Massive Cleaning and Inventory at Kenscoff

Today was a busy busy busy day for me! Oh my goodness I got a lot done today!

The adoptive parents left really early this morning with Candy*. They will be first flying to Miami, spending a night there, and then head over to New York. They will stay in New York for a couple of days and then fly to London, where the family will be spending for a year due to the father's work. The father works for Nike and will be working in London for the Olympics 2012, how cool is that???? They will try to get a British Visa for Candy*. It is going to be hard, but I hope it all works out in the end! I will keep on praying for them!

I spent all day today doing massive cleaning and inventory for the Kenscoff orphanage. I started at 8am and didn't get done till 5pm. No breaks or anything! I went into every single room and looked at each of the clothing. I checked every single piece of clothing at Kenscoff. I mean EVERY SINGLE PIECE! I looked at every piece of clothing and determined if it was going into the trash or we were going to keep it. I refolded all the ones that we can keep and then put the bad ones in the garbage bag to be burned later. It was quite a process. There were many clothing that were torn and with plenty of holes. Many had accidents with the bleach mix when washing and just looked bad. We had plenty of new clothes that were in storage from the donation pile, so I thought, since it was getting close to Christmas and the New Years, we should start anew! I first started with the storage room and picked out some new clothes for each of the age groups: babies, toddlers, and older children. I then proceeded to go into each of the rooms and checking all the clothing there. I replaced many of the clothes and gave new clothes to the aunties. Everyone was super excited to see me sort through the clothing and giving new clothes. It has been wayyyyyy over due! I don't know when was the last time someone did this, but this must be done!!!

So the results were: 1 large trash bag in the babies' room, 2 large trash bags in the toddler's room, and 1 large trash bag in the older children's room. I made sure to put all the trash bags in the furnace so that it will be burned immediately. I did not want the aunties to go through the bags and picking out what they thought could be used again. Apparently that was what was happening beforehand. After all that work of sorting, looking, and refolding, the clothes racks in each room looked AWESOME! (If I do say so myself, haha). Everything is all neat and organized, even the storage room was all organized. I did inventory of all the boxes of clothes and donations, as well.

Babies' Room (Onesies organized by scale of warmth and blankets)

Babies' Room (Shorts/Pants/Jackets/Hats/Gloves/Socks)

Older Children's Room

Toddler's Room 

After it was all said and done! I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I was glad to know that the children will have warmer clothes to wear and also nicer looking clothes. More importantly, that the donations were not just sitting there in storage and going to waste. It was good news all around. I also did some training for the aunties on what to give to the children to wear and who was particularly sensitive to the cold among the children in each room. I hope they will pick this up and the children can say warmer and have less colds throughout the months. I also went over with the aunties that if there were torn clothing or many missing buttons on the onesies, they need to be thrown away. Another important thing was using the waterproof diaper wraps. This will help the aunties not have to be constantly changing the babies' clothing every hour and less clothes will need to be washed. I felt like the aunties really listened this time and we made huge progress. It is very hard for Haitian people to accept other people's opinions and methods of doing things. It needs to be introduced in a gentle manner and over time. They are very proud people and will hold grudges for a very long time. So I always approach them as a learner to get to know what are their ideas and why they are doing it that particular way. And then I introduce to them new ideas and we work through it over the days that I am there.

It was a very productive few days with the aunties! We have established really good relationships over the months that I have been here and I am very grateful for their on-going cooperation!