The dogs woke me up around 4 this morning, I was about ready to mussel them. They finally stopped barking at 6:15. Now they are all sleeping and I'm awake. I'm tempted to start banging pots around them. "Vengeance is Mine I will repay says the Lord" --- I would find it interesting to know what kind of punishment God would give a dog if He did.
Yesterday I took a sledge hammer and started the impossible job of breaking up all the fallen bricks in our road so they don't pop the tires. I had only been doing it for about ten minutes before I was literally drenched in sweat. My clothes were soaked. One of the patients from the Heartline Hospital came over and wanted to help me. He has an IV in and had a knee surgery so I told him no, but he could watch. The Haitians often stand around and watch us work. I never quite understood why, I thought it was just 'cuz we are white. The guy from the hospital went back after a while. Not too long after he sent his brother and his friend over. They wanted to help too so I let them. We took turns using the sledge hammer and I went and found a shovel. The three of us worked at it for quite a while. I gave one of them my gloves because it looked like his hands were hurting him. I was very impressed with both of them. Ali couldn't really use the hammer so he moved the bigger rocks around so we could smash them easier. I think he is about 16 or 17 years old. The other guy (I can't remember his name) is 17. He was trying to teach me creole while we were working. 3 little boys came over and started helping by moving rocks. Sometimes they would want the hammer. I let them try---it was so cute to watch, I think they were all under ten. After a couple hours, two more guys came over, they did the normal Haitian thing and just watched. Except once when one of them tried to crush some rocks I laughed out loud. I think they were both older than me. I took the sledge back and showed them how to do it. They started talking in Creole and I couldn't understand anything they were saying, but neither of them tried again. Occasionally one of them would kick a rock out of the way or move one for us. Matt, one of the American guys, came over and offered to help. I gave him the sledge. His hands started bleeding not too long after so I fetched him some gloves. Apparently, I have more callous than the average Joe. We made a lot of head-way until we started talking about Jesus--then we got way too distracted and took lots of guff from one of the doctors for it.
I'm a tad sore today. One of the ladies that clean our house found me this morning and expressed her amazement that I had gotten up so early because I had been working so hard the day before. I was a little confused because I don't think 7:30 is early. She explained that the only other girl that she had ever seen work hard was Tina (she came with the Ecola group, I came here last year with her brother Sam). She said that she works harder than any Haitian that she knows, but she could never work as hard as we had. She told me that Haitian girls never lift a finger to do anything and her boys hardly ever do either. Same with her husband. I knew that Haitians in general had a bad work ethic, but I didn't realize it was that bad. I always assumed that if they had something to do and the tools to do it they would. Apparently not. I hope that I helped instill a work ethic in some of those boys. They will need it if Haiti can ever get out of this hole it is in. The three little boys looked like they genuinely wanted to work hard, that was very encouraging.
While I was working with them I also lectured them on how to talk to girls. I told them that in America girls would think they were rude if you "kissed at them" and said a lot of the things they say down here. They were all very surprised and asked what they could say. I told them that if you just say hi then that would make them feel special. They asked me if they could tell her that she had beautiful eyes. I said they could if they had already been talking to her for a while. But I told them that they shouldn't if she really didn't have beautiful eyes because she would know they were lying. I think it sunk in because I could tell they were all thinking about it.
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