On our way to our new house!

Whew! We made it through the last few days! Saturday – Tuesday were pretty rough. When we moved in we had no water, power, chairs, or ways to cook. We ate peanut butter sandwiches made from peanut butter we brought and bread we bought in the streets. We showered and drank (filtered) from a hose leading up directly from our well. We rigged an extension cord to our landlords house behind us to connect to the city electricity. We only brought 3 small fans for the kids, hoping we could buy a fan for us adults here. $100 was the price quoted to us at a street vendor, yikes! Four nights in Haiti without a fan was four nights too many! Monday we got our pump to work so we could fill the water tank on top of our house. The toilet leaks terribly so we still have to flush with a bucket! We felt like rock stars when we figured out how to buy coal from the neighborhood shop and we used a couple cinder blocks to build a fire pit to heat water and make a packet of broccoli rice that we had brought. Yum!!!

She is watching the guys working to connect a pump to our well.

We had a lot of cleaning to do, thankfully I had a great helper!

Carl starting a fire under the mango tree so we could make rice.

Still our only source of running water, the shower has become where we wash all our clothes, dishes, and, of course, our sweaty selves!

This is all the food we brought with us, I hope it lasts! ps. How do you like our state of the art fridge? If you can't find it, that's because it's hiding in the cooler!

They love sleeping under the mosquito net and out on the front porch, it is gated in and the coolest spot in our house!

Yesterday our lives took a big turn for the better! We were picked up by an American nurse named Marie who knows the area. Trenton split his chin playing at Good Rest so first she took us to a nearby clinic run by an American woman named April. Trenton got his chin glued back together and we got to know a little bit more about the medical situation so we can take care of the Good Rest kids when they get sick. Next Marie took us to a grocery store where we paid about $7 for a box of Frosted Flakes. Food is REALLY expensive here, actually many things are really expensive. We were able to get a few essentials such as eggs, rice, hotdogs, butter, and a suspicious looking bottle of sugar cane rum that was cheaper than all the other purchases but disgusting! If you come to visit us it will definitely be a BYOB type of a party J 

Despite the label, once we picked off the moldy parts these were excellent hot dog buns!

Marie also helped us fill up a propane tank and haggle with three different street vendors until we finally were able to buy chairs. The biggest news of all: we got a FAN! When we got home, we were so happy to find out that the old stove we found in storage at Good Rest actually works! No more fire pits in our front yard to try to boil water!!! I almost cried, I was so happy! Today Carl hopped on a Tap-Tap by himself and went down into the town center and returned with a portable internet card! Pretty impressive!

Here we are at Good Rest, if we look a little shiny that is not photoshopped, it is HOT here :)

OK, enough about us and on to why we are here! We are getting to know the kids at Good Rest and learning their stories. Things are very complicated here. The relationships between local pastors, NGOs, American workers, and people in need are all very intricate and tangled. We want to be able to help the kids the right way and so we are going to meet later this week with the local pastor who has church here at Good Rest. He is also the local prosecuting attorney so he is a good person to know! His wife and Marie have been buying beans for the Good Rest kids, the rest of the food is picked up once a month from a local wholesaler. I’m so glad the kids have a system for getting some food, I hope we can make contacts and help get more food for them. They have a garden area but it is completely overgrown with weeds. There is so much to do, so many ways to help make their lives a little better. We are so grateful for all of the people who have helped us get settled in and made our transition easier. We miss all of our friends and family back home. Love to all!