Saturday - We arrived!

Wonderful! Just wonderful! What a wonderful day!
We arrived in Port-au-Prince, Haiti a little after 8am. It was a smooth flight with an almost empty airplane. Each person had their own set of seats except Heidi who wanted me with her to help with the ear pain upon descent. We had no problem at Immigration or getting our luggage. Even customs was easy. We found our ride (or rather, they found us) and took a small bus (or van) with all 15 pieces of our luggage. We soon arrived at the Crèche Notre Dame de le Nativite and Petoucheka was waiting for us. After a few great hugs, the kids all disappeared and we got settled in our same room as last time.



We spent the day playing with the kids, blowing bubbles, giving piggy back rides, trading Kreyol and English terms, and taking pictures. We had a late breakfast of mamba picante e pan (spicy Haitian peanut butter and bread) and café (coffee) around 11. We then ate a huge lunch around 2:30pm consisting of poule (chicken), diri (rice), peas, salad, e bannann (plantains). Petoucheka saved the chicken bones in a napkin for sucking out the marrow later… I see restaurant doggy bags in our futures.
We met the other kids being adopted by people on the Adopting from Haiti Facebook board and got lots of their pictures. I even tried a couple of times to get a photo with all of them together but that wasn’t happening…! There were a few small scuffles between some of the kids (no, not Ben, Simon, and Heidi which is really surprising since they have been up for over 15 hours as of now) and we comforted and held some kids through the tears. I think it helped.



Ben, Simon, and Heidi had a short nap after lunch (because they desperately needed it) but only Simon slept… yet he denies it. Everyone was much less whiny afterwards. Petoucheka got to open her gifts (both what we brought her for her birthday in September and for Christmas) and we sang Happy Birthday (again) to her. She got a brightly colored fleece blanket for snuggling for her birthday… She loved it! Then we did Christmas… Ben gave her the game LCR for herself since it was such a hit last visit. Simon picked out a small unicorn stuffed animal for her named Magic. Heidi gave her 2 bracelets, a pink hand sanitizer container, and a pair of Obie eyes (you wear on your hand). We also gave her a small Spirograph (we should have brought blank paper too…. Oops), a loom bracelet set that Heidi is helping her to learn right now, a frilly jump rope, and a turtle bracelet. Funny, but I think her favorite was the Obie eyes.

We watched the kids dance, went through donations with Eveline, and had a nice light dinner before the kids all crashed in bed... all except Petoucheka who got to skype with Nan Nan and Pap Paw. Hopefully she will get to see Grandpa and Grandma Rogers tomorrow.



We are hoping to pass out gifts and skype with people tomorrow and Monday is a day of Court appearances. I wish we had one more day so we could go to the Embassy as well. We will see what happens.

For now – I’m going to go get some sleep myself!

Bondye Beni ou (God Bless you),
Shelby

Photos tomorrow - with any luck...!