Here's a short clip of Will playing with some Haitian kids around our house in Pignon.
Our house in Pignon
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Will in front of the gazebo where we can study in the shade!
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The Edgerton Family's house (across from ours)
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Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Around our house in Pignon
Will in front of the gazebo where we can study in the shade!
The Edgerton Family's house (across from ours)
Monday, December 1, 2008
A Long Walk for Technology!
Hello guys!
Just so you appreciate what a blessing it is to have a motor vehicle, i thought i would share with you my experience today.
Since it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a willing driver (or even a working vehicle for that matter) and I dont do so well with donkeys, Todd and I decided to walk to the airport where we could get an internet connection to send a couple emails. Two hours of walking at a face pace under the beating sun just for 3 emails - now thats dedication!
I posted a video below of us driving through town in the back of some guy's gator. (I hope the video works for ya)
Blessings
Jason
Just so you appreciate what a blessing it is to have a motor vehicle, i thought i would share with you my experience today.
Since it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a willing driver (or even a working vehicle for that matter) and I dont do so well with donkeys, Todd and I decided to walk to the airport where we could get an internet connection to send a couple emails. Two hours of walking at a face pace under the beating sun just for 3 emails - now thats dedication!
I posted a video below of us driving through town in the back of some guy's gator. (I hope the video works for ya)
Blessings
Jason
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Driving in Pignon
Hello All!
Here's a short clip of us driving in the back of a gator through the hectic streets of Pignon. It sure beats riding a donkey!
Friday, November 28, 2008
A Morning in Pignon
1:30 a.m.
Bark, bark, bark. I roll over in bed and cover my ears, hoping the noise will stop. Then after several minutes of hearing the incessant barking, I groan, roll over and push open the side of the mosquito net. There’s no power on, so I reach clumsily for my flashlight and then stumble my way into the kitchen to find the pan of leftover sphagetti noodles that I had put on the counter the night before. The light from the flashlight is dim and as I open the door and step outside into the cool darkness, it does nothing to lighten my path. Blindly I make my way to the outside camp kitchen area, and finally my flashlight illuminates a small, pathetic dog. I dump, the pan of old noodles in front of him, tell him to stop barking, so we can sleep and then make my way back to our “camp house”. I shut the flashlight off and crawl into bed, then I close my eyes tightly and listen. Quiet, not a sound can be heard. I sigh with relief and then drift back to sleep.
4:30 a.m.
Bang, bang, bang. Jayden is awake and is banging the sides of his pack and play to make sure everyone knows it. I pretend I don’t hear, but after a little while I crawl out from under our mosquito net again, and carefully fold open his. “What do you want Jayden?” I say. He looks up at me hopefully and says “ba”, meaning bottle. I grab the flashlight again, stumble into the kitchen, grab a bag of water and search for the can of milk powder. I give him his bottle and he lets out a contented sigh “aah”. After he’s finished he calls for me again, so I take him out grab some blankets and cuddle with him on our makeshift couch in the kitchen. I hug his little body close and sing softly to him in Dutch, till he falls asleep again. I lay him back down and crawl back in bed.
7:30
Cock-a doodle do.. Cock-a doodle do... Roosters are crowing, Bark, bark, bark… Dogs are barking.. Swish, swish, someone is sweeping outside our window. Bang, bang, bang, Jayden is awake and ready to get out. Since Jason took him out the last two mornings, it’s my turn today. I quickly put on his shorts, boots, and jacket and then get dressed myself. Once I step outside all thought of returning to bed leave me. The blue sky beckons, the sun kisses my cheeks and the breeze gently pushes the hair out of my face. I smile and look at Jayden and as I hold his precious little hand we walk side by side to the meadow. The goats are excited to see us and we pick hand fulls of grass which Jayden holds carefully to their mouths. Every now and then a tugging contest ensues and I smile. Then together we hike to the river. The path is small so Jayden walks up front of me and touches the plants that are leaning onto the trail. We carefully make our way down to the river and stare into the fast flowing water. The vegetation is amazing. A half an hour later we make our way back our stomaches rumbling.
8:00
Breakfast consists of a peanut butter and jam sandwich. We finally got a stove we could use but we don’t have any pans. After breakfast we feed the chickens and then look for one of the camp workers. In broken Creole and sign language we explain we need a pan, finally he understands and brings us three.
9:00
Jayden is in bed and we are studying. We are learning body parts in Creole and are having a lot of fun. Who knew that your tongue was actually your lung? And your chest your stomach? And your neck was a koe (dutch for cow)? We study till lunch time, and that ends a beautiful morning in Pignon.
Bark, bark, bark. I roll over in bed and cover my ears, hoping the noise will stop. Then after several minutes of hearing the incessant barking, I groan, roll over and push open the side of the mosquito net. There’s no power on, so I reach clumsily for my flashlight and then stumble my way into the kitchen to find the pan of leftover sphagetti noodles that I had put on the counter the night before. The light from the flashlight is dim and as I open the door and step outside into the cool darkness, it does nothing to lighten my path. Blindly I make my way to the outside camp kitchen area, and finally my flashlight illuminates a small, pathetic dog. I dump, the pan of old noodles in front of him, tell him to stop barking, so we can sleep and then make my way back to our “camp house”. I shut the flashlight off and crawl into bed, then I close my eyes tightly and listen. Quiet, not a sound can be heard. I sigh with relief and then drift back to sleep.
4:30 a.m.
Bang, bang, bang. Jayden is awake and is banging the sides of his pack and play to make sure everyone knows it. I pretend I don’t hear, but after a little while I crawl out from under our mosquito net again, and carefully fold open his. “What do you want Jayden?” I say. He looks up at me hopefully and says “ba”, meaning bottle. I grab the flashlight again, stumble into the kitchen, grab a bag of water and search for the can of milk powder. I give him his bottle and he lets out a contented sigh “aah”. After he’s finished he calls for me again, so I take him out grab some blankets and cuddle with him on our makeshift couch in the kitchen. I hug his little body close and sing softly to him in Dutch, till he falls asleep again. I lay him back down and crawl back in bed.
7:30
Cock-a doodle do.. Cock-a doodle do... Roosters are crowing, Bark, bark, bark… Dogs are barking.. Swish, swish, someone is sweeping outside our window. Bang, bang, bang, Jayden is awake and ready to get out. Since Jason took him out the last two mornings, it’s my turn today. I quickly put on his shorts, boots, and jacket and then get dressed myself. Once I step outside all thought of returning to bed leave me. The blue sky beckons, the sun kisses my cheeks and the breeze gently pushes the hair out of my face. I smile and look at Jayden and as I hold his precious little hand we walk side by side to the meadow. The goats are excited to see us and we pick hand fulls of grass which Jayden holds carefully to their mouths. Every now and then a tugging contest ensues and I smile. Then together we hike to the river. The path is small so Jayden walks up front of me and touches the plants that are leaning onto the trail. We carefully make our way down to the river and stare into the fast flowing water. The vegetation is amazing. A half an hour later we make our way back our stomaches rumbling.
8:00
Breakfast consists of a peanut butter and jam sandwich. We finally got a stove we could use but we don’t have any pans. After breakfast we feed the chickens and then look for one of the camp workers. In broken Creole and sign language we explain we need a pan, finally he understands and brings us three.
9:00
Jayden is in bed and we are studying. We are learning body parts in Creole and are having a lot of fun. Who knew that your tongue was actually your lung? And your chest your stomach? And your neck was a koe (dutch for cow)? We study till lunch time, and that ends a beautiful morning in Pignon.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Update ...
Hello everyone! How are you all doing? We’ve been enjoying your comments, but haven’t had time to reply yet since our access to internet has been very limited. I’m typing this at the camp where we are staying right now, (Camp de la Grace) and Jason hopes to go to the school this afternoon to post this on our blog. We are thankful to say that Jason is feeling much, much better. He completed taking the malaria medication on Sunday and is now feeling a lot more like himself. Jayden has had an upset stomach for the last two days, but seems to be doing much better today. I got sick last night, so I’m not functioning too well right now, but I can still sit behind the laptop and type so I guess it’s not too bad. It seems like we’ve been here much longer then 5 days! We’ve been adjusting well and had some neat experiences. Since we are living in a small isolated village, we are able to observe village life all around us. We’ve also seen all types of interesting little animals and bugs. Just the other day we found a giant tarantula. It had been hibernating in a rock pile, but had come out when the sun peaked through the clouds. The Edgerton children had been waiting for just this thing and had their bug aquarium ready. It was gross looking at the big hairy spider, but also very interesting. We took all kinds of pictures and hopefully we will be adding those to our picasa picture gallery, if the internet connection is strong enough to let us upload pictures. If you want to check, just click on our website and then on photos. Every morning Jayden wakes up early, like 4:30 and although we try to keep him in bed till 5:30 he’s raring to go outside. He chases the chickens around, feeds the goats, and picks up all types of interesting rocks, pieces of mud, etc and tries to eat them! This is a little disturbing, so one of our Hatian friends recommended a muzzle. Apparently they use them on their little kids here. Although that idea at first really appalled me, today he was picking up goat terds, thinking they were droopies (mmmm...droopies.....), so I don’t know! No wonder he had an upset stomach!
Yesterday was our first day of language school. Our instructor’s name is Jacquline, but she speaks almost no English. Our book is also very ancient, mice have had a few dinners out of them, and they smell like moth balls, but oh well. We’ve been learning a lot of new words, and it’s amazing how much we can understand Creole already! The weather today is nice. Although it has been cooler then we expected, its probably around 20 degrees today, with some clouds.
Besides learning Creole and bug hunting , we’ve also had time to go on some beautiful hikes. The vegetation, rivers and mountains are beautiful. Along the mountains wild potatoes grow, which we eat for dinner. Cows graze along the river banks. Tall sugar cane plants sway proudly in the breeze, and majestic palm trees reach up high to touch the ever changing sky. Jeroen, you would totally love hiking around here, and Jaap you and the girls would love all the unique bugs! I miss all of you and hope to write more soon!
CHECK OUT OUR "LIFE IN PIGNON" PHOTO ALBUM
http://picasaweb.google.ca/jwkrul/LifeInPignon#
We hope to update it regularily.
Yesterday was our first day of language school. Our instructor’s name is Jacquline, but she speaks almost no English. Our book is also very ancient, mice have had a few dinners out of them, and they smell like moth balls, but oh well. We’ve been learning a lot of new words, and it’s amazing how much we can understand Creole already! The weather today is nice. Although it has been cooler then we expected, its probably around 20 degrees today, with some clouds.
Besides learning Creole and bug hunting , we’ve also had time to go on some beautiful hikes. The vegetation, rivers and mountains are beautiful. Along the mountains wild potatoes grow, which we eat for dinner. Cows graze along the river banks. Tall sugar cane plants sway proudly in the breeze, and majestic palm trees reach up high to touch the ever changing sky. Jeroen, you would totally love hiking around here, and Jaap you and the girls would love all the unique bugs! I miss all of you and hope to write more soon!
CHECK OUT OUR "LIFE IN PIGNON" PHOTO ALBUM
http://picasaweb.google.ca/jwkrul/LifeInPignon#
We hope to update it regularily.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Life in Pignon
Friday, November 21, 2008
Pignon!
Hi Everyone! I have about 10 pages of stuff I would love to write but i only have about 5 minutes. We arrived in Pignon although we almost had to turn back because of the cloud cover over the village. Fortunately we found an opening and the 3 MAF planes made it through safely. Our surrounding our extremely poor. We are sleeping on a mattress balancing on a couple of bricks on a dirt/cement floor. Very little electricity, cooking over a fire etc. Jason apparently does have malaria so he had a rough first day in Pignon. We visited the hospital, but it kind of freaked us out (we only saw the public ward and there were just people all over the place). Apparently the private wards are better but we didn't get a chance to see it. Since Jason had all the classic symptoms of malaria, and you can only be tested when you have the fever, which is in the middle of the night, Caleb, our helper decided just to pick up the medication. Jason has taken some already and feels a lot lot better! I do too, because I felt really bad for him coming to a new place with a lot of adjustments, and having to lay in bed, in the dark, under a mosquito net, not sure of what kind of bed bugs might be crawling out of the mattress in any second! ;) Anyway the people here are so friendly, and the stories they tell of life in Pignon are amazing. Now that Jason is doing much better we are much happier too. :) One funny thing was that Jayden woke up in the middle of the night and thought he was a chicken. Suddenly we heard "tok tok tok tok tok". When I told him to be quite since it was 3:00 in the morning and there was a work team sleeping the building with us as well he just giggled and kept on going. I really kicked myself for teaching him the chicken noise. There are lots of chickens here and I guess my love for chickens rubbed off on him! I will write some more soon, probably Monday. Please pray for us as we adjust here.
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