Living and Learning in Haiti: Back to America... with a baby.

by Jimmy

Our incredible, sweet, chill, traveler.

Our baby surprised the Haitian immigration officer as he checked our passports. He was surprised to see a white Haitian, and pleased as well I think. You just do not see that too often. Birthplace: Haiti, in a US passport. Even when we are out in Port-Au-Prince, she attracts quite a crowd. People lean over for a better look at our "ti blan, bebe."

Abbi, travels incredibly well. We keep hearing over and over how unusual and surprising that is. Everyone asks how she is, and she is chill. She was chill from minute one. We are very blessed and very thankful for her chillness. (Daddy especially, when he gets a taste of what could be, when mom leaves with Nana to get diapers, and she decides she is hungry and will not be pacified.) She is becoming a little more vocal, but overall she is the absolute joy of her father.

Even this morning when she fusses more than usual, I was asking her where her smiles were, and she immediately spits out the pacifier and gives her only big grin of the day. Her great big smile lights up her face, and her daddy's world. My how a little one changes everything.

We have traveled quite a bit since being back. We have been back a week and a half, visited both sets of grandparents of course, and gone to Alabama and back to visit the great-grand parents. She must think that "Texas" means a long trip!

Some reflections on returning to America... The roads are as nice as I remember. Everything is so clean and neat, and spread out. There have definitely been Haiti habits flash through your mind here. Pausing before you put your toothbrush under the faucet, knowing how to pull out in front of someone in a traffic jam and not feel at all bad about it, walking down the sidewalk seeing an animal, and thinking that if I wanted to throw a rock at it, like I throw rocks at roosters, I couldn't even find a rock.

America... the land of unending and cheap sugar, free refills, really fast food, really nice places to stop and rest on long trips, unlocked cars, fast reliable internet, expensive phones and phone service, libraries, and beauty all around.

I am really looking forward to this next school year, where we will be going back to Haiti. Our school year went so well, and I really want to become a better teacher. I have been reading quite a bit and will have extended time here to read. There is so much I want to try. I am a thinker and a piddler, and thank goodness I have an incredibly capable wife, to help steer some of those distractions to profitable use.