Updates and Contrasts

Updates
Happy New Year!  January first is a big holiday here in Haiti, as it is Haitian Independence Day.  Most of the sisters went to visit their families for the holiday.  I spent January first in Florida with my mother and father, who spend much of the winter there.  After spending a couple of days there with them, they drove me to the airport in Miami on Sunday morning.  Sunday afternoon, I returned to Haiti.  Two of the sisters who live here returned from family visits the same day and the postulants returned today.  It was wonderful to travel and visit and connect with people and it is also equally wonderful to be back in my current home and reunite with the sisters here.

Only a few of the older children have returned to the orphanage; one of the secondary schools has resumed classes.  Most of the children will come on Sunday and the primary school most of the children attend will reopen on Monday morning (si Dye vle.)  There is a school schedule in the orphanage convent, which seems to indicate that schools were to open on Monday of this week.  Someone explained to me that the reason it did not open has something to do with tradition.  Last year, if I recall correctly, the school did attempt to open before the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6th) and many children were absent, so it seems that is the reason it is not opening until next week.  I was very happy to see the children who have returned and look forward to seeing the others when they arrive.  I am using this time to organize and clean the playroom and prepare for my therapy groups and for my English class.

Contrasts

On Tuesday  of last week, I waited for the snow to turn to rain, put on my winter coat and boots, scraped ice off of my parents' Buick, drove myself to Massachusetts to visit my twin sister. Later that evening I walked gingerly along an icy sidewalk between a parking lot and an Asian restaurant where I met a friend for dinner before returning to Rhode Island.
Today I wore summer clothes and sandals, and drove a convent bicycle the one mile between the convent where I live and the orphanage.  On the way home I briefly stopped the bicycle along the unpaved dusty road to chat with some neighborhood children.
While last Tuesday and today were so strikingly different from one another, I can say both were very good days!

I hope you are enjoying your days wherever you are and whatever you are doing.  Take care.  Many blessings!