This Friday began early with a long training run. I must admit that the long run thing is getting a little.bit.tiresome.and.boring.and.toomuchtoooften. But, it is for an amazing cause that I believe in every bit as much as Medika Mamba.
I hope you're getting over to the runners blog to read about some of the great people sacrificing time and energy to help raise awareness and funds for the beautiful, courageous, and tenacious women of Haiti. We are also continuing to introduce the ladies in the prenatal program on that blog and you'll enjoy a little peek into their lives. I LOVE working with these ladies so much and find them and their endurance and toughness to be totally inspiring.
I ran 18 miles on Monday, then did the mountain hike to get the sweet little guy home on Tuesday. My knees were screaming at me big time. I scolded myself for doing two days of abuse in a row ... but then it occurred to me as we climbed up and down the hills to get to Renald's family that we are totally weak compared to the natives of this little island. Plainly stated - let me give it to you straight - we are total wimps. Every last one of us. You. Me. The whole lot of us.
A couple of cute Haitian ladies jumped in Zach's truck because he offered them a ride. I asked them where they lived. They had been planning to WALK 5 more hours to get home. They had walked DOWN earlier that day. They all had on $2 flip-flop shoes that made my feet hurt just to look at them. They were carrying heavy things. LARGE heavy things. They were going straight up a mountain for five hours. When they arrive home they don't get to put their feet in ice, jump in a cold shower, or drink a protein shake. (Plus Troy is not there to be all sweet and encouraging.) Kind of made me feel like a boob for whining about a little running.
Troy and I had a bunch of things to accomplish today. Scratch that. Troy had a bunch of things to accomplish and I wanted to buy paint to paint the little girls' bedroom this weekend. Because there was one thing that required my presence, I got to tag along with him for a full day of Port au Prince fun. We used to do this together back when we were a five kid family ... but in the last year I don't believe I have tagged along more than a couple times.
After Troy dropped our friends the Mangines off to the airport we got on our way. We make a decision when we leave to laugh at things and not get frustrated. We laughed so much today, it felt marvelous.
It was great to have a day without little ones to talk without non-stop interruption. I love my kids ... they bring much joy, but man are they chatty. Right now Noah is talking non stop about the way a Tyrannosaurus Rex walks. "A T Rex goes like this and then he goes like this and then Mommy, mommy look - he goes like this."
stttttilllll talking.
Here is what we determined: If you can laugh all day while receiving poor to very poor customer service and narrowly escaping death on the over-taxed roads --- you might just make it in PAP!
I was allowed to help Troy "tweet" all day; it felt quite powerful to just type on his phone and send it across the world. I think I tweeted responsibly. He was worried about his rep - but I don't know that I did it any damage.We went down to the Haitian American Institute for a meeting. We went to listen to our favorite racketeer tell us a bunch of lies about why he is not done with our car-registration, we chuckled about how cruddy he is at making up lies and how he cannot even keep them straight. We went to Sherwin Williams to pick out paint. We laughed that they could not tint it today. No, no ... we need to make another trip back to pick it up. We searched for items on Paige's list for her science experiments - and chuckled that the curriculum suggestion was that you could go to a craft store like Hobby Lobby to find test tubes. Empty spice bottles will have to suffice. Later in the day we ran into Zach in the grocery store ... which turned out to be VERY important considering the grocery store credit card machine declined two (the only two) of our credit cards. (For no apparent reason.) Zach was walking out when we said, "Uh, Zach, excuse us ... let's see ... no easy way to say this -- we have no spending power - can you please cover about $225 U.S. in groceries for us and we'll write you a check?" The grocery store was the last stop, which was good considering somebody put a lock down on the Visa and the MasterCard.
Some odd/interesting/fun sights along the route: 1.) Cops leaning on walls all over town 2.) Honda Del Sol circa 1989 IN HAITI - on THESE roads 3.) Totally naked dude walking the hills of Petionville
The only time we almost failed at laughing was on Delmas when a mad kid starting hitting our truck with a stick again and again. That was not all that amusing. I don't believe we even fake laughed at that.
Unfortunately none of Paige's science experiments call for tarps or tow-straps, because by accident we located Tarps and Towstraps R Us.
I plan to use all of my free moments doing "painting therapy" this weekend. The girls are excited to have orange walls. I am excited to have free therapy. Have a great weekend.
Selma avek Jezi.
tara