Oy.

well, i never thought i could harm an animal, but last night, well, i came very close.  dogs to me run a close second to children in my "what i love most" list  (sometimes they even come first depending on the kid!)  i went to bed purely exhausted, but only managed about 15 minutes sleep.  we have two watch dogs - one a rottie and the other a small mutt.  i often wondered why the small mutt, but now i know.  out of the "bark is worse than the bite" well, he is the bark of the two.  and he managed to do so NON STOP from 10pm until 5:30 a.m., when he kindly proceeded to fall asleep from pure exhaustion.  perfect timing, as we get up about 6.

so enough of that. i wanted to take a few moments before breakfast to quickly capture our day yesterday.  we had a full day. we weren't on the work site, and instead went to grace childrens hospital, which is the only children's hospital around.  we were able to get a two hour tour with another group who was visiting (can't remember from where).  incredible....between the rubble from the earthquake were makeshift clinics for GYN, opthamology, internal medicine.  they set up clinic in truck containers (containers to clinics is what hte org is called).  what was truly amazing were the xrays of TB patients - they were set up outside on a metal wire hanger on the ground.  against the rubble from the earthquake.  i took lots of pics to show my hospital friends. 

the most difficult part of my trip was then going into the one room with bed upon bed of sick children and babies.  we had about 75 "hope dolls" which someone from our church made - they are adorable and all different.  and we brought them to hand out to the children who were there and leave the rest behind.  most of the children had TB, HIV, and were malnourished.  they were beautiful.  two that struck me most were a little girl (three years old) with glaucoma. and the other, Genevieve, who was 11 months old, but only weighed 7.25 lbs.  i held her the entire time, and was so afraid of hurting her little fragile body.  i put two of my fingers over her upper arm, and her arm didn't even measure up to that.  i cry as i type this, because it is unfair.  NO child should be in this position.....and what struck me most, was when i sang to her and held her, she reached her tiny hand up to my face and squeezed it and then held my hand.  and her doll, oh how she loved it...she knew it was there and held it as best as she could.  Genevieve had no strength to keep her head up, and when i layed her back in her bed, she began to cry, so i stayed with her until i could get up and move away and she was good with just her doll.  my heart just breaks.  on the positive side, these are the children that are getting treatment - there are so many in haiti who cannot afford it, or many of them, don't even know of the hospitals existance (which is what we ran into on our work site).  The U.S. National Director of International Child Care approached me after finding out what I do for work and asked if i could help him - they are heading into a capital campaign and have no fundraisers or consultants to help through the project. i gladly accepted.

from the hospital we headed down to the capitol, which was just surreal.  the last time i saw it two years ago, it stood there beautiful and white (the only place in the country with such beauty) and now, it was crumbled to the ground.  and in front where once a beautiful green park rested, was now covered in a tent city.  i know much work has been done down here since the earthquake, but this was somewhat shocking.....

we then went into the national history museum, which resides next to the palace, but is underground.  we had a tour and it was really amazing.  i also found out that christopher columbus was NOT a nice man - he took part (and headed) a mass genocide in haiti.  crazy - our history books never mentioned this.

and last night we packed about 200 bags - one each with a shirt or pants (thank you my friends!!!!!!), a couple of crayons, stickers, pencils, scissors, eraser, and whatever else.  we will pass these out to our village at the end of today.  and on that note, today is our last day with our friends/family in croix des mission.  jason and gregg from the valley news (journalist/photographer) arrived here last night and will come with us to tour the village and see what the earthquake did, and the houses we helped to rebuild (and which ones we will help next).  interesting - most buildings have either a green spray paint mark or a red one all throughout the country.  green means it is safe to inhabit, and red means they have to tear it down......

after the tour of the village, back to our work site for a final performance from the children (what they learned this past week - dance/song) then one final luncheon together, and then our goodbyes, which will for sure be difficult.

i will post tonight......need to run as we are headed out.

bon jour.