November 13, 2009

It was a hot night last night and I had to take my earplugs out because they were uncomfortable so I was up really early. After breakfast of fruit and oatmeal we left for the Prestige Brewery tour with Pascal the owner who is spanish raised in switzerland, moved to Haiti for his ex-wife and ended up staying. The Prestige factory also makes king colas, toro energy drinks, viva milk drinks and they are the leading producers of international Guiness, I will have to tell Chris about that. They are receiving an award soon for their Guiness production. The tour was really long and hot and loud, some parts were interesting but it was way too long. We looked through a warehouse at stacks of drinks and piles of malt, which burned down a while ago because of lightening. Then we drove to the second area and had coffee and patays which ARE really good! We got to try 13% prestige and then 2 regular prestige's, so beer for breakfast! The owner gave us all hats and t-shirts so Chris just got a souvenier. I found out something very exciting though on the tour, Prestige RECYCLES! They pay people to collect their bottles and they re-use them, and if they cant re-use them they ship them to china etc. I gave the tour guide a pat on the back after he answered that question, which I had to ask of course. I found it hard on the system during the tour, to go from hot to cold so frequently as we entered air conditioned rooms, went back outside, entered hot factory rooms went into air-conditioning etc etc...

We were pretty late heading up to Wings, because we thought the tour might be an hour or so but it was 12:30 by the time we got out. The drive up to wings is always nice, and it felt good to be leaving some of the heat behind for the cooler mountain air. We pretty much had a plan for what needed to be done at wings because a group had already been up there twice and told us what was left for the therapists to do. They thought we should take 3 of the boys and do a chair swap: Sam, Clifton and BJ and then we had to finish adjusting Fabiola's chair. We found the 3 boys and tried to figure out what switch they had envisioned by moving the boys from chair to chair- in the end we left them all in their original chairs and just made adjustments to make them fit better. We worked with Ronnie and Soni from St. Joseph's was also in and out. While we were still working upstairs red Karen and Susan went shopping at the bishops or whatever that I always want to go to, so we didnt get to go. It was fairly disappointing. We helped the Wings staff with a shipment of donated gifts, it looks like they will be busy unpacking and sorting for a long time! On our way out we remembered to get a tracing of one little guy's feet so we could find him a pair of supportive shoes to replace his sandals that just flip upside down when he tried to walk with his walker. He was having a great ol' time with his keyboard so we had a mini jam session! As we were leaving I passed him on the floor and he was holdign himself and gave me that look like he really had to go tot he bathroom, I was about to get him some help when the look on his face changed to too late and the puddle started to pool out under him. I think, aside from the obvious pain and suffering, that this is something that gets to me to the most. It's a dignity thing really...that so many of these kids cant get to a washroom on their own and they cant communicate their needs all the time. There are too many kids and not enough support to have the kids on a washroom schedule so they end up soiling themselves, ruining their seating systems and wrecking havoc on their skin...and you can tell it bothers a lot of them. How uncomfortable must it be to spend so much of your day dirty like that. It's unfathomable, and it's something people wouldnt stand for in Canada. Even having diapers that actually fit the kids would make a world of a difference. Stepping down off the soap box now...
We drove 2 of the Wings workers down he mountain to Petionville to save them from waiting for a tap-tap and the guy sitting next to me, Choupy, turns to me and says "yeah, I have been working at wings for awhile, I used to live at St.Josephs, I am a drummer, and now I am an OT." My eyes got pretty wide, me too! He says he took a 2 week seminar in Boston and whatever other training he got in Haiti, I wish it were that easy. On the way down we also stopped at a grocery store and I picked up some haitian ketchup and spicy peanut butter. We got back to the guest house by dark and had supper: lambi, bbq'ed chicken, rice, a mais djean djean thingy etc. Tonight there was the option of going to see the St. Jo's dance, but since I had seen it twice and it was pretty much the same each time I decided to sit it out. When that group got back we went to Presse Cafe to listen to a jazz band. There werent any seats left so we had to stand around the bar with a few people sitting. I didnt mind the music, but I hate being stared at, and I especially hate being leered at by gross old men so that made it un-fun. I really am not in to Haitian dancing-it's way too intimate...you should only dance that way if youre in a relationship or youre 19. But here, they all change partners all the time, it is slightly disturbing to see a girl who looks really young rubbing up against an old man who is putting his hand up her shirt. Whenever anyone in our group got up to dance you can see them pulling away and trying to keep that distance :) I didnt dance. We got back to the guest house really late, and we were the group that left early because it was too crowded and we kept getting bumped and pushed, we left a few behind.