Saturday-our 12th day living in Petionville, Port Au Prince, Haiti

It is 1:30 now and my babes are playing quietly around the house. This morning we ate a hasty breakfast and dressed in a rush as Cliff, our diver, was outside waiting for us. We all got to go see Daddy's work! Abe is in charge of building a new Catholic School where the old building crumbled to pieces during the earthquake. Abe said that during the first week it was a struggle to get the men motivated and really working quickly, but he had them organized now for peak productivity. :-) Most of the workers are the students that he taught while he was here in March-June. It is so awesome that Abe was able to employ men from the school. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life!!!

After we stopped at the job site Cliff took us through PetionVille, PetroVille and CanaraVille (spelling?) to Penye... where our new house was getting the walls mudded and painted and the toilet installed! The Babes gave a general consensus of approval, although I think the several tall climbing trees and two friendly Haitian boys may have swayed their votes.

On the way to Penye The streets are always filled with men and women balancing heavy loads on their heads. The Babes always stare and exclaim in wonder at how strong they are. Today we saw one tiny woman with a full culligan bottle on her little head. Isaiah is sure I am just as strong, but I know the truth! Oh, and the metal fencing is quite common where

 the concrete and razor wire are too expensive.

Happy travelers! It's hard to stay in one house all week! They are always SO excited for the weekends! Carol has decided smiling isn't chic.

I took these from inside the truck, as it is unsafe to stop. The businesses are all painted bright colors and there is a great amount of graffiti on nearly every wall.

As we got further from PetionVille and Petro Ville, the traffic lessened and the hills were visible. You can't see it in the above picture, but the hill is completely covered in houses stacked on top of eachother. Very unsafe for earthquakes or Hurricanes.

Here is a close up of the buildings on the hills. So many people and not enough space.

There are several road blocks of fallen rocks and crumbled buildings. Cliff is very skilled at twisting down roads and allies and finding our way.

Inside each concrete square is another fmaily dwelling. I tried to get pictures of the tents as well, but they are too far in the distance. There are still several tent cities, although the country has been working hard to clean them out.

Again, hard to see, but the pile of what looks like dirt is actually a huge pile of trash. Very common along the streets. There is a pig in the right lower corner of this picture.

OUR STREET, although I have no idea what it is called.

The inside of our new house! They are standing in the living room and behind them is the bathroom. I am taking the picture from the front door. To the right is the kitchen and back door.

The back yard. :-) Very small, but the communal front yard is very spacious

The front of the house. All of the windows are the small slats that open

and close with a twisty thingy. :-)

Headed to the restaurant for lunch and ice cream. Quite a treat!

Cliff walked in with us and helped me corral the babes. They were esctatic to have pizza and french fries instead of rice and beans!!!

yummy! Carolanne always gets the funniest looks and exclamation when they see

 her long pretty hair and blue eyes. :-)

The place became so busy we ate the ice cream on the way home.

An excellent ending to a wonderful day!