can you be addicted to a baby?

so i am staying with mama kati and sam and kervens over at sherrie's school which is so great because it has been so weird to have them here in haiti but not be with me...however...i am totally missing my ti zwazo...i think i might have a problem...is there a babies anonymous? anyway, i hear she is doing okay just super cranky...her mama and keziah and i took her and johnny j and loveinsky to the aids clinic at ti frer ti ser yesterday and a bowl of cheez-its, two packs of the "green cookies", countless packs of regular bon bon, three spilled cups of water, 4 temper tantrums (all loveinsky), one pulled NG tube later we were headed home...yeah, i have decided that loveinsky can no longer be considered the epitome of love itself b/c he is not in fact patient and is in fact jealous so he is disqualified on two counts...but we are keeping the name b/c when he smiles that ridiculous smile...yeah....

our kids as a whole are doing really great...several family members have visited recently which is so great for the kids...jimson is walking like a pro now...miltha, johnny, love are close...and there is a lot more talking going on...frantzo and jj and jojo and so many others are saying names and answering questions...it is so exciting! also...poutchino is still seizure free on his new med and is pulling up and trying to walk all the time...he is so quick! not to mention how well he is eating and how great his moods are! richardson is doing great on his "get ready for school" school...he is so excited to go to school like his big sister gertie...and he is doing great with his english too...gert is gert...quite a mess but wonderful and amazing and such a little mama...she has also cut way back on the temper tantrums which is nice...that girl has a will that will change this world...what an honor to see it being molded and shaped!! oh i love these ti moun yo so so so much!

my mama and my sister and my taniuska are all coming to visit on saturday for a week and i am so beyond excited...my mama got her passport in the mail yesterday so she is all official now! holy holy! i hope haiti is ready for those crizazy wonderful women...:)

i will be in the states for a few days...april 19-27th to be more informative...which means that i also bought my plane ticket for my last month here today which was really weird...i will officially be returning to the states on june 8th...after that...all kinds of thoughts and ideas...hmmm....

wait and let me warm up your ice cream...so

so today kez and i took baby miltha for a chest x-ray and then stopped by epi d'or to introduce her to the miracle of ice cream...at 9am. she was down for the sugar rush but appalled that anyone would make anything so cold...it was pretty much amazing...then we came home to witness another milestone...ti zwazo...our newest addition who is still subsisting solely on pediasure through an ng tube and her beloved cheez-its CRAWLED! we left her in the room on the floor in our efforts to not hold her ALL THE TIME and thus ruin her for life once she is healthier...she was having no part of it and when dorothy turned around there she was crawling to follow us...and mad as could be for having been left alone...of course the fact that all three of us responded to her tremendous effort by running for our cameras and smiling and laughing and clapping not picking her up RIGHT AWAY only made the tiny bird more furious...if looks could kill...that is my day so far...

so the biggest story since i got home and the one that has had me so overwhelmed that doing anything...including writing about it...has been an extra challenge...on saturday after getting in from our trip to gonaives and saying bye to the team and meeting ti zwazo and seeing our kids i had missed and mama dorothy and kez and dannae and the nannies...i went to take the much needed bath...everyone was excited....when i came out i heard the car leaving (everyone hears when our car leaves) and since we rarely ever drive a dark i immediately thought something was wrong with the baby...instead i found dorothy holding her and saying that what we had been hearing rumor of and dreading had happened...the government had come into the ravine where many of our kids come from, where many of sherrie's students live, where keziah walks and treats sick children and families every week and knocked down over 300 homes...crushed them and pushed the debris into the ravine where it would be neary impossible to salvage from...kez and sam were on their way down to see what they could do...

after praying and hugging and at least laying eyes on as many families as they could...they managed to secure a warehouse as very temporary sleeping space for all the people who were now homeless and hadn't found somewhere to spend the night...not long after that...it started to rain...probably the hardest thing i have done since i have been in haiti...maybe in my whole life....was to lay my head down in a dry bed, under a solid roof, with a full belly that night....

the next day i went down with kez and sam to survey the situation in the daylight...it is so overwhelming and it is only the beginning... more sections are coming down every day...all in the supposed name of progress...the mayor claims to be planning to widen and repair roads...even if that were true...they are destroying at a much faster rate than they could ever hope to build...and displacing 1000s of the poorest people with little or no warning and no compensation after they would have just struggled to come up with a year's rent 2 months ago. the odds of finding a place and money to pay for it with are at their worst and even leaving town for the country puts them away from resources, schools and meals for their kids, medical care, jobs, missionaries...you get the idea. it is such a mess...kez was able to help some of her families, sherrie some of hers, and i drove down and helped move one of our nannies out of her home which is scheduled for demolition. but the effects of this are going to be so lasting and it overwhelms my heart...who and where and how to help ....the questions are so big and it makes me feel so small...how do i show these people that god is bigger than this...that his love for them is bigger than this...

behold the power of cheese...its

so back to the cheez-its...this baby who has refused to eat and pretty much been the epitome of pitiful since i met her (barely even crying and even managing to sleep in a way that seems pitiful) and i were hanging out and i stopped by my room for a handful of crackers..this child who has done nothing but lay there reached out her hand...so i gave her a flake that probably amounted to an eighth of a cheez-it cracker knowing that she had refused to eat anything by mouth so far and expecting the same result...by the time we got to the next room she was munching away and then sat up to reach back towards my room and whimper...this was by far the most action i had seen out of this kid so i headed back that way...confused as to what could be going on...but when she saw the cheez-it box she totally went for it...so i got her a bowl of what was mostly crumbs anyway (anything in the cracker/chip family is usually mostly crumbs by the time it makes it to our store shelves) and the baby who hadn't let us put anything in her mouth and has gagged everytime we put milk in her ng tube FED HERSELF cheez-it crumbs the rest of the night! so the next 3 days went as such...she would let us do pretty much anything as long as some cheez-its were involved...the baby who never wants to be put down would even gladly lay down quietly and sleep in her own bed as long as she had a mouth full of cheez-it crumbs...cheez-its might save this baby's life...i have always been a fan but this takes it to a whole new level...keziah and i went on quite the little walking adventure to find this baby some more cheez-its and are working on a letter to the company to see if we can get them to make a nutritionally enhanced form of cheez-it...or at least give us a lifetime supply...anyway...the pictures really say it all...

before cheez-its...


and after...

ti bird

so i am sitting in kerven's extra bed with a tiny little bird asleep (thank goodness) next to me....her name is rosetiana...she is 21 months old, 10 1/2 pounds, hiv postive...and not only does she have a major thing for rubbing her braids...she is apparently addicted to cheez-its...ti rose, or ti zwazo as i like to call her (little bird) came to faith hope love while i was still in gonaives with kathy and the team....i was already pretty anxious to get home to rue dalia but when i heard about her i really couldn't get here fast enough...she is so beautiful and precious but heartbreakingly sick...she just finished a 2 week stint in the hospital for malnutrition but after a week back at home she is back to where she was before the hospital...her little belly is so sunken in and she is so small and frail that it is hard to remember she is almost 2 years old...especially when you dress her in 6-9 month onesies and feed her 60cc of pediasure every hour through an ng tube...

go..going...gone...went? who invented english anyway...

so after much back and forth and one sleepless night i decided that i was in fact supposed to go up to gonaives (the worst of the flooded areas from september 2008...and 2004 for that matter) with the team that came from berry college/sunny brooks marketplace....it wasn't that i didn't want to go...i just didn't want to be away from here all week...but it felt right and it was...but what a week to wait and try to blog about all at once...and it seems like old news compared to what has happened since...but we will get to that....

so on sunday after church and saying good bye to the wonderful team from new vision fellowship kervens and i headed to the airport with emory and mary and austin betz (a really great guy from wisconsin who has come to help out with the wilson's work in gonaives for the next few months) to do the hurry up and wait dance...about two bottles of water in they finally began to emerge from building into the chaos that is leaving the pap airport...no matter what you do to try to prepare and organize the process it is a lot of grapping and yelling and searching the crowd...it was so great to see those lovely familiar faces of kathy and cory and sam and kevin...and then of course the 4 new and very overwhelmed ones from berry college! after some rearranging of bags and tying everything down we piled into and onto the truck and headed for an orphanage about halfway up...it was so weird and so lovely to be sitting on top of suitcases next to kathy brooks...oh how i have missed her! but it was a little tough to catch up in the back of a truck barreling down a dusty road...a week later i still don't feel like we have really had the chance to do that...but we have gotten to do lots of other stuff so it is okay :)

we spent the night at the orphanage which meant getting to meet lot of new kids and see our precious emily marie who lives there now that she well, fat and sassy! she spent some critical time here at faith hope love and was natasha's baby...how wonderful to get to check up on her! she can even say tasha's name now! the best thing about the night for me was probably when i walked into a hallway and about 30 screaming, laughing, soaking wet, naked children came barreling at me out of a bathroom at the other end...followed by a nanny who had obviously given up on trying to keep this crowd calm amidst the arrival of a gwo machin (big truck) and lots of blancs (us)! i wish i had a picture or video...but i know i will never forget the image...it was so priceless...
in the morning we headed out again and after a few stops for haitian goodies from streetside merchan and a potty break or two we were in gonaives...a place that has rested in my mind and heart, my thoughts and prayers so very often since my last trip last june, but a place i haven't seen since the flooding caused by 4 back to back hurricances last fall. some things were stikingly the same...others completely unrecognizable...it would be a week of continuous revelations as on each outing i would see some new evidence of loss, or some new sign of life going on...

during the week the group as a whole would work on some damaged roofs, shovel some mud, visit, pray with, and treat some ill and injured members of the community and help with the daily food distribution at jubilee and raboto...one of our big jobs of the week was finding children who had been tested by an earlier group for vitamin and iron deficencies...the children who were in critical ranges needed vitamins...so we just had to find them, give them the meds, and explain to them and the crowd around why the whole bottle should be give to this one child...not all the kids in the family or the community...pa problem! it went really well though with some major help from kervens translating and some great guidance by the holy spirit...we were able to distribute almost all of the bottles and to make some great connections with the children and families of jubilee...

the feeding programs proved to be a big challenge for the group as a whole and a major place of learning and growing for us all...what a thing to do every single day...god bless the hands that have taken that on...may they be daily strengthened for the tasks before them....the big thing that i learned in that place was how much more we are saying to these children...that they get way more from us in that building every day than rice and beans...and it is really important to be concious of what i am giving the people around me with the way i live...everything communiates...what am i saying?

i also learned a lot about communal living sleeping on the roof every night...good times....

i was a beautiful and devastating time of seeing the beauty of the people of gonaives...seeing the devastation they have endured...seeing the fire and spirit with which they have endured it...there is so much to say and i know it will keep coming out as i process the whole experience...so i guess keep checking back...

one thing that was interesting and good was how ready i was to get back to my babies here in port...i missed them so much! and the night before i got home i found out we had a new baby...21 months old and 10 1/2 pounds...hiv positive...which brings me to my next story...

notification and navigation

so some of you may be aware that every town i have ever moved to has started a road widening project right around my arrival on a road i had to use frequently...which usually resulted in me dealing with construction the whole time i lived there and then there being a much nicer road for me to travel on once i had moved away...people have invited me to come live with them so they could get their road paved etc...so seeing as the road system is a big issue in haiti we jokingly remarked that maybe my moving here would be how haiti got their roads fixed...

fast foward to last night...we were sitting around talking and heard some noise outside...some members of the group we have in right now helping us around the house wanted to know what it was...just the sounds of haiti...you never really know...but two of us could swear we hear spraypaint cans being shaken...this morning we found this...which is apparently how the government notifies you that they plan to widen your street...and take down your wall as well as your living room and dining room and half of your backyard to do it...in a month...

so that should be interesting...its really fun to try to explain that to the group who has just spent three days putting building stuff on the other side of that wall...good thing they are amazing wonderful people...and i am not just saying that b/c they brought popcicles...

in other, less destructive, news...yesterday i took my haiti driving to a whole new level...navigation...we had to make a trip to the hardware store (to build the shelves that might now be torn down by the mayors peeps) and will (pastor from above mentioned amazing group) really wanted to drive in haiti...so i rode shotgun and gave directions...even though i had never been there...i know that doesn't sound so amazing but you need to know a few things...i am no navigator even in the states...finding your ways along the streets of haiti is a trick with a hole in it as my daddy would say (and often in this case with literal holes!)...there are no maps...

so after having taken only one semi solo outing in haiti i took two blancs on a little adventure...we stopped at the grocery to cash a check...get a few things...and chat with the locals...i actually ran into someone i met at the sugar cane park in true "jesup we socalize at the grocery store style"...to the hardware store...translated a little creole...and then strapped some lumber to the top of the truck in true precarious teameffort style and then home again....and we made it! it was a really happy day for me...i felt like it was really finally truly HERE somehow...anyway...

i love this place...i love my life...i love you all.

funny thing about blogging...

is that i usually remember to do it...or stop to do it...when there is nothing going on...when there is stuff to say i am to distracted by actually doing it to write about it....anyway....i have officially been here for a month as of saturday...sometimes it feels like it couldn't have been that long already and sometimes it feels way to familiar to not be the life i have always lived....weird...





the big news would have to be my first solo driving experience! keziah, emanuel, and i took johnny j and LOVEinsky (i officially decided this is how you should spell his name) to get them enrolled in an aids clinic...kez had to meet some people at the airport so i took her there and then went back to the hospital ALONE to pick up emanuel and the kids...it was a great success...i did make one u-turn but that was just b/c all the kids who beg at your windows distracted me from making the turn...i did know to make it! and besides, anyone who knows how i feel about u-turns knows it would have been as good a time for me if i hadn' t gotten to make one...the boys have lots of appointments coming up as they get going in the clinic so i think this will be a trip i will be doing in my sleep eventually...



i feel like we made a huge breakthrough with frantzo, the child who was affected by a stroke...in spending time with him we have discovered that he knows a lot more actual words that we thought and the appropriate uses for them...now if i can just get him to take that finger out of his mouth and use them more often and more clearly he can get what he wants without having to cry ALL THE TIME! he loves music and he can sing the e-i-e-i-o song....he will sing it forever...so i have made up motions that require both hands to go with the animals and he copies me which gets him using that left hand that we need to strengthen and improve motor function on...he loves it! his birthday is this week...he will be three...and i am really excited about the possibilities!

speaking of songs...i was rocking a little girl to sleep the other night and i was singing to her...i started singing the "hush little baby..." song and i realized that it is much easier to come up with things that rhyme to buy the baby and the what those things will do or stop doing to cause me to buy baby another thing when the child doesn't speak english...i was gonna buy her a monkey's tail...but if that monkey's tail won't swish...mama's gonna buy her some slimy fish...and if those slimy fish smell bad....mama's gonna buy her a launching pad...you get the idea...you just have to be able to sing it without laughing or she will never fall asleep....

poutchino has started a new medication and so far has been seizure free since then...he is so interested in walking and he pulls himself up and hangs on to whatever he can find to get around...that is really great news b/c it means he has an interest in being more independent and learning more...he is also vocalizing more...no new words but more sounds and sounds that seem to indicate different desires...he is so beautiful...someone who lives near me should really take him home. anyone interested?

i am really trying to learn creole...kez helps a lot and so do the nannies...and kervens....even the kids help me! i even had a creole lesson in the local store we shop at (one stop)... the cashier, manager, and even a security guard were all helping coach me on what to say - it was hilarious!


being here...being with the kids...meeting their families...walking down the street...looking at their stars...driving on their roads....waiting in these hospital waiting rooms....it all makes me see life so much differently and just see it so much...well...more...