Mountains Beyond Mountains

We left Port au Prince this morning in the van to head for the mountains and fresh air of Fondwa. Uploading pictures is a bit slow, so I just included a few from our afternoon. On the way to Fondwa, we stopped at the new clinic for women and children in Leogane and picked up Megan, a Terre Haute girl living here and working for Family Health Ministries.

Nana Lois (Jamalyn's mom) and Aunt Karen did fine on the ride through the mountains, although Lois had to spend some time with her eyes shut because she is, as Jamalyn put it, "the world's worst backseat driver." I thought that title was already held by our Nana. :)

We got settled in at the guest house, and Jamalyn took some of us to meet Madame Chery, a neighbor. This is Lois and Jamalyn posing with Madame Chery. The group will go to her house for coffee on Wednesday.

After lunch, we made the hike down to the orphanage. This is Jennifer with Widlene.

Lois had help from the boy she has sponsored for several years to make it to the orphanage. This was her reaction when she was finally almost there. She did not think Jamalyn had shared an accurate description of the "walk" to the orphanage. Today may be her only trip down. :)

Here is Jamalyn being greeted by the kids at the orphanage. They are always so glad to see her. Many of the older girls enjoyed speaking English with Jennifer. She plans to take her ipod down with her tomorrow so they can listen to some music together.

Jed is a little boy who lived with the sisters at the guest house on my first trip, and now lives at the orphanage. He and Jennifer decided to run up the mountain on the way back to the guest house. Jennifer said she was getting her workout for the day. I say they were just showing off.

It was a good day, and so nice to be in the mountains. Of course, I have several more pictures to share, but this will do for now. The internet access seems to be pretty good, although I have been told that it goes off later in the evening. Tomorrow we will be at the school by 7:30 to get ready for a busy day of picture taking. We will have to work fast, because we learned that Wednesday is a national holiday, and they don't have school.

For lunch we had goat, beans and rice, sweet potatoes, oranges, and tomatoes. It is almost time for supper, then to bed to try to get some rest. The roosters get up pretty early here! Bonswa!