Preparations in Haiti

I have been pretty busy lately.  There is just a little over a week left until the HTF camp.  Sheridan’s group along with others from HTF will be coming down here to Haiti.  I’ve been helping a lot with preparing for this camp.  In late May I was able to go around with a few kids from Tetkole to schools in the Jacmel area to deliver registration forms for the camp and this past week we have gone back around to some of the schools to pick up the registration forms.  The school picks 5 students that ended the school year with a 7.5 out of 10 on their report card to attend the camp.  This is an incentive that Verbo, the HTF partnership development director in Haiti and who organizes the camp, believes is an important part of the camp.  He’s told me many times that he doesn’t want the camp to just be a gift to these kids, but a reward for doing well in school.  Many kids know about the camp and push to get good grades so that they can participate in the camp.

This week I will be helping put together the different groups of kids for the camps and preparing the list of kids.  We will also be having different types of meetings with the Haitian monitors, similar to camp counselors, for the camp so that they know what to do and are prepared for the camp.  We also will be helping set things up for the camp, like getting name tags ready for the kids.  These next two weeks will be pretty busy preparing for the camp and having the camp.

While I’ve been down here I was able to get a SIM Card for my phone with the help from one of the kids at Tetkole whose name is Sergot.  At first I only had a couple of Haitian numbers, them being Verbo and Sergot, so I haven’t really had the opportunity to use my minutes that much other than to talk to Verbo and make a few calls back home.  But recently I’ve added more contacts to my phone.  So some of the kids from Tetkole will shoot me a text every once in a while.  Texting in Kreyol is definitely a whole new language with abbreviations and the shortening of words.  So to them I’m probably like my dad when it comes to texting.  But I have learned from Dr. Jacque that they have taken some of the “texting” words from the English language.  The biggest one being “lol”.

The City of Jacmel, Haiti.

 Thank you for all the continued prayers and support.  I apologize for not being able to post more on the blog and will try to keep it updated through these busy weeks