Trip 2, Day 1...a long, but exciting day!

I am going to start by excusing typos or incoherent statements. It has been a long day with a wake up around 2:15 in the morning. I am now sitting in bed at my hotel and it is 10:25 eastern...however it is only 9:25 Haiti time. As of Sunday I will be on the same timezone as home, since Haiti does not do daylight savings. I will only need to suffer a few more days of trying to figure out whether home is ahead or behind an hour and is this clock on my phone Haiti time or home time?? Oye!! I'll also apologize for the length of any of my blogs over the next several days. As much as I enjoy sharing our journey with others that are interested, it is more so intended for me to be able to capture these moments in time so that I don't forget them. Stick with me or take breaks, whichever works! ;)

I could not be happier with how things went today. Making the decision to have me come down here alone to visit T was not ideal, but we really wanted to get a visit in before the end of the year. It just was not in the cards to have all three of us come down to visit with her. So the planning began to figure out how best to send just one of us. I knew that another group of ladies would be here visiting the orphanage today through Monday, so I aligned my trip to match theirs so that I could join them on their journey. (One of the three ladies is the grandmother to one of the girls that went home to be with her family a few months ago. We've never met, but it just speaks to the little support community we have built for our orphanage.) While I was able to sync my dates up with them, I could not sync my flights up with them. They were coming in a couple hours later than me, so I was a little paranoid about navigating the Port au Prince airport on my own. Specifically leaving the airport. Things can get kind of crazy.

It was a beautiful day today, full of sunshine. I couldn't figure out if the airport was brighter because it was cloudy or rainy when we arrived in May or if I was just so overwhelmed that it seemed dark and much more scary last time. I made it through immigration and customs like a breeze. My luggage took a bit to come around on the carousal, but it did and I successfully removed it without hurting myself or anyone else! I headed right to the hotel shuttle counter without anyone hassling me to allow them to help me with my luggage.  The hotel staff called for my shuttle and allowed me to sit in the shelter of their waiting area and within 10-15 minutes my shuttle driver was ushering me to the vehicle where our security person was waiting. We had a good chuckle on the short 5-8 minute trip to the hotel about my sad attempt at using my creole. I really need to work on it! I'm trying!

I got into my hotel room with no issues by noon and my ride picked me up at 1:00 to head to the orphanage. Everything just seemed easier this time and so much more comfortable, which is a huge blessing since me and my family had concerns with this solo journey. I was at the orphanage by 1:30. When we got out of the car there were kids watching out the window from T's room yelling down at us. They yelled, "Manman T!, Manman T!!" from the window...which translates to T's mama. My agency rep was with me and she thought is was so sweet that they remember me. It was a wonderful welcome, but nothing was more sweet than hugging my girl again! She shyly walked out of her room to greet me, but not nearly as shy as the first time we met. I wasn't sure what to expect for our reunion, but had prepared myself that I may not get a grand, run into your arms, I missed you so much, kind of reunion. It has been 6 months since our bonding trip and even though we have tried to stay connected through photos, cards and gifts through other families, it has got to be so hard for these kids. Who knows what goes through their minds.

It didn't take T long to warm back up to me. It definitely did not feel like we were starting over. As we sat down and started in our our routine she clearly remembered our visit. She rummaged through my bag for snacks...to which she almost wiped me out of my inventory for the day in the first 30 minutes. We found the few activities that I brought for her. (I thought I would only have about an hour and a half with her, turns out I had four and half because we didn't get picked back up until almost 5:30.) We went outside on the swings, blew bubbles, colored and used a mini etch-r-sketch. At one point she remembered that I brought clothes for her to change into each day on the last trip...remember how I said I thought it was going to be a short one and a half hour visit?? Yep, didn't bring clothes today because I figured it would be short and I didn't have a ton of time to get things together before heading to the orphanage. When she remembered about the clothes she started asking to change into new clothes. When the translator let her know that I didn't have any she was not a happy camper and still tried to rummage through my bag as if they would magically appear once her displeasure was experienced. :) She moved on relatively quickly.

When asked how she is liking school she proceeded to tell the translator that she didn't really like it. Mike asked her why she didn't like it and her response was that they are rude to her sometimes. Mike followed up with the same question I had...was she rude to them. She responded with that innocent, but not so innocent shoulder shrug, lips pursed, "Non." She wasn't super believable. I am telling you this girl has spark. We are in for some fun, and I trust God is equipping us for whatever kind of fun that is. ;)

An interesting new experience that I had today was T deciding that she was hungry and needed me to take her to the kitchen...even after eating almost every snack I brought for her. I couldn't exactly understand what she was asking so some of the older girls that were with me  helped direct me, but even then I was like, the kitchen? Is that allowed? We can just go in there and ask them for food?? (My translator was upstairs so I couldn't really verify if this was an ok thing to do.) I tried to tell the people in the kitchen that she asked to come in and I didn't really know what she wanted. They looked at her and blurted out all their beautiful Haitian words the I can't comprehend. She flashed her puppy dog eyes and said something back. We went and sat at the table and within a few minutes she had a full plate of food in front of her. Ok..so I guess it is dinner time. It turns out she was only about 15 minutes ahead of the dinner bell. Literally, the bell was rung and older kids started coming in the area where T was seated. I am pretty sure that is not where she would normally eat. I suspect the rest of her room was fed at their picnic table in the hall outside their room. She enjoyed her time and made it three quarters of the way through her meal before her snacks started to catch up with her. She slowed down significantly and was distracted by the small dogs that were in the room that she couldn't help but drop food for. (I'll add pictures of the dog when wifi is working. They were cute and looked like puppies.)

When dinner was done we filled the last hour or so trying to find less congested areas to hang out. We went back to the swings, took a walk in the soccer field and then she wanted me to take her outside the gate to the road. Not sure why, but the older kids with me agreed it was not ok. T was disappointed again. Those darn older kids keepin' her mom within the rules...crazy! (Thank God they can understand some of my English and speak well enough that I can understand theirs!) She got to hang out with me a little past her bedtime since our ride was stuck in traffic. It was about 5:30 when he arrived and all her roommates had already gone to their room about 20 minutes prior. When I brought her back to her room for the night the light was out and the kiddos were in their beds. T had an all out meltdown this time when I left, despite the translator letting her know I would be back tomorrow. I think she was a tired girl and I can't imagine it is easy to have to keep ending our days this way. Continuing to pray for that adoption decree tomorrow or Friday...preferably tomorrow- please Lord!

Tomorrow I will meet up with the other group at the orphanage and then head back to the guesthouse with them. It is similar to what we would call a bed and breakfast stateside. Looking forward to the companionship in the evenings. I will do my best to update you if wifi is cooperative. Thanks for reading! :)