Crooks, Creole and Krapo

This month started off in a bad way. We had several break-ins at the medical clinic and the apartments of the med staff. Several days had to be devoted to changing locks and installing stronger bars on the windows. This was especially hurtful for the med staff that works so hard to serve the people of this area. Thankfully, there have been no other incidents. But it made for some sleepless nights and unnecessary time and expense to increase security.

We have been meeting with a tutor for Creole lessons. It’s slow going, but we’ll get there. One word we learned is “krapo”, which means frog. We learned that most Haitians do not like frogs. When asked why, we were told it’s because they believe that if a frog pees in your eye, you will go blind. Now this may be true, but I think it would be difficult for a frog to pee in your eye!
We have learned other, more helpful words and phrases. One of my favorites is “macawoni”. Yes, it means macaroni. Sounds like I have a speech impediment, doesn’t it? One of my proudest moments was when I could ask someone in the grocery store “Ki kote macawoni?” (where is the macaroni?)

We spent a week babysitting Dor, the 2 ½ year old soon-to-be-adopted-son of the missionary couple who run the Guest House. They are in the States on maternity leave (their son, Grayson was born a couple of weeks early but is doing fine and they are expected to come back to Haiti mid October). I forgot how much work it is to run after a little one. He’s a good little boy, but we were exhausted by the end of the week!!

Ryan & Teresa, the other couple that was on maternity leave, are coming back to Haiti this week with new baby daughter Eleanor (“Nora”). They had graciously allowed us to stay in their house while they were gone so now we will need to move back to the Guest House. We’ll be there about a month, then move into different temp housing till our house in FINALLY available (hopefully in December). It will be great to unpack and settle in at that point!

The other Americans will be coming back this week as well so things will get back to normal, with all the clinics opening, etc. A couple of weeks ago we had a lady from a local orphanage stop by with one of the little boys who had a terrible rash all over. Since the med clinic was closed, we took a digital photo of the rash, emailed it to our missionary doc who was in the States and he wrote back and told us what to do. We were able to give the boy meds from the mission’s pharmacy. Technology to the rescue!

School starts September 7. I’ll be teaching a class of seven little ones (age 3-6) so please pray for me ;-) I’m excited and intimidated by the task ahead!

Ed killed his first tarantula last night. I looked down as I was doing the dishes and saw the hairy beast on the kitchen floor. Ed promptly beat it to death with a broom and swept him out the door. My hero!