One month ago, I arrived at COTP!  The month has flown by and everything is going very well!  I'm still learning names of the kids, nannies and the other local Haitian staff.  There are so many names to remember.   I'm also still learning Creole.  I've been working on numbers and some specific phrases to help me in the office.  I still have a lot to learn yet.  However I feel like I'm picking up more than I realize.  I seem to understand what people are saying (if they speak slowly) but have a hard time answering them back in Creole.

A lot of fun things have happened since my last post!  My roommates and I went for a moto/quad ride to the market.  It was a beautiful ride with all the mountains around us!  We've had a few birthday parties for the kids.  I've gone out for dinner with the VanderPols and my roommate as well as a few short term volunteers.  We had a birthday party for my roommate last night where we played games and ate yummy cheesecake.  A few nights ago, it stormed really hard and afterwards we had an awesome sunset!

The view outside of our apartment!

 

 

A few nights ago, my roommates decided it would be fun to ask me a bunch of questions to learn more about me.  One of their questions was "if you could do one thing in the world and you didn't have to worry about the money to do it, what would you do?"  My answer was to do exactly what I'm doing right now!  It may be hot and we might have rats and cockroaches but I wouldn't trade it for anything! 



This week has been going by so fast!  I worked in the office quite a bit this week since payroll is the beginning of the month.  It's been fun to watch and learn how payroll is done here since that is what I did back in MI.   I also have been working with two special needs boys and doing therapy with them. I haven't done much this week with them since I have been in the office more but I hope to continue doing it again shortly.  Today we took a few kids on a walk right outside of COTP.  It is so beautiful!

Love all the mountains!

 

The kids found every puddle to jump in.  They were having lots of fun but they were full of mud from head to toe!!  They would sit in the puddle and some even layed on their stomaches.  One boy lost his shoe in the mud so they had to look for it. 

 

Earlier this week, we had a roommate bonding experience as we went on a rat hunt in our apartment.  Thankfully Roxy (one of the dogs here) came to our rescue and hauled it out for us.   

 

 

Yesterday I spent a majority of the day being trained on the accounting side of things here.  Part of the day included getting ready for payroll on Monday.  The payroll part interests me since that is what I did back in MI.  I feel like I'm catching onto things so after payroll is done next week I will probably actually start doing some of the accounting with the help of Teri.  I also have been helping with two special needs kids.  My roommates and a few other volunteers have started doing therapy so currently I am in charge of doing two boys twice a day.  Today I got to play with two sweet little girls.  They are both about 1 years old and they both are very happy girls and full of smiles!!