Arrival in Lagossette

We arrived safely to the village of Lagossette with few hiccups in our travels. We did end up waiting around in Fort Lauderdale airport for 3 and a half hours longer than expected. Our flight was smooth and Lynx Air improved service with a bigger plane and a stewardess with a New York accent.

At the orphanage we were not the only new arrival. Three new babies were admitted in the past 48 hours. This means more babies requiring special attention, including feedings throughout the night. It has been fun to see the growth of some of the previous babies we saw in March, especially the one we spent the most time with.

Our hours of sleep has decreased because we are taking care of a baby each night and are giving regular feedings. Good practice for ten years down the road. Adjusting to new people, food, pace of life, and a whole new kind of hot has been challenging. It feels strange to think we are not leaving anytime soon.

The village soccer team has invited Kurt to play with them. We're not sure if its the ball, access to a vehicle, or his actual skill level. Soccer is played on small dirt fields. As we wait for Kurt's soccer shoes to arrive we get to see him trudge around in a pair of old new balance tennis shoes.
Tomorrow we embark on our journey through the Creole' language in the neighboring village of Milot. We will stay in an old mission Monday through Friday for three weeks. The weekends will be spent back at the orphanage. More details to come but we are eager to improve our communication.

For some reason, it's not working to post pictures right now, so we'll try later so you can see where we live!

Happy Independence Day!

We are currently sitting in a hotel room watching venus and serena in the wimbledon final in Florida. We arrived yesterday and are relaxing on the beach until Tuesday.

We got a chance to say our goodbyes and had a great week spending time with friends and family. We loved spending more time with Graham, our host for the last week, and waking up to him saying, "mama, maaa-maaa!"

Here's some pictures from last week. Hope everyone has a happy 4th of July!

Homeless and unemployed

That's right...as of Saturday, we're officially homeless and unemployed. Big shout-out to all who helped us move this weekend. Everyone was speedy and efficient.

Helpful tip to anyone moving: always unscrew the TV cable before moving the TV out to the truck. If you don't, you will only get so far...

We're going to miss living in "the hill" and our first apartment together. But, we moved in with Drew, Amy, and Graham, and are taking advantage of their hospitality. Just finishing up some last minute packing and spending time with family and friends before we leave on Friday.

Goodbye apartment on College...we'll miss you.

Letter

We sent out a letter this week thanking everyone for their help and prayers. I hope you are receiving them. Laura is finishing up her last weekend shifts and then just has two more left on Wednesday and Thursday.
I am not sure how this blog thing works but i think you can respond to posts. If so, please reply without hesitation, it does not have to be well thought out or anything. This is my weakest post so far but i just wanted to start getting in the mode of blogging.

This is a picture of a Tap Tap, also known as a taxi. Little crowded.

-guy who is wondering how many people will actually read this

Update

We are leaving for Haiti on July 3, 2009. Our tickets are open ended and we are planning on returning around Christmas. In the last few months we have been getting ready to leave and be effective when we get there. Learning Creole is a challenge and we are not that good at it. I hope to do a blog in Creole eventually. Laura is excited to start taking care of babies medical needs. So, what is Kurtis doing? Well, I'm not going down there to paint walls. I have been doing some additional studying on Play Therapy. I will be doing therapy with the orphans on a regular basis. I am new to play therapy but am excited about using it to help these kids. I will not bore you with the therapeutic language that describes play therapy. Its simply a process of helping kids discovering self. The play therapy process should be fun and i think the kids will enjoy it.

Oh, no big deal but i will be graduating from graduate school in a few weeks. I can't wait to be done with school. Laura has 6 more shifts of work left before she is done.
We are going to start blogging more frequently now, i hope you find our post interesting and we will try to make it fun.

-couple who just got Chaco's to manage the treacherous terrain

I love babies

I wanted to add some of my thoughts on the week we spent at Children of the Promise (COTP) and more about what I will be doing there. Right now there is a nurse there named Rebekah, who has been there since January and will overlap with us in July for a couple weeks and then head back home to Washington. She's my age and worked with adults before going to Haiti, so that made me feel a little better about my lack in nursing experience with kids. Fortunately, Rebekah will be able to train me when we get there. She's a great nurse and was very welcoming to us on our visit. I'm sad that we won't be working together the whole time we're there.

So twice a day we passed meds to the kids. There are 3 HIV+ kids and 2 of them are on ARVs (which is great that they can get them for free!) But they need to take them on a strict schedule, so we did meds at 7am and 7pm. Most of the kids are great with taking their meds, with the exception of a few spitters:) My favorite part of the day was the kid's bedtime, because we'd go and give meds while Kurt brushed their teeth and then cuddle the babies and say goodnight. They're all clean and snuggly in their pjs and just love to be held...

As I've already told a lot of you, one of the best parts of the week was taking care of Alex. He was brought in on our third day there by his father and was only about 10 days old. His mom had died shortly after giving birth and his dad didn't think he could take care of him. At only 4lb 7oz, he was TINY but healthy overall. COTP agreed to take im for 3 months and then see if his dad was ready to have him back or go from there. So Alex spent the next 6 nights in our room and we got a little taste of having a newborn:) He didn't really cry when he was hungry yet, so I just set my alarm and woke up to feed him every 3 hours. But he was already gaining weight by the time we left (almost up to 5lbs) and starting to cry for food. I fell in love and can't wait to see him when we go back. They just emailed us some pictures of him and he's already looking chubby!

So to answer the statement of "I bet you'll come home with a baby" that I've gotten from many different people, I'll clarify once and for all that a) it doesn't work like that and b) you have to be 30 to adopt from Haiti. So we won't be coming home parents, but maybe someday...

COTP asks that pictures of their kids aren't put on other websites, so we won't be putting any pics of them on here, but you can see how precious they are on their website, http://www.childrenofthepromise.org/. And we can email some to you while we're there. They really are all beautiful. Adoption is such an awesome thing and it became much more real to us while we were there. Seeing the adoptive parents meet their kids and how excited the kids were for them to come was such a beautiful thing. I could barely keep the tears in. God's work is clearly evident at COTP, the children are accepted and loved and in great hands.

-girl that has a lot to learn

Blogging is not in our routine yet

We are alive, sorry for the delay. The experience was ridiculous. Our travels down to Haiti were smooth and exciting. I barely fit in the plane, picture me touching my toes and shuffling forward. That's how i got to my seat. It was weird there was no security at the airport we just walked out to the plane and got on.
Once we got to the orphanage we got the tour of the facilities which are royalty compared to the surrounding village. Then we met the kids. We walked in and they came running to meet us. It was a heart warming experience.
So, what did you do? OK, Laura got a crash course in how to run the place as a head nurse which included medication, common diseases in the kids, and seeing where everything was to treat people. I picked up a paint brush and put my skills to work on the new building. What did you like the most? The kids are the best part. Ages 0-5. We tried to spend a lot of time just giving the kids much needed attention. Laura gave meds at night and i was in charge of brushing the kids teeth. It was great, man they love toothpaste. What else? Well we got to see three kids go to their adoptive home. This was also a moving experience.
The poverty is hard to describe. I guess the best way to say it is, they are surviving not developing or growing. These people are living day to day just trying to make it.
We are going to try to do better with the blogging. Laura may edit this post.

-couple that got diarrhea