New Project

by Jimmy

I have started a new project. My first independent website. I read a lot of information on Education, and Becky is probably getting a little tired of me telling her all about it, so instead I will tell you all, my faithful readers about it.

Really, I need help in my quest to become an expert teacher. As much as I would love to do things by myself, I am just not that smart. I hope to use the website to collect and spread information on how parents and teachers educate their children while living abroad.

I am fully aware that there are as many ways to educate kids, as there are people doing it. Like most things, there is no ONE way that is best. Benefits and drawbacks exist in every method. I hope to share what is working for us (or not) on the website, and get to hear back from parents AND teachers on what works for them.

Thank you so much for your time, and support for us. We are so blessed.

Feel free to visit: www.teachingkidsabroad.com

Browse and return, as I will be posting twice per week there. And please leave your comments, suggestions, and opinions.

Review Week

I'm a bit of a Type A personality. I can tend to be pretty task and schedule focused. So, during a normal school week, we've got certain things to learn and a certain schedule to follow and I tend to pretty much stick to it by the minute. This means we typically get a lot accomplished, but can also miss out on fun activities because I don't "have time" for them.

And this is why I love review week. Every 6 week we have a week set aside where we change the schedule all up for that week. We do not have to learn any new material, only review what we've already learned and and do fun things.  I love it! It gives me the feeling of freedom to be creative and do all the things I would normally like to do, but don't. I love the change of pace, coming up with fun ideas, and learning in new ways. Instead of having a math lesson and working in our math books, we play math games every day. Instead of having a typical history or science lesson, we watch movies related to what we've been learning and do science projects. We may put on a play, or a concert, go on a field trip, or make inventions. You get the idea.

Jimmy is actually not as much of a fan of review week as I am. He doesn't so much like the change - it feels like a lot of work and somewhat uncertain to him. But the funny thing is that he has no problem during the normal school day deviating far from the set tasks or schedule. Because of this he probably needs review week a lot less than me. This is why we make such a great team.

During review week we also work really hard on our cumulative "memory work" that we have been learning all year, with a big test at the end of the week. This week the kids had to know 18 Ancient history "facts", 18 Earth Science "facts",  all of their propositions and helping verbs, all the Latin noun declensions, be able to name and locate 90 different geographic paces and features on the world map,  know all of their math times tables and basic unit conversions, and recite 144 events in a timeline of word history beginning at creation and going through completion of the transcontinental railroad. It is pretty impressive all the things their little brains can remember.

Ok, well here are a few highlights from this review week.

Field trip with other home schoolers to Wynne Farms:

 

Science Projects:

 

Art Show Awesomeness:

New Things

Superwoman!

Goose Egg on forehead and 2 busted lips.

New Thing #1 - Abigail is walking! Go Abbi! Watch out world! In the past 2 days she has managed to amass quite a few injuries. Ah well, you can't learn to walk unless you take some falls. A good life lesson for all of us.
 

New Thing #2- This momma is already half way through her 2nd pregnancy. 20 weeks! Thankfully this pregnancy has been much easier than the last. Which has many people guessing that it will be a boy. We'll find out in July...

Ready for baby Burton #2

What, you don't have chickens inside your school?

Or tarantulas like this outside it?

(not so) New Thing #3- We think school is fun! Ok, so we always think this, but here are a few new photos of fun things.

Painting like Michelangelo

Nothing like recess with your siblings.

Sprinklers before school. Much better than sitting in the cafeteria or gym.

Valentine's Fun

JeanPierre & Bob

by Jimmy

As I get ready for bed, I am also preparing myself mentally to get up sometime in the middle of the night to turn on our small generator. EDH (our national power company) has graced us with their presence all of 1 night in the past 5 or 6. So we have had to run the generator quite a bit lately, and make do with less power than normal. (Like having soft homemade ice cream in the freezer.) (Thank you Valentine's Party for the ice cream.)

In case you are not aware of ex-pat life in Haiti, many, many conversations between expats revolve around EDH. A couple days ago, I even had a long term expat (I won't reveal who it was) confess that his attitude for the day is often influenced by whether or not they had EDH. Wow! There is no way that I would let the roaring noise of the generator, or the lack of fans, or the cost of fuel, or the leaving on of lights, or the chore to go get more fuel, or the softening of the rarest-form-of-special-luxuriosly-expensive-treat, ice cream, affect how I FEEL. Not at all!

But, this post was supposed to be about JeanPierre and Bob. JeanPierre and Bob work for EDH. Their jobs are very special, as they run the operation room, by which they evenly divide the limited kilowattage of Haitian electricity, throughout the country. They both work very hard, and long hours. 12 hour shifts each, from roughly 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM. I know those hours are rough. I have roughnecked those hours. Not fun.

These dedicated workers however, excel at their job. Their only and primary concern, as dictated by President Martelly himself, through his deputy of Haitian Affairs, and their UN advisor (and his office staff), after a quick conference call to the US to make sure the Americans are on board, AND another call to the fuel supplying Venezueleans, is: to "FAIRLY" distribute electricity throughout the country.

Their office consists of panels and panels of computer screens, by which they carefully monitor usage, and grids, and kilowattage, and where the important people live. They also feed a stray cat, whose name escapes me at the moment.

Unfortunately, for many expats, communication seems to break down sometimes as the shifts change. Take this week for instance, both JeanPierre and Bob left each other notes, informing the other that he was attending Karnival. So... sector 11, (or are we #13?), was left completely in the dark while we can see that the mountainside has had electricity, AND our expat friends just down the road had it as well. There was that one day we had, power, but it was only because the maid came in to clean twice that day, and accidentally turned sector 11(13?) on the first time, and off the second time as she wiped down the keyboards.

In times past, miscommunication has actually benefited sector 11/13. Bob, after his night shift failed to inform JeanPierre that Sector 1113 had had power all night, so JeanPierre, truly desiring that all residents should have access to power fairly, turned on sector eleven (thirteen?) for the rest of the day.

And then there was that time the cat got loose in the operations room. As JeanPierre chased it around the room, switches kept switching ON/OFF/ON/OFF/ON/ON/OFF/OFF... On our end, our imaginations were fully engaged as our fans kept speeding up, and slowing down, speeding up, and slowing down. In the end, it was just the cat.

 Needless to say, though some expats here in Haiti will ALWAYS mention EDH, and how much power they have had, or how AWFUL their 6 hours without power has been, I will remain stoically silent, nod my head, and play nice. I am here in a support position. Here to encourage. Here to be an ear to hear. Here to judge not. So as I ride with Troy, on the way to his powered village, I look up at those concrete electric poles and say thanks. Thanks to JeanPierre and Bob, who really have a tough job at the end of those electrical power lines. And thankfully, they share their trials with me, so I can make some semblance of sanity out of the seemingly selective EDH schedule.

Tropical Diseases Week

by Jimmy

Tropical Diseases strike once again. Last week, two of the family of three lay out of commission for the majority of the week. Thanks to our nemesis, the mosquito, we made our first Haitian Hospital visit. I had hoped to avoid that trip.

It started with a very, very tired wife. Having a tired pregnant wife is not all that unusual, but when she wakes up, and is exhausted halfway through making breakfast, something is up. Fortunately, tests are cheap, and quick. I insist, so she relents, and I make the call. Thank you Troy Livesay. We caught it pretty early, before any other symptoms arose. 3 days of chloroquin, along with 3 days of sleeping pretty much took care of it.

Abbi on the other hand...
   following nasty diapers, contracted a fever that just would not go away. We concluded she had malaria, since her momma did, and treated her. The happy, active girl transformed to a snuggling, sleeping, and sleeping some more, heater. It felt good to have her snuggle so much, content to just lay there on my chest, but the lack of appetite, the fussing several times a night, the crying at having so many medicines forced into the mouth, could have been done without.

 

(Snuggle time)

 

 

(Oreo after medicine)

 

On Friday, after having finished her meds, and still not eating, and barely drinking, a hospital trip was advised. Friday night at 7:00 in the evening, is not conducive for driving in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. Darkness arrives at 6:00, and masses of people and vehicles attempt to find their homes between 5:00 and 8:00. So, not only do I have to drive to a hospital whose location I am unaware of, but I have rush hour traffic to deal with, while having a beautiful, loving, sick, taking it like a champ, baby to worry about. So this is the flip side of being a dad. Not fun.

A quick shower, make sure we have everything, and dread to prepare. We drive through the gate into our crowded intersection. Sure enough, traffic. But we move on. The other lane, coming our way, is packed. Bumper to bumper. I am sure that as soon as we get across the bridge, we will be coming to a sudden and complete halt. The proof is in the opposing lane, and experience. I have spent hours haltingly moving 10 feet at a time on this very road. But we move on. Not fast, but steady. The bridge. We move on. Carrefour (Intersection) Fleurio, my nemesis, since the day we got here, and I sat in the back of the Hendrick's truck, in a monsoon, stuck, IN TRAFFIC, not moving for an hour.

 And yet, we move right through the intersection. I am in awe. Now to get past the UN bases bordering the airport. Check. Surely we cannot be making this good of time. We are. 25 Minutes! I have never made it to the Three Hands intersection in 25 minutes, and yet, we are past it and at the hospital gate in 25 minutes. I timed it.

After a quick, Kreyol conversation with the gate guard, he allowed us to enter, and an American pediatrician came out to talk to us and see Abbi, right there on a bench in the driveway of the hospital. Abbi took it all in like a champ. Just lying there in momma's lap, not fussing, somewhat zoned, but just taking it all in, wondering who all these new people were.

She did fuss a little later, and daddy sure wanted to, when blood for testing needed to be withdrawn. Such innocence, as she sleepily and somewhat curiously observes the nice lady holding her hand a little too tightly, with a ????? THAT HURTS! Real tears fall, and daddy has a hard time holding his. It takes two trys, and I am going to refuse a third, when the blood flows. What a relief.

There is no amount of money that would ever convince me to be a nurse. God bless them.

Blood work came back OK, so we are to try and keep her hydrated, and get some antibiotics. We head back home.

We left our house at 6:50 and got back home by 9:30. Crazy. We are blessed. Tremendously blessed. We are surrounded by great people who love and support us and pray for us. And a God, who can move anything, including Port-Au-Prince traffic.

Abbi finally had a fairly normal day Tuesday after sleeping the whole night through, much to her momma's and daddy's relief and rest. To see a smiling, active, talking, baby after a week of sickness and sleep, does much to undo a lot of worry.

 

Happily back at school, with the Big Kids.

Returning to Haiti...

by Jimmy

Three weeks off for Christmas. Three months off for summer. I am spoiled as a teacher. And very very blessed. Returning to Haiti this time from three weeks in Texas was weird to both Becky and myself. 

We had a great time with family and friends. It was cold. We got sick. We ran.

Transitioning from Haiti to Texas weather got us good. I had been training to run the half marathon, but the temperature has always been around 90 degrees here. Returning to Texas we found the highs to be in the 40s with plenty of wet. We even had snow on Christmas Day! Abbi’s first snow.

So we stayed indoors quite a bit. I got out to run once for about 30 minutes. I cut and split some firewood twice. And I really think that was all my getting outside consisted of. Oh. And the half marathon. I have already written about that.

When Becky and I and Abbi got on the plane to return to Haiti, we both felt like it had been 3 months instead of just 3 weeks since we had been here. So weird. But as soon as we got the bags unpacked, and started prepping for the next day’s school, we felt right back at home.

Like always, the biggest culture shock, is not the culture – affluence, materialism, media, etc. – it is the  little things like hot showers, (long hot showers),  and smooth roads. Realizing that you don’t have to leave at 6:00 to get to the restaurant at 7:00. You can leave 15 minutes before and be there 5 minutes early. Or just going into a store (again, only 5 minutes away) and buy absolutely anything you could ever want to eat.

Getting back into a routine here in Haiti is pretty straight forward, I think. There are just a lot of small details that MUST be done. Such as…

The small store trip across the street for water, bread, and milk.

The big Saturday trip for chicken feed, irrigation hardware, and the big grocery shopping list – honey, hand soap, and apple juice (plus a few other items). Time: Almost 3 hours. A celebration that it was not 4 or more, which it easily could have been.

Laundry when city power is on.

Feed the chickens. Water the garden.

Clean the dust from everything.

Pay the workers who cared for the chickens and watered the garden.

Say Hi to the new goat just born. (Wonder who the father was.)

And on and on. Life is very different here in many ways.

Different and very good.

The Run.

by Jimmy

The Run. is now. over. At least for us. Barry has the hard part from here. Becky and I are groaning as we get out of bed, or off a chair. Downing Tylenol, and wondering why anyone in the right mind would agree to run for over two hours straight, and then wondering why so many people would agree to run for over two hours. From what I understand, some people enjoy running. Very interesting. I tend to think those people are a little "off."

(We took one picture before we started, and had no desire to further document the day, so I will have to resort to word pictures, and possibly a re-enactment.)

So our day started like none other on our vacation, an alarm set for 5:30. Not that I was real tired or anything that early, since I had been in bed for 2 days, with achy muscles and chills. The bug that caught Becky earlier finally caught up with me. I really did not want to run. But the day before, Becky and I had finally discussed it, and said that the run must happen, even if we had to walk it out.

A few bites of grits and scrambled eggs made up the majority of the last couple of days food for a big run. That probably does not follow the prescribed preparation for a ton of exercise in a short amount of time. That and trying to force down a few more swallows of gatorade. I wasn't hungry. Then out to the car. Cold. How can it be so cold? O! I haven't been outside in two days! Well, it is 41 F, and it is supposed to heat up to 45 F, so we can just deal with it for now. We jump in the car. Shivering.

My wonderful wife of course printed out a map, and we get there and it is sprinkling. Yesterday it rained on the "New Year's Double", (some people signed up to run twice!) today it was not supposed to. And sure enough it did not. The wind did blow however. I think I would have preferred the rain. Maybe I would have preferred my training ground, Haiti, and 90 degree weather. At least the running surface was level.

We check in, got fancy new long sleeve running shirts, pinned on our numbers 1133 and 1134, and went for a quick bathroom jog to warm up. I come out to her laughing at me, and she gently points out that my new running shirt is on backwards. Awkward. Not really, as I remind her that she told me that I did not have to think, just run.

We walk around a little, trying to warm up, and decide to keep the jogging pants on the first half of the race and drop them in our bag after we had warmed up. Little did we know.

The wind is blowing as the racers start. Heat A leaves at 8:15, in one minute intervals the other heats depart. We, of course, are next to last in Heat H. We run. We run together. Fortunately.

Have I mentioned that I have such an incredible wife. She has deferred to me in our training, and thus has not gotten all of hers in. She is tough. Too tough sometimes, and between a bad knee, a baby, and being pregnant, she figured she would just get through the run as best she could. Walking if need be. She had every reason to not do this half marathon, and she still did. We ran till mile 4.

Hand in hand, walking mile 5 a couple makes the comment that we look so cute, as they pass us by. Thanks. Becky is feeling like throwing up, probably pregnancy related. And probably will not run any more. I am struggling with conflicting feelings. I want to run as I am not feeling too bad, and the sooner I get done, the sooner I can get warm. I feel selfish. I don't want to leave my wife. What should I do? She encourages me to go ahead. I do.

Normally, I plan out my runs and adjust on the run. "Next break after X number of laps." "Make that Y number of laps." Now, I just take Becky's advisement that I don't have to think. So I don't. I just run, and stop to walk, run to keep warm. Slow down for a couple sips of gatorade. Run some more.

I miss Becky on the big loop around, and hope that she stops halfway through. She has not been feeling too well, and would be just fine stopping with a half-half marathon. Besides, people are always saying she is eating for two, so why not be running for two? The "cute" comment couple catch up to me again and ask if my girlfriend/wife is ok. I say yes. And begin to wonder more. What kind of husband lets his pregnant wife do walk in the freezing cold alone?

My mile 10, her mile 8, she is bundled up with my jacket I left at the drop bag. She encourages my run. She is OK, cold and walking but OK. It is good to see her, though I still wish she would have dropped out and into the warm car. I continue on.

Last 2 miles are in the open. A huge open park, with a cold north wind, is not all that conducive to running a race at 41 F. It seems to be getting colder. My legs and knees hurt, so I slow to a walk, but the wind is so bad, and it is so cold, that I want to run just to get warmer. Rock and a hard place. Rock and a hard place. Finally, mile 13 and the 1/10 left till the finish line. Encouragers encourage, and a fist bump helps, the announcer says my name. A smile. A reflective blanket, banana, water, bagel. I can't think. Cold. Bag. Keys. Car.

Ahh, Car. How are you so low to the ground? Finally. It is over. Now I just have to wait for Becky. I warm up the car, and drive around to see how she is doing. She is right in the middle of the long, wind-in-your-face stretch. She asks for a ride, and I say "Sure! Come on in." She smiles, and declines. She is a true finisher. I drive back to wait in the parking lot. I see her as she is coming around the last curve and try to get out in time to get in front of the finish line, but my extremities are not working that well, so I miss her crossing. She is starving, and just wants to sit and eat. I have my little plastic blanket, but having gotten warm, and not run, I am violently shivering. I try to encourage her to the warm car. After another bagel run, she agrees.

The car thermometer reads 40 F. Yep. That's about right. It actually got colder by the end of the run.

My hat is off to all you runners out there. Your ranks are once again depleted by one. No convert here. It was a good, hard experience. And conveyed some good lessons. Hey, I even lost some weight. I feel like I am in decent shape, and definitely enjoyed the excuse to eat any dessert I wanted. When I am feeling better, I may even run a mile or two. But that long distance stuff... that is just crazy.

P.S. To support THE RUN follow this link over to Razoo the fundraising site for Run For Life Haiti.

To support the professional runner Barry directly, go to RunForLifeHaiti.org

(The money all ends up in the same place anyway.)