One of those days....

Today has been one of those days. I woke up ready to start the week. But the week quickly gained the upper hand.

This past week a team from the States cleaned out, painted, and installed airconditioning in an office for us. Yesterday Aaron got his desk and Jay's desk all set up. He moved all our homeschool stuff into the nice, new airconditioned and internet accessible office. I was so excited to go in and see my desk, both girls' desks, and all the books ready to start school. I was so excited to have internet that I planned a bunch of internet activities in the lesson plans for the kids. Wouldn't you know that the internet signal doesn't quite reach that office. It reaches both offices right next to it, but not that one. Oh well, I just took the girls over the the other office to sit when they had a lesson that needed internet.

Then I noticed a few ants crawling on my desk. This is no big deal since ants in Haiti outnumber people by about 100 million to one (not an exaggeration). Then I saw more... and more... and more. Pretty soon there was an army of thousands of ants coming out of the outlet on the wall. Ick. So I went to our tent and got the bug spray.

At this point Sitota told me he wanted to watch a movie. No big deal. I got out "Diego" and went to put it into the DVD player and then I saw it. Purple fingernail polish all over the TV screen. And the leather couch. And the wood coffee table. Really?!

We have a very sweet Haitian lady named Wadlene that works for us during the week as our "house help". She cleans (you know, as good as you can clean a tent in the middle of Haiti), does laundry, and watches Sitota. I warned her (through translation since she doesn't speak any English) that she really needed to watch Sitota since he is prone to destroying things. I guess she didn't really know what I meant until today. Needless to say she was upset when I showed her. She started crying... a lot. So here I am really torked off at Sitota for ruining our only television set (one we just bought right before coming down here) and trying to console someone who doesn't speak English. I imagine she thought she was going to lose her job or something (which she didn't) but it was a bit awkward.

So.... back to the office I go with the bug spray. I sprayed the wall with the ants and killed a ton... but more just kept coming. LOTS of them! So I REALLY sprayed the bug killer all over. Then we all started to get lightheaded. I guess too much bug spray will do that. So then we had to move out into the hall. Where everyone walks by. Needless to say we didn't get much done in school today.

So, what have I learned today?

1. Stop creating expectations. I almost just wrote "stop creating unrealistic expectations" but then realized any expectation here is unrealistic. In Haiti you just have to take it as it comes. Expectations seem pointless. I was expecting a great day of school in the new "classroom" but it didn't work out that way. If I just hadn't set that expectation in my mind I wouldn't have been disappointed. Lesson learned.

2. Sitota is an even bigger disaster in Haiti. I am sure many of you are wondering how that is even possible, but trust me.... it is! There is so much more to get into here. And there is so much more dirt. And Aaron and I are usually so busy with people and things that it is hard to monitor him continuously. Last night at dinner he thought it would be "fun" to dump a cup full of grape juice on Clerice (a translator and Haitian staff member here at NVM). Yeh. Fun. Right. Instead he dumped it all over his head, which in turn ran down his entire body. All the Haitians here call Sitota "dezod" in lieu of his name. I'll let you google translate that one.

OK. Lessons learned. Here's to hoping the day gets better :)