Natalya, Tom, and Sarah started
their morning at the mere hour of 7am to help the Haitian women in the kitchen
prepare our breakfast. Sarah was awoken by the neighbors’ rooster, and the rest
woke up between then and 7:45. After breakfast, we spent the morning decorating
for the New Years/Independence Day party for 70 people which included the three
teams and the Healing Haiti Haitian staff. We played a Haiti traditional,
popular dancing game that was a mix of a dance circle and follow the leader, it
was called “Ton-ton-boogie” (well, that’s what we think we were saying…?) where
Eric showed everyone up with his unmatchable dance moves. For lunch we ate
sloppy joes, jello, and chips. Next we made string bracelets; Jake purposefully
messed his up to make it artfully abstract. We then went out and played with
the Haitian neighborhood kids in the street, with kids of all ages. Nicole,
Grace, Kate, Lauryn, Ellie, Sarah, and Alani played duck duck grey duck, hopscotch,
and chalk with the little boys and girls. The Haitian girls loved playing jump
rope with Noah. Natalya, Eric, Jake, Henry, and Tom played soccer all afternoon
with the Haitians, and made for a competitive match up, but still cannot match
the skills of the Haitian boys.
We then
made the short walk to the hotel down the road to go swimming. We tried
plantain chips for the first time and they were devoured within seconds.
We had
tacos for dinner, then went up to the guest house balcony to learn some salsa
dancing from Jean, the guest house owner. Jean was so impressed with Grace and
Ellie’s dancing skills that they were used for the examples. Kate and Henry “killed
it” and Henry’s porous tennis shoes came off in order to match the spectacular
salsa dancing of Tom and Natalya who have determined that they are running away
to start a dance studio while also taking their salsa show on a worldwide tour.
Jean spent much of his time with Sarah and Lauryn, who needed quite a bit of
correcting…Nicole and Eric were amazingly able to keep up with the rapid pace
while mastering the dip. Noah and Alani mastered the rapid spinning, but
struggled with the dip.
Superlatives of the day:
Most likely to break a bottle after being splashed by a
cannon ball from Noah: Nicole
Most literal: Noah
Best salsa dancer: Natalya
Most likely to win guitar hero: Kate
Most likely to hide a tattoo from his mom: Jake
Most likely to be secretly reading a steamy romance novel:
Henry
Most likely to wear keens after the trip: Alani
Most likely to dropped when being dipped: Sarah
Most likely to be sunburned tomorrow: Grace
Most likely to submerge himself and every food item in hot
sauce: Eric
Most likely to have cried yesterday: Gabby
Most likely to “accidentally miss the plane” and stay in
Haiti: Cortney
Most likely to adopt a kid after this trip: Joe Morcomb
Most likely to lead the cupid shuffle: Ellie
Most likely to get hair braided by Ellie: Lauryn
Most likely to crack 60 eggs perfectly for breakfast: Tom
Written by Alani
