Saturday, May 16, 2009

School is winding down so fast it is hard to fathom. The kids have gotten a little wild, actually really wild and we had to sit on them this week. One of the teen age boys was disciplined by a teacher and he retaliated by tearing up his son's hat on the truck home. The teachers son is about 3 1/2 and is about the smallest kid in school, he is in preschool. The student is about 6 ft 1. The next day, when we found out about this, the student also threatened the teacher and his son. So, he is no longer with us...Gary told him to go home and not return unless he had his father with him to discuss it. His father is a pastor in a local church and I think it will not be pretty. The kids in general have a discipline problem, and much of it stems from the teachers. They have a real problem disciplining the kids, as they want to be liked more than respected.

Well, Thursday afternoon, we had a meeting with the older kids and it got laid out. Two kids will not return next year, and it could be as many as others. At some time they have to see consequences for behavour, and for the kids who have been problems, they don't get it at home so they think they can do whatever they want, and it is causing problems with many of the others kids. Love isn't always warm and fuzzy, sometimes it has an edge to it, if not you become an enabler of bad attitude and behavour that does not serve the child well.

Rainy season is very much upon us. We are getting regular afternoon and early evening rains. Last night it started about 5:30 or so and rained until maybe 8:30, hard at first then just a constant rain. We have had a very hard rain to start the year and one of the teachers commented "the season is just starting". you can see the effects on the roads already, with gravel and dirt washed away, sharper edges on the holes in the roads, etc. I have come to see that this is just life in Haiti, the people live for the day because they have no control over what will come or how bad it will get.

Once again I will attempt to post pic's....blogger has just not accepted pic's and won't again today. This has been about a week now, so I think I may have a computer glitch of my own, as I know others who use blogger and have posted pic's. I will do what I can and try later.

Bondye benis ou.