Apple Cake

I have a friend here at GLA named Marguerite. She volunteers at GLA for three months at a time and then goes back to her home in Northern Ontario. I have to give her a lot of credit for being the oldest person I know who comes to Haiti for months at a time, who can take naps on the hard floor of the balcony, who enjoys playing in a bounce house, and who has a facebook. Her life story could probably become a best selling biography so full it is of fascinating and harrowing tales which she recounts to us each day. Her husband, a lumberjack, was killed in a work accident. She had six kids at the time, and the youngest was eight days old when the accident happened. And so she ran her household of six children on her own. That in and of itself is a story full of stories.

She first came to Haiti a few years ago and never stopped coming back, even after getting extremely sick on her last visit here. Marguerite loves the children of GLA very much, and pours out incredible amounts of energy into caring for them. A few nights ago, she went into the big nursery and visited each crib, singing every child a song. We have several shared interest including watching documentaries, following God, babies in Haiti, and nutrition. And French. She is a native French speaker, and I use her as my living French-English dictionary.

Last night, Marguerite and I made an apple cake. Marguerite directed the endeavor, as it was her own created recipe. We made it in the Main House kitchen, to me nothing short of thrilling. The Main House kitchen is much bigger and much much more full of activity than the Toddler House kitchen. The Main House kitchen is where the babies meals are made, where our dinners and lunches are made, where the food of the nannies and nurses are made; a LOT happens in this kitchen. We made our apple cake in the midst of Haitian cooks frying yams, chopping chicken, and peeling potatoes. I've never made anything in it before, and it felt like treading on new and unexplored territory. No doubt baking in this kitchen is actually a very commonplace activity, so call my enthusiasm asinine fatuity if it makes you feel any better, but I tell you it was exciting. And yes that sentence was essentially pointless – I just wanted an excuse to use the lovely combination of asinine and fatuity in the same sentence.

Marguerite's cake was massive. I've never baked a cake in such a gigantic pan. We filled the pan up with finely chopped and cubed apple pieces, poured two bottles of sprite and eight cups of water into the apples, covered them with cinnamon, and baked it for about half an hour. Pouring bottles of sprite onto diced apples was a highly enjoyable experience. While it baked, I stirred up a batch of butter pecan cake mix which was poured in a thin layer over the apples when they came out of the oven, then back into the heat the cake went until the cake batter was golden brown and voila!!! Our beautiful cake was finished. Life was very exciting. I fed several pieces to several children who gobbled it up.

I even ate a piece of apple cake for breakfast this morning. Life continued to be very exciting. I have greatly enjoyed my time with Marguerite and I will miss her when I leave!

On another completely unrelated note, enjoy these pictures from the past week!

My Wednesday boy has been smiling more and more lately!

We celebrated all of the October birthdays this past week!

And there she is in the bounce house...

He does look so fetching in green floral fabric

A day in the life of Kathryn always includes poop. And more often than not, it includes poop on my clothes and skin and hair.

This was his face right after the incident. I kid you not, this picture was taken immediately after returning from the changing room. What a little imp.

Enjoying sunny afternoons on the balcony with two of my favorite little girls