A Few More Kodak Moments...

October 18th was National Chocolate Cupcake Day.  Obviously we had to celebrate that, so I made a batch of cupcakes with homemade chocolate-peanut butter frosting.  I can honestly say that they were some of the best (looking and tasting) cupcakes I've ever made!

Beth, Frankie and I looking classy at the beach!

We spent one Saturday morning collecting the materials from the literacy program that was happening in the Village, that will no longer be taking place.  I got to stand in the back of the pickup truck and help Beth make sure the chalkboard didn't fall out.  It was a little scary going over all the bumps.

We spent one Sunday afternoon at Tiden's bar/restaurant where there is access to parts of the river that are deep enough to swim.  It was the first time I had been swimming since the beginning of August and I was very happy to be in the water again.  I made friends with some of the kids that were also playing in the river, and we had fun jumping off the rocks together.

I clearly had a horrible time!!!

I've spent a few afternoons at the school helping to entertain the preschoolers who end an hour before the rest of the school finishes.  Many of them wait around for older siblings to finish before they walk home together.  Beth and I have had a great time hanging out with them!  They're very cute and fun to play with!

Getting all kinds of kisses!

One of the projects at the school is to fix the raised beds that are in the school yard and to replant them so that the garden is productive again.  The 6th grade is mostly responsible for this project, so Beth and I went with some students one afternoon to collect rocks from the river to repair the walls.  Although there was still some room in the wheelbarrow, the girls insisted on carrying rocks on their heads when we made our way back to school.  Beth and I gave it a try and it was incredibly hard.  Our rocks were relatively small and we didn't have to walk too far.  But women here carry huge buckets full of stuff on their heads for very long distances (with no hands to help balance it).  I'm amazed at how strong they are and how they are able to balance so much weight and walk without spilling or dropping anything.

Playing in the river!

We have thunder and lightening pretty frequently, but we've been waiting a few weeks for a really heavy rain.  It finally came yesterday.  We had crazy wind, rain and even some hail.  One of our window cranks is broken, so I had to brave the weather and venture outside to close our window and I guess Beth decided to take a picture.  I got pretty wet in the 15 seconds I was outside!

Picture This!

Thus far, I think I've taken a few hundred photos.  I can't post all of them, but I did want to share some more of them to give you a better idea of the other things I have done and the environment that I'm living in.  Enjoy!

The view from the top of our roof!

Kiddos at Lekòl Jezi-Mari in Fon Ibo.

Beth and I got caught in the rain walking back from the school one day!  We took shelter under a large banana tree!

Hanging out with some girls washing their clothes in the river.  They showed us the proper technique of hand-washing.

I spent two afternoons sorting through a huge box of donated glasses that were all jumbled together.  I individually wrapped and labeled over 400 pairs of reading and prescription glasses that will be given out at some point in the near future.

I went for my first run here last weekend.  I ran up the mountain (the same one from an earlier post) and let my feet air out a little bit  while I enjoyed the view before I made my way back down.

We've seen some pretty interesting cloud formations here. 

One of the larger projects I've taken on is sorting through all of the supplies we have for the summer camp we host every summer for the students at Fon Ibo.  It started out as a huge pile of stuff in the corner of our "library," but little by little I've gone through, counted and organized everything and complied a list so we know what we need for camp this summer.  Here's one of the before pictures.

After!

One morning when Beth and I were going to the school, she burned herself on the muffler of the moto.  The driver said that she needed to put oil on it.  So, he stopped, told us to get off, opened his gas tank and proceeded to put gasoline on her burn.  Apparently that's what many people do here to make the pain go away.  Beth was a little apprehensive about it though...

Fon Ibo School received funding for a solar computer lab.  I've helped Beth and Sony (the computer teacher) in some of the classes.  It's amazing how enthusiastic the kids are about the computers and how far they have come since I first saw them using the computers at the beginning of the year.

One of the pre-schoolers from Fon Ibo.

Finding Nemo...

October 17th is the anniversary of the death of Dessalines.  Jean-Jacques Dessalines was the leader of the Haitian Revolution and was the first ruler of the independent country of Haiti.  He helped defeat the French army in 1803 at the Battle of Vertières and after the country was declared to be independent in 1804, he was chosen to be the first governor-general.  He is considered to be a "founding father" of the country.

In honor of his death, October 17th is a national holiday.  We decided to celebrate the day by going to the beach.  I have gone swimming once since I've been here in the river and I had a blast, but this was the real Caribbean beach!  I was very excited!!!

There are several beaches that we could have gone to.  Some of them are public beaches, but these often do not have bathrooms or other facilities.  Other beaches are privately owned and are usually part of a resort-type complex with bathrooms, restaurants and other amenities.  We went to one of the resorts that was around three hours away.

I immediately jumped in the water when we arrived around 9:30 and I only got out to eat lunch and read a few pages in my book.  The Caribbean Sea begins along the coast of Haiti and I was excited to check it off my list of oceans that I have swam in.  The water was incredibly clear and warm - very different from the Atlantic water that I'm used to.  We brought snorkeling gear with us and I spent 90% of my time in the water face down, looking at the coral reef that was growing under the surface.  I have been snorkeling once or twice before, but it was nothing like this.  There was a long line of concrete blocks where the reef was growing.  I don't know if they were put there because the reef had died and they were trying to bring it back, or just to attract tourists, but none the less, I had never seen anything like it.  I saw many different kinds of fish, huge star fish, tons of sea urchins, interesting coral species and some trash.  When I was snorkeling, I couldn't help but think about the movie "Finding Nemo."  Apparently at other beaches here you can actually find clown fish, but I didn't spot any this time around.  I'm keeping my eye out for Nemo though!  I don't have any pictures, but I did some research and below are some photos I found on the internet of the species I saw.

To say it was a great day is an understatement.  I was so happy to be back at the ocean and to be at one that looked like it came right off a postcard was icing on an already delicious cake!!  Enjoy the photos!!

The first view of the beach!!

Breakfast - griot (fried pork), banans (fried plantains), pikliz (the coleslaw looking part)

(Beth took this one!)

A scuba-selfie!

(Beth took this one too!)

The clouds when we got back to Gros Morne - it rained super hard on our drive back.

Blue Tang 

(http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/150704/)

Common Sea Fan - the ones I saw were much more purple than this one.

(http://reefguide.org/carib/commonfan.html)

Flat Needlefish - I'm not sure if this is the exact species that I saw, but it looked very similar.

(http://reefguide.org/carib/flatneedle.html)

Moon Jelly - I almost ran into a few of these guys!

(http://reefguide.org/carib/moonjelly.html)

Cushion Sea Star - I saw a handful of these.  They were huge, maybe 10" or a foot in diameter!

(http://reefguide.org/carib/seastar.html)

Yellow Tube Sponge

(http://reefguide.org/carib/yellowtube.html)

Art Nouveau

There is a San Francisco-based organization called Art in Every Classroom that provides art classes in schools, small grants for schools to purchase art supplies, and works with other organizations to do community art projects for neighborhoods in the San Francisco area.  Although we are not in San Francisco, Lekòl Jezi-Mari in Fon Ibo received a grant to purchase art supplies that the 3rd grade could use.  One of last year’s yearlong volunteers worked with teachers on the first lesson.  By the time everything was settled and the activity was done, however, school was almost over and there wasn’t time to continue.

We started the program again this year with the new 3rd grade classes.  I will be working closely with the 3rd Grade teachers to use the lessons and resources provided by Art in Every Classroom to create a curriculum that works here and that can hopefully be extended to the rest of the school in the future.  Art in Every Classroom provides 16 lessons with lesson plans, different pictures and background information that correspond to the activity.  For example, there is a lesson about self-portraits and students learn about Frida Kahlo and the self-portraits she made before drawing one of themselves.  All of these are in English, however.  I spent a while translating the first lesson into Creole, adapting it a little so the directions were very clear, and preparing some teaching materials that can be used this year and (hopefully) for years to come.

Two weeks ago, we had our first lesson.  Since none of the children had ever had an art lesson before, we figured starting with the basics was important.  So, our first lesson was going to be on the color wheel and learning the difference between primary and secondary colors (this was the lesson they started with last year too).  I had met with the teachers before hand to go over the lesson and to let them know that I would be there in the class to help them make sure that kids weren't painting on each other, but that I didn't want to actually teach the lesson itself.  One of the problems last time was that the teachers relied on the yearlong volunteer to teach the lesson, and I didn't really want that to happen again.

So, on Friday morning, I headed to the school.  We were planning on doing the entire wheel, but we ended up only having time to do the primary colors.  In fact, the second 3rd grade class stayed after school in order to have their lesson.  It was fun to watch the teachers explain everything, and then watch the kids start painting.  They were very absorbed in their work!  We had a little trouble dividing the wheel into 6 and a few kids struggled with the idea that there needed to be an empty triangle in between each color, but overall they turned out great.

Last Thursday (there was a holiday on Friday), we started the secondary colors.  This week was a little bit hairier.  One of the 3rd grade teachers wasn’t going to be there, so the other teacher was going to teach the lesson and then leave to be with his class.  After the lesson itself was taught and the instructions explained, the teacher left and Beth (I made her come help me) and I were left to pass out paint and make sure the kids finished their wheels.  It was crazy to say the least.  We had some difficulties figuring out where the secondary colors went on the wheel and some students were painting in the wrong places.  But it all worked out in the end!

After we finished, we decided that we should wait until the next week to finished the wheels with the second class because it took much longer than we were anticipating.  Since then, I’ve been thinking about what we could do to make things go smoother next time.  I have a couple of ideas and I'm hopeful that they will be successful and the second lesson will be a little less chaotic.  It will also be helpful to have an actual teacher in the room!

I'm super excited to continue with this project.  I love doing art and I believe that every child should have the opportunity to express themselves creatively.  The teaching style here is very much based on memorization, going exactly by the book, and there is very little room for students to formulate their own opinions.  I think that having the chance to utilize the right side of their brains is important and I’m excited to keep working with the 3rd grade and see where their creative juices take them!

The teaching tools I made to provide visual examples for the students.

(Beth took this one)

(She took this one too!)

(As well as this one!)

(Another of Beth's masterpieces!)

The final products!