More Pictures, More Stories, More from Haiti!

I may not be in Haiti anymore, but I have no plans to stop blogging about the children who have become so dear to me. And by the children, I mean all the children, not just my seven. Each child at the Main House became so dear to me, and there are so many unshared stories and little personalities and photographs of stunning faces that I'm dying to share to the world. Hopefully none of the stories, photos, or sentiments will be redundant from previous posts!

Fort Jacques, about a twenty minute drive further up the mountain, is where GLA will eventually relocate. This piece of land is gorgeous. A plethora of tall coniferous trees reach high up into the sky, creating dappled shadows on the forest floor. The air is cooler, and the breeze is refreshing. There is often mist that blocks the view, but when the mist clears, a spectacular landscape is revealed before your eyes. You can see Port-au-Prince and the Ocean and the Mountains beyond. This picture (taken by one of the Barnum girls, other volunteers whose time at GLA coincided with mine) sort of captures the beauty of Fort Jacques. It will probably still be years before they are finished with the construction here, but I am so excited for the day when they move to this lovely haven.

I have to say a word about these two:

They both came from the other orphanage that was shut down at the beginning of the summer. (In case you hadn't already heard, there was an orphanage shut down for having very bad conditions...kids came malnourished and with rat bites and with lots of horrible neglect. About twenty of these kids ended up at GLA.) Because of their lack of paperwork and because it is extremely difficult to track down the biological parents of these new children, none of them currently have families. These two beautiful girls are best of friends. They hold hands. They love to be in the same crib. Once a volunteer asked one of them where the other was. She disappeared and came back a few minutes later holding her friend's hand. Each night I went into the big nursery, they were always in the same crib, laughing and laughing and laughing together. The one in the back still becomes very fearful often, screaming and thrashing at the sight of dogs or sometimes a stranger or anything unfamiliar. But their joy, and that picture of them, and the way that they both knew and loved me and hugged me and laughed at the sight of my face was an indescribable blessing.

Lilly's favorites of my children were my two youngest - Monday's girl (T) and Friday's boy (C). I think this was mostly because she could actually hold them and play with them like they were babies. She just doted on the two of them, and I love this picture of her with my Monday girl. The love and the radiant joy of Miss Lilly was so evident in her interactions with the babies, and I miss her dearly. I tried to save my babies for the end of the day since she got back from school around 3:30 each day and always her first question to me was inevitably, "Have you taken out C and T yet????" If I hadn't, elation ensued. If I had, disappointment and a follow-up question was inevitable, "Well can you take C and T out again???"

I spend too much of my days looking through photos and photos and photos of the kids. Last night I was up past midnight reminiscing and swapping GLA stories with another volunteer while I looked through pictures. I just LOVE this one of my little guy in his post-pool outfit. A new pool arrived on the shipping container which I am very excited about; the pool currently on the balcony is full of holes and leaking!

Check out that sweet, shy smile on that tiny, precious face! (My apologies about how overused certain adjectives are on this blog such as sweet and precious...But try as I do and much as I loathe redundancy in vocabulary, I really can't do much about it!)

These two siblings are GLA staples. Everyone falls in love with them. Everyone. The staff, the volunteers, everyone. They have a beautiful family with lots of siblings waiting to bring them home. Both of them are very serious in this picture, but both of them are full of laughter and energy and so much good fun! The little girl loves hats. She's perpetually putting on hats.

Marguerite feeding the kids her $7.50 USD box of cheez-its (food at Haitian grocery stores tends to be quite pricey...) to the kids of the big nursery - a weekly routine for her.

These two boys capture my heart. There is something about little boys that I just cannot resist. Something that tugs on my heartstrings in a different way than little girls do. Something about their faces, their sense of playfulness, just EVERYTHING about them absolutely MELTS me.

These two boys especially (although I will likely say that about all the kids!) got to me. Their laughs, the way they blew kisses, their heartbreaking smiles... Both of them were outgoing, interactive, talkative, active, and general speaking super duper amazing kids.

I wonder if these children will realize the country of beauty that they were born in. There is something wildly and deeply and radically beautiful about this country that these photos don't even come close to capturing, but at leasts it's better than me repeatedly saying "beautiful" in a vain attempt to depict the unique landscape of Haiti. Somehow it's a beauty that is intensified by the depth of poverty and the weightiness of what these people have endured for generations.