This is so exciting to me. When you have a party and keep track of all of your sales and then send everything back to WA, they record everything and email the amounts to Shelley so the artisans can get paid. I got to help with that process today. Shelley gave me a pile of envelopes and the list of names. I wrote all the names on the envelopes along with the amount they earned on the inside flap. It's exciting to see it all come full circle on payday.
When I finished that, I went out and helped Donna a little bit with her CPR class. A lot of Haitians do not have basic emergency skills. Many people could be saved if more of them knew and undersood some of these skills.
She did awesome! She had an interpreter - Wilson - and she just dove right in. She taught the Team Leaders basic adult, child and infant CPR as well as what to do if someone is choking.
They were such great students and were really interested. They all got to practice and picked it up really quickly. I was her first "dummy" but soon Shelley had Rico take over.
We heard many stories of people dying because of an emergency such as choking, but no one knew what to do. So many times they will just stand around the person not knowing what to do. This was so helpful today and we hope that one day, their having this knowledge will save lives.
Shelley practiced as well. Pierre learning CPR on an infant
This is Kettly - one of the seamstresses learning from Donna
Love Rick's painted nose! And Donna's painted pants. Donna snuck my camera.
After lunch, we headed back over to Shelley's house to do some painting. It's just about ready to move in. Keziah's room is coming along great but you will have to wait - just like Keziah.
One of the highlights today was celebrating Juvenson's 14th birthday. He is a true orphan - both parents were killed in the earthquake and he lives with relatives. Shelley emailed me before I came and asked if we could put some clothes together for him. Our team jumped on it and tonight we had he and Peterson over for dinner. Which, by the way, was completely Haitian tonight. Sinese made it and it was awesome!!!
Anyway - I digress.....
Our Haitian dinner!
Peterson and Donna hanging out a bit.
Look at that smile. He is a little shy but he enjoyed this. Shelley thinks he's never had a party before. We gave him a small suitcase (those are a big item over here as it allows them to keep their clothes in something in their tents), underwear, socks, a few new outfits and some new shoes.
When all was said and done, he was so overwhelmed that he cried. Sweet kid. He's not working directly for AP right now but Shelley gave him several different jobs cleaning her new house in order to earn some money this week. He and Peterson have done a great job and were so proud today that they had earned enough money to not have to go to the feeding program but they went and bought lunch.
The rest of the evening, many of us sat around and chatted with Corrigan. It was nice catching up with him and allowing my team to hear more about Haiti and it's culture.
So today - we celebrated life here on this beautiful island. Helping teach the artisans CPR and helping Juvenson have a memorable birthday! What a difficult life he has had so far but it was awesome to give him our love tonight.
Until tomorrow.......
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