WORLD CUP 2014!!!

Four years of waiting finally over!!  Although some of you may not even have known the World Cup was happening until you started hearing about someone named Tim Howard who could save the world, in Haiti we anticipate it with great excitement.  Haitian soccer fans can—as a general rule—be divided into two camps: Brazil fans and Argentina fans.  Or on the other side of the coin: anti-Argentina fans and anti-Brazil fans.  Obviously—that is, if you were following the World Cup—it was quite an interesting year for both sides.

I had a blast cheering for the US…their game against Belgium was hands down the most exciting match I saw.  I can’t wait to see them in 2018.  (Consequently—although the probability is slim to none—imagine if the USA won the World Cup <IN RUSSIA>, of all places...ha!) 

This year belonged to Samuel, however, as Germany rose unflinchingly and unstoppably (and a little ruthlessly) to finally claim another long-awaited World Cup victory. 

 Yes, I am knitting while I stand on the wall trying to see over the heads of the guys in front of me.

I have to say: congratulations to Klose.

I had no particularly strong loyalty to either team in the final--and I almost always feel sorry for the losers--but I can celebrate Germany's win.

…..Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand now another four years to go…

Chikungunya….its not just a virus, it’s a phenomenon!

Seriously.  I have never seen a virus like this that seems to sweep up everybody in a domino effect.  One friend told me it’s the talk of public transportation in Port-au-Prince:

Slightly dramatized dialogue:

A: Did you have the fever?

B: Yeah!  I’m still sick, but I’m making an effort.  You?

A: Yeah!

Everyone else on the bus in unison: Me too! And my entire family!

<sharing about symptoms follows>

It would be hard to estimate exactly, but a high percentage of our community has had it.

And once you get it….

….we now are all experiencing what can best be described as lingering, arthritic-like joint pain, especially in the hands/wrists and the feet/ankles…and this still weeks or months after recovering from the initial fever!  This is a problem, since its pretty hard not to use your hands and feet.  It’s the worst when your joints have stiffened after sleeping at night or sitting for a while.  Others have joint pain in their knees.  Some people have had the fever and its symptoms return multiple times.  We have varying estimations as to how long this can go on—anywhere from 6 months to 5 years! 

Six. Months. To. Five. Years?

Oh help.

Of course, I find myself less inclined to complain when I read about the Ebola virus in West Africa.

You can read more about chikungunya here.

Please continue to pray for the health of our staff and community.  Although we try to see the humor in it, it really can be debilitating and discouraging.  Please pray as well for God’s protection over those who have not yet contracted the virus.

Girls Go to Mole Saint-Nicolas!

Over the 4th of July weekend, Lara (our friend who works in Arcahaie...a fellow San Diego girl!), Bonita, Jenna, and I decided it was high time we see a different part of this small-but-difficult-to-manoever-around-in country in which we live.  We settled on Mole Saint Nicolas.  It is relatively close to us, has the reputation of being quite beautiful, and is purportedly the first place that Christopher Columbus put ashore in the "New World."

Despite its proximity, it took us three hours to get there over the mountain roads.

Excited and ready to go!  It was a nice smooth ride in Lara's Land Cruiser.

Lots of fun along the way....

We were coming down the hill behind this sullen donkey.  Lara sounded lightly on her horn to get him moving a little faster.  He then took a well-aimed jumping kick shot at her headlight with his back leg!  Luckily, he was a little too far ahead of us, and missed his target.

 Coming up out of the arid, desert-like environs of the Plateau, we could never tire of drinking in the lush, green scenery of the mountains.  THIS is the old Haiti as it is still preserved in the more inaccessible countryside.  Of course, no pictures can do it justice.

After a little over three hours, and stopping innumerable times to ask directions--which is really the only choice we had for finding our way--we finally arrived on Haiti's northwestern most tip.

Our journey wasn't quite over, though, as we still had to find the only guesthouse in town....which for some reason seemed to be a difficult task.  Eventually we got there.

white sand beach

simple, but lovely accomodations...

...with a lovely view...

(there were hammocks too, looking right out over the ocean)

 We enjoyed some lounging...

...some swimming...

...great eating...

(French fries!!  I don't know what it is, but I'm always excited to see those on the menu.)

...and just a little work.

On Saturday, we decided to drive around and see the town and the old forts in the area.  In the US, these things would be historical sites and monuments with an entrance fee and a tour guide.  Here...they're just there for us to play in.

The first one was right outside the guesthouse's gate.

taking Jenna prisoner

our dancer strikes a dramatic pose

The girls called me out to read the "Latin" inscription on the archway.  Can you see it up there?  

Its French...and I forget what it said.

We had to drive through the town of Mole Saint-Nicolas to get to the other forts...

This is a foot bridge; you have to drive through the water below.  That's one factor that almost kept us searching for the guesthouse forever.

the Catholic church

Bonita was very excited about this clapboard house.  It is indeed a rather rare sight in Haiti, where houses are usually built out of cement block....but it looks eerily like the house in a vivid nightmare I had once, in which I had to run away across one of those porches, and past those doors before someone could reach out and grab me...they didn't get me, but they did grab the person behind me and pull them into the house.

boat in process

The second fort also served as the entrance to a new beach.

But overhead...

...there were cannons!

Bonita's a pirate.

an incredible view of the inlet

Have you seen the Santa Maria anywhere around here?

Jenna set up this incredible shot!

The third fort was a mysterious, overgrown structure, isolated a little way outside of town.

This was the inside.  I have no idea what purpose this served, but it reminded me of a poem by Edna St-Vincent Millay:

There was a child that wandered through

A giant's empty house all day, —

House full of wonderful things and new,

But no fit place for a child to play.

~ "Low Tide"

It was definitely a worthwhile trip...

Hospitality Retreat

At the end of June, we did our first-ever hospitality staff retreat.  In fact, it was the first retreat like this that we’ve ever done with any of our staff.  We went to a beach resort along the Arcadian Coast called Moulin Sur Mêr.  

outside our rooms

This was a first-time experience for everyone on our hospitality staff.  It was truly a privilege to be a part of it.  Although the ladies (and Jinel…poor guy, he gets grouped in with the ladies so often, they even dubbed him with a feminine form of his name (Jinelia) as a joke)--although the ladies, have learned and served so much this year, this gave them the opportunity to be on the receiving end of service.  What’s more, they were able to make many observations that can encourage them and help them develop in their work.

They also had rare time to rest and relax and play.

As is poignantly told on the Lemuel blog, one striking difference between the Plateau and the beach resort is the plentiful abundance of water.

The ladies had never seen live monkeys before, and got quite a kick out of them (especially since one of them was named "Benjie," which is the name of one lady's son).  

One of them grabbed me and said,

“Krischelle!  A pregnant woman could never look at that thing!!”

Rather bemused, I asked, “Why not?”

“Because she’d get such a shock, she’d go into labor!”

Oh.

We held two group sessions.  One was a devotional in which we looked at what a redeemer is, why we need a redeemer, and Who is our Redeemer.  The second was a time for the ladies (always read “and Jinel”) to share the things they had observed and learned, as well as how those things could be helpful to them in their work.

One last exciting part of our trip was a visit to the resort’s museum.  Moulin Sur Mêr sits on what was once a sugar cane plantation.  Its original owner was actually killed on a trip to re-capture slaves who had run away and sought safety in the area that is now St-Marc. 

The tour guide gave us history and showed us artifacts dating from when the original natives (called Taïno in French) were on the island up to the modern day.

This piano was really old....I'm not sure I was supposed to be sitting on that bench.

The image of the "nèg mawon" is an icon in Haiti.  After just a taste of the brutal cruelty of the French, and with the freedom of Africa still fresh in their memories, many slaves broke their bonds and escaped to the mountains.  The conch shell became their battle call.

Moulin means "mill," so Moulin Sur Mêr translates"mill by the sea." In the background, you can see the huge mill that was used to expel the cane juice out of the sugar cane.

broken chains

There was also an exotic resident on the grounds of the museum.

You can read Bonita’s perspective of the hospitality retreat here on the Lemuel blog.