Finally getting to add a small fraction of the pictures that I've been taking. It literally is taking ten minutes to add each one. The selection process is killing me!

Joesphine is the girl on the horse. She's definitely one of the poster children here - and she knows it. When prompted by the phrase, "spoiled," she answers with force, "rotten!" She's brilliant and overflowing with personality. She taught me the names of most of the kids here during my first days and is one of the best English to Kreyol translators in the place.

This is Vivian. She's one of the 4 original children in the home and thrives in her role as mama bear. Takes cosmetology classes and hopes to have a salon here. One of the Cotting teachers brought her a cell phone - she's bearly let go of that or a teen magazine that another teacher brought her. I managed to divert her attention for a bit when I brought out Tantrix. Thanks Jay for your influence. It's slowly catching on here :-)

And then there was the annual beach trip - and my first sun burn of the season! What a day. 6am kids were lined up outside our door chanting "Lame, lame" [interpret as "beach, beach"]. After a quick breakfast of pb& banana sandwiches (my team won the sandwich making race the night before - yes!), we loaded up a van and a bus (a new big white one that the Haitians refer to as Obama buses - new, reliable and good at moving people), secured the wheel chairs with bungees in the isles and headed of Moulin Sur Mar (http://www.moulinsurmer.com/). Three hours, many, many songs - teachers brought guitars and led songs and danced at the front of the bus - and a couple of road sick kids later we arrived!!! 30 kids, as many staff, and a million blow-up toys poured in to the water in one big splash. We frolicked for a couple hours, grazed at a buffet, ignored the silly half hour rule, and returned to the sea. Back on the buses at 5pm, we rolled away exhausted. Another three hours on the bus were filled with many frosted Haitian cookies, kids moving from lap to wheel chair to new lap [repeat], more road sickness and a few tears. I don't know if I've ever slept so well. We were all dragging ourselves around today but the smiles haven't faded!

Glad we had a fairly "normal" day today. Gave me time to prepare my reserves for field day and ice cream party tomorrow!