News from Seth

So I haven't had a lot of time to actually try and put some of my thoughts down, but we have a little bit of free time this morning. The guest house we are staying in is about a 15 minute van ride to the orphanage. The roads in Haiti are terrible. Try to think of the worst, washed out road back home, and that is just about every road here. At night we go eat at a restaurant in jeremie, and we drive through jeremie. It is a city, so you think people would be going to work, or have a vocation, but the people just sit around all day. It is like they are waiting for something. Maybe something or someone to come rescue them, but someone never comes. Everyone walks everywhere. You will see an occasional motorcycle, but most people don't have those. On sunday, on the way back to the guest house, we dropped off a mother at her house. She had walked 45 minutes to get to church with a little kid in this ridiculous heat - on mothers day. But that is just part of the deal here.

One of the things that I have been struck by with the kids is how much they simply want to be held or just touched. They fight over the ability to hold your hand. Even the older ones. For the most part, they do a good job of sharing what they have or making sure that the little kids are taken care of. For the most part, they are happy. You will see some kids crying because someone they had latched on to had picked up someone else, and they became jealous. I do worry about Bobby because I doubt he is eating as much as he needs. I think they eat one meal a day. It seems like a decent amount of food, but bobby didn't eat any of his food yesterday. I imagine that happens a lot. The mommas can't really sit down and make each child eat their food. They are busy doing all the chores. Nothing here is easy. Think of all the things we can do with the flip of a switch. They have to manually do everything. They cook food in a room with fire and pots. They wash clothes in buckets then dry them on clothes lines or by putting them on the top of the houses. The mommas rooms are really not that different than the kids rooms in terms of comfort. Their brooms to sweep are made out of sticks and twigs roped together.
No air conditioning- ever.

Starting to rain again so I must go. Miss you guys terribly.

Love Seth

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