Hope and Phoebe's first momma is doing well. We enjoyed a pleasant visit with her on Saturday.
In Haiti if you look a lot like someone they often say "tet koupe" - or literally translated you can cut heads off and trade them you look so much alike. We think Hopie and her first momma have a bit of tet koupe going on.
It was encouraging to us to see Hope genuinely want to love on and chat with her mom. She didn't feel awkward or afraid. They compared their toes and noses and the shape of their hands. It was cute. As expected Phoebe gave her the stranger treatment but we didn't expect Phoebe to get it yet - so no one was stressed about it.
We are so grateful for our children. They are gifts to us. Imagining our family without these two spunky little girls brings instant sadness. We treasure them.
Even so, we've never come to a place where we can simply bask in our wonderful blessing without examining the other side of the story. We know God can and is making beauty from ashes but we're not at peace with the fact that poverty and injustice led this momma to decide she could not raise 5 of her 8 children - that grieves us.
We want to ask ourselves hard questions about a world where this is commonplace and what we can do to change those systems and keep more families together. Amidst the multiple unanswered and uncomfortable questions we are incredibly grateful that we can assure this first momma that her girls are well loved and well cared for, and that she can trust us to stay in contact for as long as she is able and willing.
Monday pics and haps :
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| more tet koupe |
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| Kenny & Lydia at Harbor House |
It works out pretty well that there are no parks, jungle gyms, or any sort of climbing apparatus anywhere near by ... we're totally indifferent about that because we have our doors!
The blue cord is the uber slow and unreliable internet running into the house from the rooftop. Stay classy Port au Prince.
Today there were all sorts of rumors of planned "manifestations". A few took place. We had one person call in and say they couldn't get to work. The first time I heard that term I had no idea what the heck was being said, it sounded like a three headed demon might be coming to attack us in the night. As it turns out manifestations are planned protests of some variety and are usually in response to some sort of price hike that people have no way to absorb. Today the manifestation was in response to a hike in gas prices. Many of the regular kamyonnet (tap-tap) routes were not available. For some it meant they couldn't get to work at all. For others it meant they could get there faster because traffic was lighter.
