. This was when I busted out my flashlight to help with the cleaning efforts. We finally got it all cleaned and now it was the big moment, time to turn on the inverter machine. We turned on the machine and then a switch handle to ignite the power and a FLASH of light comes on and disappeared as quickly as it came. WHAT? We kept on trying with different switches and it just didn’t work out. SADNESS! All that work and the inverter was not working. We had to go to plan B, which was the generator that was running on gas. We did not have enough gas for very long, so the electricians told me: “Lori, you got one hour! Max!” I ran toward my room and plugged in all the electronic devices: phone, camera battery and computer.

Most importantly! I jumped in the shower and took a five whole minutes of semi-hot shower! Life is good! I was so happy that tears were actually coming down my face. It has been so cold at Kenscoff, so this semi-hot shower felt like heaven to me. 

Eat, Pray, Love

I am feeling a whole lot better than Wednesday that is for sure. Missing a day of work is painstickenly stressful, because the work just piles up. Especially with Brunette being on vacation, everything falls to me automatically. I had paperwork and 20+ work emails waiting for me at the beginning of Thursday. I was very thankful that I was feeling good and my head was clear enough to get all that work done yesterday.

So today I left at 7:30am with Chalot (Lamardelle driver) to be on my way up to Kenscoff for the week. As usual, he will be dropping me off at Delmas 41 and then Roberto (Kenscoff driver) will come and pick me up later to take me to Kenscoff. It always takes a whole day in order for me to get to Kenscoff, because there is always a lot of waiting around at Delmas 41, normally about three hours of time on average. But today, was not one of those “average” days, it was a curveball. Living in Haiti, you must know how to catch these curveballs, because they will come at you AT ALL TIMES! SO BE PREPARED! I am fully aware of this phenomenal, so that is why I had a book with me. Thank goodness I had a book with me, because today I waiting at Delmas 41 for 6 hours!!! Oh boy, that was a record. It wasn’t all that bad, because there was a meeting between the children and their biological parents today. Five of the children from Kenscoff came down to meet with their biological parents at Delmas 41. The meeting is suppose to be only like 30 minutes between the child(ren) and the parent(s) and then they will have individual time with the social worker on questions about the international adoption process.

It is always extremely hard for me to watch the meetings between the biological parent and their children that they have decided to put up for adoption. The meetings are always so awkward and hurtful at times. The children are always quiet and reserved, or just down right rejecting of the biological parents. It must hurt tremendously for the biological parents to witness the utter rejection of their child when seeing them. I feel even worse when the children are so happy to see me and want hugs and kisses and go dead silent as they are put into their bio parent’s laps. The images of the bio parents’ facial expressions really haunt me. What saved me today from extreme awkwardness was the fact that most of the children today were older children, so they knew their biological parents and did not openly reject them. They all smiled, gave hugs, and were civil about the meeting. It also helped that there were five children all together, so it just turned into a giant play session. This was one of those more successful meetings in my book.

I tried to let the children have the maximum time and interactions with their bio parents, since these meetings don’t happen often. I just sat in the back of the court yard and read my book quietly. The book that I brought with me today is called “Eat Pray Love” (Thanks Danielle for leaving the book for me! You the best!). I only picked up this book because I had seen the movie last year and absolutely loved it. The book was just sitting in my room and I thought, “Why not? Some reading is good for the soul.” So I opened up the first page and literally could not put it down. This is something amazing for me, because it does not happen very often. It’s happened to me like literally three times in my life time. This is mainly due to the fact that I never really have time to read for pleasure, but always for school or work. And those kinds of reading are not fun! It has been a really long time since I can just sit down to read a book with no worries, and most of all, NO HIGHLIGHTER in hand!!! I love the ever-so eloquent writing style of Elizabeth Gilbert and her in-your-face attitude on life. I actually found many parallels through her adventures in the book and myself. The small chapters really made it an easy read for me. By the time I was getting really to head up to Kenscoff, I had already gotten through the First Book: Italy, which was 115 pages. I was so amazed and proud of myself all at the same time. Not only did I read a lot, but I had fun doing it. She literally had me laughing out loud through her writing. Which, whenever this took place, the Haitians looked at me with mild curiosity, but more so thinking “Lori, the crazy Parisian sitting there laughing at a book!” (Yes, they all think because I live in France that automatically makes me a Parisian!)

Whenever I take a break from reading and look around me, I can’t help but smile. I noticed that the title of this book could not have been any more perfect for the scene at Delmas 41 today. The biological parents and the aunties all brought food for the children at lunch time. We all sat around and ate fried bananas and spaghetti. EAT. We all prayed together for the wonderful food and for the safety and happiness of everyone in the world. PRAY. There was an abundance of love and care between all the parties involved. The biological parents’ great love to put the children up for adoption in order to give them a better life and future. The great love of the children for everyone that had a part in their lives. The great love and respect of myself for everyone in this ordeal. LOVE.

When we all finally said our goodbyes to the bio parents, the children and I headed up to Kenscoff in the back of Roberto’s pick-up truck. I love riding on the back of pick-up trucks, because that is where you can get the best view of Haiti. I am sitting tall on the tire cover part of the truck bed and I can literally experience Haiti with all my five senses. The children and I sang all the way up to Kenscoff.

Today was a wonderful day. What a great way to start my weekend in Kenscoff!

Sick Day #3

I woke up this morning with intense muscles aches and just overall fatigue. I felt like I was hit by giant Tap-Tap (the main form of transportation here in Haiti. It’s pretty much a small pick-up truck with a make-shift seating benches and hood covering located in the bed of the truck. It is painted with very colorful decorations, covering every inch of paintable space) when I tried to move my limbs to turn off the alarm clock. I struggled to even use my fingers to turn the switch from on to off. Oh boy. I’ve been having fevers on and off for the last three days now and been taking some medication, but today, oh boy, today was something different. Definitely “HIT” me. Really hard as a matter of fact. So I had to listen to my body, really, it gave me no choice whatsoever but to stay put in my bed. I called Stephanie, the finance director, and told her that I am not able to work this morning. I will rest for a while and see how it goes. If I feel better, I will go to the office to work. So everyone was super caring and came and visited me throughout the morning, but every time someone came to visit I had to get out of bed to open the door for them. This happened for about every 30 minutes or so, which was the opposite of what I wanted. Haha, but everyone was worried, so it was okay. It was funny, because every person that came to the door was bewildered to see me bent over and talking out of breath. They all asked, “What’s wrong?” “Are you okay?” “Is your stomach bothering you?” My response to all was, “I don’t have any strength and standing up is very painful at the moment.” By which, they would all say, “Oh okay, well get back into bed. You should rest.” Haha, I just think this is so ironic, because I was in bed resting, until someone knocked on the door. They all mean well and I am very grateful for their caring. Even the adolescent boys were like, “Oh my goodness Lori. I will check on you periodically.” Haha, I assured them that I was going to be fine and no need to check on me every 30 minutes. I just needed to rest. So I downed a lot of Vitamin C and multi-vitamins. The cooks were very generous to bring juice and an apple for me.

By about 2pm, I finally had some energy to go brush my teeth and make some noodle soup for myself to eat. I moved around like I was carrying 100 kilos on my back. I had to use the walls in the hallways to support myself. Man, it felt weird. I sat down and ate some noodles. Some yummy veggie noodle soup (Thanks Portland Tzu Chi Family!). So every time I leave my room, something would happen with the children. Something that would get my attention and then I would have to go deal with it. So I am sitting there eating my noodle soup quietly, when all of a sudden I see out of the corner of my eyes a child that was walking around with a walker for physical therapy, being stuck in a corner. He had walked all the way into a corner in the hall way and was stuck. He cried for literally five minutes and no one was there to rescue him. So I got up slowly and walked over to him and turned him and the walker around. That was when I noticed that he had explosive diarrhea. The smell was so strong that I had to step back a little bit to catch my breath. I picked him up, it was quite hard, since I had barely any strength in my arms. I took him to the washing area and had one of the aunties wash and change him. So this is a typical occurrence at the orphanage. But today, I was just in no shape in dealing with all this. I walked back to my room and crashed again. The crashing continued until dark and once again, I got up to go eat some soup for dinner. I felt that my energy level was higher and I was able to walk better now. I ended the night with finishing the rest of the September reports for all the children at Lamardelle. Good thing I got all of them done. That is a huge load off of my mind now.

Time for bed, while continued time for bed I guess! I hope I feel good enough for work tomorrow! Good night!

DIY: Operation Mice Be-Gone

So due to logistic problems I was at Kenscoff just for a day over the weekend. It was nice to have a change of scenery and get away from the screaming and chaos for a day. I met with some biological parents, as well, and it always breaks my heart every time we have a meeting. It hurts me to see that parents have to give up their biological children to an orphanage because they no longer had the financial means to raise that child. It gets even harder when they have to choose which child they have to give up when they have multiple children. Can you imagine getting harder than that? Well, I can. The fact that when a mother has twins and she can psychologically only deal with giving one of them up, but that would mean the twins would be separated. These are the decisions that the Haitian parents (most of the time, Mothers) have to make on a daily basis. That is just so hard and heart breaking to me. The meeting on Friday wasn't any easier. We were meeting a pair of biological parent whom had already separated, but they have one child together. The father wants to give the child up for adoption to give her a better future, but the mother cannot bear the fact that adoption means cutting off all contact and relinquishing her rights. She was even disturbed when the social work said, "And once you relinquish your rights, that means she is legally no longer your daughter. She will have another set of mother and father in another country." The look on her face, I will never be able to forget that. It was utter heart break. I quickly jumped in and said that she did not have to make that decision now and whether she agrees or disagrees to the adoption, it will have to be her choice. No one can influence her or make the decision for her. It is a huge decision and she can have all the time she needs to think about it and don't hesitate to ask questions. She felt slightly relieved when hearing that. I can't even start imagining what she was going through in her heart and in her mind. I will pray that she has the strength and wisdom in her decision process.

So after slightly resting a big in Kenscoff for one night, I came back to Lamardelle to find what??? Two mice in my room.....again! I was only gone for one night and they got in there.....this always happens. The kids always tells me that whenever I am gone, the mice miss me, so they always make sure to say a big hello when I am back. That is really true. The mice always likes to hide either behind or under the small love seat in the corner of my room. It never fails. I had put out a lot of Peppermint Oil on cotton balls all over my room and by my door way, but that just seemed to attracted them more. Actually they had gathered all the cotton balls and made a really comfy cotton ball bed from it. GO FIGURE! (Yeah, sorry James SB, apparently Haitian mice like Peppermint Oil!!!) I found the first one under the love seat, that was a given! She screamed, I screamed. She ran and I ran. It was the normal tango! One of the adolescent boys heard me and got in there and found the mice and killed it. He looked everywhere and said that there were only one. For me, from past experience, I knew there were never just one mouse! So I cleaned my whole room, from top to bottom, and every corner. Kicked everything, made a whole bunch of noise, and no mice were in sight. Hmmmm...I thought to myself that maybe this time there is just one. I picked up my laundry bag on the table and I heard a loud "Glop" in the bucket of mop water. There she was!!!! Another mouse!!! Found her! Oh my goodness, she was swimming around and I was going to push the bucket outside, but then she jumped, but failed and fell back again. It was quite a strange sight. The only thing that was going through my head was the image of Remy swimming in the underground sewage system in Paris from the movie Ratatouille? Strange right. So before I knew it, the mouse leaped out of the bucket of bleached water and under the love seat....oh man, here we go again. Another helper came and started searching high and low for the mouse. I was feeling so helpless, because I don't want to kill the mouse, but I am not exactly stopping others from killing it either. So finally, after a long while, the mouse ran out the door and into the hall way. I was quite happy, since he was going to escape the fate of dying, but then another adolescent boy stepped on him in the hall way. Yeap.....he's gone to heaven now, all equipped with a nice bleached body of hair.

So to make the story short. We had a DIY project for the bottom of my doorway. We measured and cut out a piece of wood to block the gap between the bottom of my door and the tiles on the floor. It was quite time consuming, but we did it!

Here is the result!

The adolescent boy who helped me make this all possible said: "Lori, now the mice would have to ask you for a key in order to enter your room!" Ha, I hope that will be true!

Drill Sergeant: Mme. Saint Fort

So my savior came today!!! Mme. Saint Fort was the lead nurse and governess at the Kenscoff creche. We have been needing restructuring at the Lamardelle creche ever since I've been here, so now she has been transferred over to Lamardelle to help speed things up. When I saw her, I almost had tears coming down my face, I was so happy. There were just so many things that needed to be changed and regulated that it was impossible to do it by myself. So tonight, we had a long talk. A very very long talk. I showed her around the sites and talk about all the problems that needed to be addressed. It was good progress already and I already feel less overwhelmed that she is finally here. We are a team now and things are going to get done. I am sure of that!

Mme. Saint Fort is known for her loud projectile voice and stern personality. So almost everyone, big and small, are afraid of her. What she says, goes, period! No questions asked! Plus, she speaks creole with the staff and children, so it's more direct. I have been trying, but with my limited creole, things more at a slower pace. Mme. Saint Fort is like a drill sergeant. You do something wrong, there's punishment. You don't follow the rules of the punishment, you'll have more. It's the way it goes! I had already put in place the punishment system and now she is realizing it. This is working wonders with the teens!

Tonight was the first night that I actually sat down on my bed and could take a deep breath in SILENCE for once!

Thank you Mme. Saint Fort!

Reports, Reports, Reports

I have been super busy with writing reports this month. Oh boy, all 50 of them. I am finally done with all the reports for the children whom have adoptive parents. I sent them all out today and boy did that feel good, well at least good for like an hour, and then I start to finish the rest of the reports. I have just been in front of the computer all this time. Working hard and trying to write well. It does get challenging every time the electricity goes out on me, but I have already adapted quite well. The dark doesn't bother me as much anymore.

IBESR came back today again to get four more girls. We are down to only seven girls now at the orphanage. I hope that IBESR will be successful in finding all the biological parents for the rest of the girls!

Turbulent Weekend

How would I describe my weekend??? Good question....I don't think there are enough words and expressions in the English vocabulary to describe what I went through this weekend. All I can say is that I live in an orphanage with babies, toddlers, school aged children, and teenagers. And I share a single bathroom with 15 people. Enough said.

First of all, I live at the orphanage, which means I don't get a break. I literally work 24/7. We are in the middle of restructuring everything at the orphanage and lacking staff, so it means a heavier load on my part. Don't get me wrong, I am glad to be apart of this change and to help make the orphanage function better. The only thing that has been getting to me are the teenagers. I knew there was always a reason why I never wanted to be a middle school or high school teacher....it is just too much sometimes. Plus all of these teenagers have been through some sort of trauma in their lives, so it makes it that much harder to talk to them. Oh yeah, don't forget about the different language, different culture part....that really pushes the difficulty bar up a notch.

So I had doors slammed in my face and constant laughter and yelling in my ear all weekend. This was on top of what I had to do with the other parts of the orphanage. Somehow I still got the 19 reports that I needed to get done today for the children who have adoptive families. So that was the good part. Having children and staff members knocking at your door every 15 to 30 minutes really makes it hard to fall asleep or stay asleep. It's been a challenge for sure.

So I came up with a productive punishment system for the teenagers this weekend. I have them do chores or stay in their rooms throughout the day if they misbehave. It was put to the test today, and it worked wonders. One teenage girl had such foul mouth and negative attitude that landed her in a one week grounding at the orphanage and everyday she has to wash dishes, babies'clothing, and clean the floors. Day one was awesome, let's hope she gets the point this time.

The turbulent weekend of intense teenage mayhem led to one of the teenage girls leaving the orphanage. It wasn't a surprise to any of us, nor her. In the end, I hope she is happier with the result of leaving. I wish her the best of luck in her future endeavors. I told that if she wanted to do something with her life, she needs to trust others and believe in herself first. Her attitude toward others needs to change, because life is too short to be angry all the time. I hope she heard what I said and reflects on that. It's still hard to say goodbye, but it's for the best.

OH YEAH! Happy Taiwanese Independence Day 10-10!!!! 

(I especially put on a Traditional Chinese top for the occasion)

Women's Handicapped Camp Party

The Fondation L'Enfant Jesus (FEJ) has a program for handicapped women in Haiti. The program was aiming at helping women who have become amputees due to the January 12, 2010 earthquake. The program was suppose to last only a year, but it has been a year and a half now. It was created as an emergency response to the earthquake disaster. There have been three rotations of women who have stayed at the FEJ Lamardelle Campus for three months at a time. This is where they learn how to take care of themselves, their children and how to cook. They also receive regular physical therapy and psychological therapy. A micro-financing program is also set in place, where the women can make arts and crafts to sell for a little bit of profit. The mission of HAMA is holistic: to provide each amputee who enters the program the tools necessary to lead an active, productive, and independent life. That is the ultimate goal we are achieving for.

The most important part of the program is the part in conjunction with the Haitian Amputee Mothers Alliance (HAMA) project. This project was founded to provide leading-edge prosthetic limbs to women and mothers who were the victims of the earthquake. In partnership with the Village of Vision Haiti Foundation, the amputees of the HAMA project will receive a custom prosthesis designed especially for their specific needs and built to withstand the harsh Haiti environment. There have been teams of rehabilitation doctors, nurses, therapists, and teachers completely volunteering their time from Salt Lake City, Utah USA. The teams come for three to ten days at a time to do fittings for the women in the camp and bring the molds back to the U.S. to make the actual prosthetic limbs. I had the pleasure of meeting some of the teams that came to Haiti and I have got to say they are people with big hearts. They are doing wonderful work for the women and it is so great to see this kind of compassion in people. They are dedicated professionals that are making a huge difference in the women's lives here. After the prosthetic limbs have been finished, another team will bring them back to Haiti to make the final adjustments for the women at the camp. It takes about three months of time for the whole entire rehabilitation process to be completed and the women leave at the end of the session with their brand new prosthetic limbs and a brighter outlook on life. 


So today was marks the end of the third group of women and also the program as a whole. There's good and bad news. The good news is that there is a party for the women today to celebrate their three months with us in the program and all the progress they have made over the months they've been here. Bad news is that there is a problem with funding issues in the U.S. (as you all know, with the recession setting in and all), so we are not sure if we can get the prosthetic made or not. It completely stinks the situation, because all the women have been fitted already and promised of their new prosthetic. There is a group of people in the U.S. desperately trying to fund raise for more donations so we can get enough money to get the prosthetic made for these women. It is quite a large sum and we need all the help that we can get. I pray everyday that we can raise enough money to get what these women need to continue surviving here in Haiti. There have been so much work and effort put into this program and I would hate to see that end on such a sour note. So please spread the word to others, because one person cannot do it all, but a group of individual can make a lasting difference! 

So despite all the challenges and bad news, we all celebrated tonight. With music and good food! Laughter was in the air and we all said our thanks and goodbyes under a starry sky. Please help us keep the hope alive for these women. They have already gone through so much, we can't let them down again! 

Please help by visiting the site and make a generous donation if you can! 
There have been some issues with the donation site. I will keep you updated as soon as I find out where you can make secure donations to the project! Thank you. 

Goodbyes Don't Get Any Easier

I woke up at 5am this morning and left Kenscoff with two children, one baby and one toddler. As usual, we made many stops along the way before finally reaching the creche here in Lamardelle. The director of FEJ, Mr. Duncan, was driving the car and we went to another creche to pick up some visitors. Turns out that it was an adoption agency from France, who has a creche in Haiti for 25 years already. We visited their site and it was huge and beautiful. Four people from the agency came back to Lamardelle with us. I had one baby in my arm and the other toddler falling asleep by my side. I was just in my element, super happy! I spoke a lot with the people of what I am doing here in Haiti and also getting to know what they did. The foundation started out with a creche for orphans and then added a school around 12 years ago for the zone of Tabarre. They have around 300 children that attend the school. It was great being able to give them a tour of the orphanage here at Lamardelle and also looking forward in collaborating with them in the near future.

So things never slow down or stop here at the creche. I quickly got to work after the tour. We learned just this morning that IBESR was coming to get 12 more girls from the trafficking incident today! 9 had already left last week and now they have found more biological parents!!! I am super excited and so happy for this news. Even though I will miss them dearly, but it is way better for them to be with their parents finally. As usual, I went to the depot to get some gifts ready for the children to leave with. We took pictures and I said goodbye to two of the older girls in the group. They gave me kisses and hugs. I gave them huge hugs and sent them on their way.

One girl was crying so hard because she did not want to leave the creche. And another girl was crying next to her because she wanted to see her biological family. They show the same distress, but what a huge difference in reasoning between the two girls.

This makes 21 girls total that have already left, which leaves 11 girls still at the orphanage. I hope they can find their biological parents soon! Let us all keep praying!!!

Monopoly: Two Months Celebration

So it's official!!! Today marks the two month period that I have been working at FEJ in Haiti!!! How time just flew by this month! When you are busy, everything just flashes before your eyes. So at the moment, I am in Kenscoff doing the September reports for the children. I have three days to observe all 24 children, do art projects for each age group (babies, toddlers, older children), read letters and show pictures to all the children who have adoptive families, observe the staff in their work, take tons of photos of each child, and give tours of the orphanage to visitors. Of course this doesn't include just spending time and playing with all the children, which is my favorite part of the process.

This was how the people helped me carry my bags to the orphanage! I had a bag on my head, as well.
It's the Haitian way!!!

It has been busy, busy, busy, to say the least. I have been working like a mad machine! Getting things done and with high quality. The art project that I had in mind this month was making lanterns. Why lanterns you ask? Well it is because the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival was this month and it is also known as Lantern Festival in the western world. So I thought, making paper lanterns would be a fun idea. Needless to say, the children and I had a total blast making the lanterns and they did an awesome job!!! (*I can't show any photos due to confidentiality issues, but believe me, it was awesome).

Coke and Biscuits party made by the children for me! (Water and Rocks were the materials used, one child accidentally drank it....didn't taste quite like Coke I am guessing???)

Art work done by one of the older boys. Isn't it beautiful??? This was what the outside of the lantern looked like! 

So what better way to celebrate the two months mark than making lanterns with the children??? Why, playing Monopoly of course!!!!! The daughter of the director of FEJ, Sarah, has a new Monopoly that her dad bought, but she doesn't know how to play it. She asked me to teacher her how to play Monopoly, so that was what we did. Everyday we played Monopoly and she is getting the hang of it. It has been a long time since I've played Monopoly and I've forgotten how fun it is to play board games. I love board games and it was an awesome time playing with Sarah and Mr. Duncan at Kenscoff.

I also gave a tour of the orphanage to visitors from the Ministry of Justice, USAID, and some people from the United Nations. It was awesome to talk about the adoption process with the visitors and they completely fell in love with all the children.Two of the women have vowed that they will come back and volunteer with us! How awesome is that???? They also brought over a suitcase filled with toys for all the children and that was greatly appreciated.

I feel very blessed with all these awesome people around me. There's always something to learn from each person that I meet and I am forever grateful for these abundant sources of knowledge.

Happy Two Months to Me!!!!!! May the next one be even better!!!!