I am beginning to wonder if I left part of my head in Haiti. I think at this juncture it is a given that my heart is there. My little Nate is there, and by default, part of my heart. However, I have found in the last 48 hours, my head is there too. I am finding it increasingly more difficult to look at life in the same way. Today, my daughter, a senior was filling us in of all of the latest teenage drama. She shared a variety of her concerns about this person or that and on and on...I found myself thinking all of that was so insignificant, when we were face to face with people who could not eat regularly. I found the line at Target less annoying and just grateful to be in a Target that was ever so convenient compared to the steep gravel road where we bought carrots on Saturday.
Speaking of which, that was an interesting time. We pulled up to this gravel road on the side of the mountain. On the side of the road were several tap taps. A tap tap is basically a truck of some sort, pick up, flat bed whatever, benches are installed in the bed and sides fashioned out of metal and then the whole deal is painted with colorful paint. It is used for basic transportation. People jump on, pay about fifty cents, ride until they want to get off. They tap the sides of the vehicle to let the driver know it is time to get off, thus the name. Anyway, there were several donkeys, and even a pig. The people there were hard at work gathering their vegetables and organizing them for the tap taps to take to market. We bought some veggies for the orphanage and ate some carrots right out of the ground. They were really good. Anyway, as we were drinking it all in, I noticed the road continued on at a crazy grade up the mountain, that vehicles could not drive on. Two of the children from the orphanage had come from the other end of this road. I probably mentioned before that their birth mothers had walked twelve hours one way to give their children to the orphanage.
While we were there a man approached our orphanage director. He noticed two white families with our black babies and started to ask questions. Their interchange lasted quite some time as I found out later he had many babies. Some with mothers, some with fathers, some with no parents. He was struggling to help his community to deal with it as they did not have even the basic needs for them. He asked if she would take the babies. She had to explain she would take children between 0 and 2 as they stood the best chance of adoption. Besides, at Rivers of Hope all 15 babies except one are linked with families, eight of whom are nearly ready to go home. Thinking about this, I thought about how difficult if must be to try to decide who would go to the orphanage, who would stay, would they live? Again, the little things that seemed annoying before our trip, now seem just silly. I guess this must be one of those life lessons God has set out to teach us on this journey.
However, I did have a true joy today. I was able to get our orphanage pics uploaded for my fellow mamas blanc. I loved hearing from them and how excited they were to see their babies even if only on film. Here's to hoping we can all see them more than just on film, but under our very own roofs!! No news yet...
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