Totally tourist

On Sunday, Dolly got up early and went to the local Baptist church.

I slept in. Are you surprised? We are sleeping in a room that is only closed off with curtains, so the two births that night managed to create enough noise that I couldn’t go to sleep for hours, tired as I was.

Later that day, ten of us piled into the Toyota Land Cruiser (we were squished in a way that I have never been squished before) and took a trip to an old fishing village.
Feast your eyes on these babies.

Old boats lay abandoned on the sand all along the coast.

Here is a new and innovative use for old shoe soles.

Should you ever need one.

This is Rachel.

If I ever have another daughter, I want it to be her.

We walked along a narrow pier. Sunday must be net-fixing day and this pleasant gentleman was happy to have his photo taken.

Not so all Haitians. Today, I took photos of some children who were begging me to take pictures of them. I complied and they were enormously amused at the images of themselves. Then along came an older lady with a bundle on her head who kept calling me blan and making sideways motions across her throat with her hand. I think she was telling me to give her money, but I fled. With great dignity, of course, but fled nonetheless. I later found out that that particular gesture meant that she was hungry.
I felt bad.

I couldn’t help but think that his afternoon on the boat was pretty idyllic, with the sunshine and the quietness of the sea all around him. No doubt, to him it was just work, but he could do worse.

This boat is, I fear, beyond hope.

Pop bottles are used as floats for crab or lobster traps that are made from some kind of reeds or leaves, perhaps banana leaves.

This gave me a chuckle.

This post took me five days to upload, so feel free to hit the "like" button in appreciaton.

Mesi.

We arrive

Our first view of Haiti. We were running late, as first there was a problem with the manifest, which held us up for about 45 minutes while they checked everyone’s passports. Then they had to top up fuel because we had sat on the tarmac with the engine idling for so long. Then they had to take out a few suitcases because we were too heavy. Yup. I think that was our fault. Somehow, they got those cases to Miami and they arrived at Cap Haitien only an hour after we did.

Serendipitously, we didn’t have to go through inspection at customs, so after trusting our bags to a MBH employee, we piled into the official MBH car and went on an adventure.
Cap is its usual appealing self.

Sarah took the five of us new volunteers to the Hotel du Roi Christophe for an orientation.

The outside of the hotel is so interesting that it took us a few minutes to get inside.

This is Henri Christophe, who was one of the leaders of the revolution against French rule. True to Haitian form, he was ironically proclaimed Henry I, King of Haiti in 1804. He was an unpopular monarch and shot himself with a bullet rather than face a coup.

There is something about Haitian art that speaks to me.
It says Susan, buy me.
And I answer, But my husband will hate you!

This is Sarah, the hard-working midwife who directs the clinic. She gave us the low-down on daily life at the clinic and gave us time to unwind after our long-winded travels.

After a bumpy, dusty, hot, crowded drive to the clinic, it didn’t take Dolly long to find a baby to cuddle. This little cutie’s mother died and when the dad brought her to MBH she was almost dead. She’s two months old and is the size of a newborn. Sarah has hired Dad to do some painting around the house and sends him home with formula for the baby. Hooray for all our friends who donated formula! Baby is doing much better, smiling and eating and acting curious. Her hands and feet are so tiny.

By the time we got to bed on Saturday night, I was so exhausted that I couldn't sleep. The nocturnal noises of the clinic and the neighbourhood kept me awake most of the night. Imagine birth noises, midwives talking outside your room, cocks crowing all night, dogs barking, and crickets striking up the band. 

Ah, Haiti, how I have missed you!

This post was going to be a lot longer but it took me four days to get these pictures loaded.

So there ya go.

The journey begins. And a birthday.

Jonnie turned thirty on Thursday. 

Here he is, in all his glory.

About all that gear he's rocking?

Don't ask! The child is incorrigible.

He got a bag of Lindor truffles, some cash, a kiss, and a cake from his Mom.

Buttermilk cake with whipped cream mousse frosting.

Drool if you want.

If I didn't know better, I would say he loves his Squeaker more than anything else in the world.

On second thoughts, maybe I don't know better.

As for me and Dear Dolly, we're on our way.

With all our eleven-plus bags

And here we sit in Terminal 4 at Fort Lauderdale Airport, waiting for our early-morning check-in.

A not-very-helpful Haitian porter transported our bags about twenty yards to the shuttle, for which he earned a very handsome (in retrospect) tip.

When we got to Terminal 4 and were off-loaded (with no ceremony) by the Haitian driver (You're killing me, he said) we sat on a bench by the curb in the balmy night air, collecting ourselves and planning a strategy for the night. Our check-in tomorrow is at 3:30am, so we needed to find a place to hang out. We were feeling thrifty after the porter thing, so decided to hunt down some abandoned carts.

Did you know that airport carts cost $4 each nowadays?

Daylight robbery!

After having no luck taking turns wandering the parking lot, we stalked a couple of people with carts and nabbed them (the carts) as soon as they were alone.

Score for us!

If you haven't seen middle-aged women celebrating free luggage carts at the airport, you haven't seen jubilation.
Trust me on that.

Here he is...

...the little darling.

Darn, I feel another trip to the East Coast in the offing.

Some news and a b(r)ag

First off, in news that makes me about the luckiest nana this side of the Mississippi (that was just to show you that I could spell it), I have a new grandson. Gabriel Edwin, born yesterday to Annie and, you guessed it, Edwin. He's a healthy little chubbo and the birth was relatively smooth. I was very grateful to Annie for not announcing the labour proceedings until they were almost at an end. I have a couple of photos but they're on my phone. Hopefully, one of my savvy children will post a photo on the web soon and I can steal it.

If you haven't been keeping track, that makes two babies in a little over a week.

I know, lucky us!

I expect somewhat of a dearth on the procreation front for at least the next year.

Second big news; I am leaving for Haiti on Friday morning. I feel less prepared this time, but maybe it's because I was going into the unknown last year and was obsessive about packing and getting everything ready early. My friend, Dolly, is going with me and I am so thrilled to spend this time with her. We are packing bags this afternoon and will also take some over for the MBH board, so will be loaded down with luggage again. 

I told Jeff that I wanted a netbook for Christmas so that I could blog on the go and not have to carry so much weight, so I got a sweet little Acer netbook from Costco. The timing was fortuitous, because my laptop has been having some connection issues when we're away from home. After several hours on the phone with HP, I had to do a recovery on it, which is a nasty, inconvenient process. I'm unwilling to restore all my files until I can test it out some more, so the Acer has been my weapon of choice for the last week or so. 

It is a cute, teeny little thing and I couldn't wait to make this adorable pouch for it. 

I made it from two layers of leftover fleece that I had hung on to for such a purpose. 

You can see in this picture that I pieced small remnants of the fabric together. They were left over from some instrument bags that I made. It's very easy to do with a zigzag or other decorative stitch. 

Three old buttons and some bias tape completed the job.

I didn't think ahead one this one very well and had to get creative on the edging. 

On the first envelope I made for my HP laptop, I had a larger piece of fleece and was able to sew it right sides together and turn it inside out, so I only ended up with one edge to finish.

I also sewed velcro onto the fabric before sewing the side seams...

...and a few sunny daisy patches.

I am unreasonably in love with the small one.

I know it's not a tutorial, but tutorials abound on other websites.

Yup. This blog will never be a moneymaker for me. Pure labour of love.

Here, here, and here are some decent tutorials on making your own laptop sleeve, although if you have sewn anything I think it is kind of intuitive. Any of them would be easily adaptable to sewing with fleece, which I like because of its natural padding qualities and lack of fraying edges. It is such a versatile fabric.

In case you haven't seen enough of my handiwork for one day, here are pics of some of the bags I've created by using the natural shape of each instrument as the pattern.

My doumbek has a head cover as well as a bag.

Ukelele bag with a carrying strap and velcro at the wide end.

Bodhran bag with carrying handle.

And that, my lovely readers, is the end.

Thank you for staying with me.

Till next time.

The littlest angel