Three-Month Review

Tomorrow marks the end of my third month in Haiti. I'll attempt to give a summary of my experience here. Obviously a lot of what has happened has been affected by the whole meeting my wife-to-be scenario, but I'll try to look beyond that a little for this post.

The first few months here have left me with mixed emotions about a lot of things. I love the people I work with here, whether they be volunteers from various places, or the Haitian workers who put up with us volunteers. I hope that as I work on learning Creole I can get to know them better and better.

I enjoy my work in the school as well. There are times of frustrations with not having the supplies that we need or not being able to run as "tight" of a school as I am used to, but nothing that is overwhelming. I spend most of the school day working with the kids individually on things they are struggling with, and I find that fulfilling, and even fun at times. This is not to say that I do a great job explaining things clearly to them, but I'm working on that.

Then there are the kids..........what to say about the kids? I love them. I truly do. They drive me nuts. They truly do. As individuals I like every one of them. They each have their own personalities and quirks which are really fun to learn. On the flipside of that is how they occasionally act in groups. Attempting to do devotions or Sunday School with the younger boys is not pleasant. Therein lies the difficulty of attempting to be friends with the kids, but at the same time being able to discipline. Up until now I have attempted to go the friend route, but it may be that I need to start doing more disciplining. At times things can be incredibly frustrating when the kids show no respect for the workers here or each other. For example, last week we had one of the little girls get hit in the eye with something thrown by one of the boys. She is currently in Miami receiving medical treatment and may not regain sight in one of her eyes. It's an extreme example, but you'd be amazed at how many times I've had to tell the kids to stop throwing things even since this incident.

Teams that visit for a week or two don't experience the negative side of dealing with the kids for the most part. I anticipated that there would be challenges, but it has probably been more trying for me emotionally than I had expected. It makes me wonder if I am truly cut out to do what I'm doing. I hope that by the time next summer rolls around I can answer that question.

That's all for now I suppose. I've noticed that my blog has become a little humorless so I'll try to remedy that with the next post. Perhaps a post of my overall odor and how I don't even notice it anymore.