Feeding Clinic

We held the first "feeding clinic" today. I have to say that it far exceeded my expectations. In every way. The food was awesome, the cooks were awesome, the kids were really well behaved and polite and reverent and hungry and grateful, the location was great, etc. I wanted to share some pictures from our day.

The menu. Diri avek Sauce Pwa, Salami and Sauce Creole. (Translation rice and beans with salami and red sauce with onions in it). All with a vitamin and water on the side. Today about 140 of the 175 kids who have signed up were in attendance. It was a large amount of food!

Friends.

It would be tough to beat the people I am lucky enough to call friends in the US. But I love Roselie. She brought her sister with us today and helped in every way. She is one of those women who just sees what needs to be done and does it.

Johnny. Justin often says "he is the one Haitian I can trust." Here he is walking with the cassek, who is "king" of the area, we are working in. They walk hand in hand. I see this a lot with men here who are friends.

I love how Cal just jumps in there. In fact, I love how he is here in general. Still himself and totally comfortable with it. This friend is Cal's age.

The cooks. Check out that batch of rice, that was only about 1/2 the rice that was cooked. These women worked from 6am and did a wonderful job. I have no worries that when we leave they will take over beautifully.

My ever faithful, best helper, IS. She was in charge of putting a vitamin on every plate and she played her role very well. She also helped feed some of the younger children and all the kids including the babies helped pass water. 

The important part. The kids being fed. I can not tell you how rewarding yet how heartbreaking it is to feed these babies. I helped two babies eat today. One little boy who was younger than my babies ate his adult size plate in under 2 min. I am sure it was his only meal today. The other little girl had a huge worm belly. I was so sad as I fed her knowing that the worms were going to eat the most nutritious part of her meal. 

Two little guys with their quickly cleaned plates.

"Where is the blan?" In Creole, blan means white. You will have to blow the picture up to play the game. I think we are going to have a hard time when we get home with this one. While we were visiting the states we took the kids to a park. He was wandering around looking lost until he found a beautiful brown baby to play with.  He quickly grabbed her hand and was off like he was at home. Here you can see, if you blow the picture up, how at home he is here. 

It is rude not to eat what you asked to be made, so we did. I hope they used clean water. The food was amazing. How can you cook for 200 and still have it taste so good?

Check out this mug. He fights us on eating most things. But beans and rice is never a fight.