Haiti Trip, May 2012 - Part 6

When we came back downstairs from checking if James was sleeping, Susie pointed out that the lunch food was still out if we were hungry. Jock checked it out and realized it was authentic Haitian food, so he filled a plate while I was checking email and sending out a few photos. When I realized there were fried plantains, I went over to filled a plate too. Beans & rice with a creole pork sauce, piklis (spicy Haitian cole slaw), fried plantains. YUMMY!!! Well, Jock had scraped the bottom of the bowl of the piklis, but one of the cooks came over with another big bowl and offered it to me. I asked, "Cho?" (pronounced "show", meaning hot) She said yes, and I awkwardly refused, since I can't handle the spicy food. I should have just accepted some and given it to Jock, but hindsight is 20/20! I thoroughly enjoyed the fried plantains, though! :)

After lunch, I took a few more photos around the grounds and read a few more emails while James was napping. This first one is the dining room - the kitchen is behind the wall to the left, and Dixie's & Susie/Melissa/Emmalyne's offices are behind the staircase. Magaly's desk is in the open area right at the bottom of the stairs.

There's a small sitting room between the dining room and the front entrance. The front entrance has bookshelves along one wall, and tables for dining overflow as well as for birth families to fill out paperwork when they bring place their children at GLA. Dixie wrote about it on her blog, but two families with babies had been there meeting with Magaly that afternoon.







When you come in the gate there's a parking area with a basketball court, and some mechanical operations off to one side. The other side has an apartment building where some of the volunteers stay.



















The main house (3 stories) has balconies on all stories. The small balcony on the 2nd floor with women sitting in it are just off the NICU room. Sometimes birth moms come and stay with their babies who are just there for support, not for adoption, to provide breastmilk and learn how to care for their babies.




After a while, Jock went to check on James. He was just starting to stir, so we shut down the computers and headed upstairs. He was so excited to see us come in the room, and came over to us immediately, held his arms up for us to take him for playtime. :)

It was after 2:00 by then, and Pastor Brandon had arrived to the main house. We learned that the chairs they were setting up around the dining room were for devotional time with the staff. The volunteers were setting up to take spots in the baby rooms so the nannies could come downstairs for devotions. We were told it would be loud but we were welcome to listen if we wanted. We decided to bring James downstairs with us, and he just snuggled on Daddy's shoulder while the ladies sang and Brandon spoke. We had no clue what they were singing or saying, but there was no mistaking God's presence, and it makes me so thankful for the Godly staff that are caring for our son until he can come home to us. I took a couple videos with the camera just so I could record the audio, but pointed it at the ceiling so as not to be disrespectful of their worship.

When the devotional time was finished, we took James upstairs to play... and not surprisingly, he headed straight for the little cars and handed us the string to pull him around!













Then some swinging.








Then some playing with his little friends.








Then popping some bubbles that volunteer Alissa was blowing for a few kids. (And don't worry - he got right back up after that fall... and then immediately tripped over that same wrinkle and fell again... and then got right back up and kept going! :)

After all that fun, it was time for James to go back to his room for dinner and bedtime, and for us to head downstairs for supper. We had another somewhat authentic Haitian meal. It was black rice with a Haitian sauce over it. We also had kebobs, which were awesome, some fruit, veggies, and a dinner roll. I'd never seen black rice before, but it was so good! I think I could've eaten 2 plates full of the black rice and creole sauce... but I didn't.

We visited some more and I got a couple photos of the dogs - there were three - a ginormous one, a large one, and a teeny-tiny one - so funny to see the three go running off after something! ;) (I can't believe I didn't get a photo of the little tiny one - he couldn't have been more than 6 inches off the ground!)

Pastor Brandon and his family joined the staff at the Main house for dinner. There were quite a few people there that night, to celebrate the birthday of one of John & Dixie's sons. What we didn't realize, since we'd been visiting over dinner at one of the tables around the corner, was that they were also having a devotion in English for the American staff - so we missed the first half of that devotion - but we came to realize that it was likely the same one he'd done in Creole earlier in the day. Funny how you have no idea what they're saying, but yet you sort of get it. :)

After dinner, we were able to chat a bit while we waited for a ride back to the guest house. The other family we'd been traveling with had checked emails and had a couple urgent messages - come to find out that a family member had a medical emergency that afternoon and his family had been trying to get ahold of him. Tough situation to be so far away from home, not able to get home for another 24+ hours in an emergency. When we got back to the guest house, he used the internet phone, to get ahold of his family, got on the internet to check on possible earlier flights home (which wasn't possible), and then we played some cards to get his mind off things for a while before we all got showers and crashed.

One other highlight of the day... In chatting with Dixie for a few moments after supper, we said our goodbyes since we'd be leaving the next day, and she said something like, "Well, hopefully we'll be seeing you back here in 4-6 months to bring James home!" Huh?!? What?!? I was completely shocked! I had to find my tongue, and remember how to use it, and asked, "Do you really think it'll be that short of time?", meaning, "Do you really think things will move that quickly on the adoption process?" She said that, of course, anything can change, but things have been going that quickly recently. Wouldn't that be awesome?!?! So we started calculating... 4-6 months out would put us at mid-September to mid-November! Trying not to get my hopes up too high for having James home by Christmas, but wouldn't that be awesome?!?

Haiti Trip, May 2012 - Part 5

Wednesday, May 9th started out earlier than the previous days had. I had set my little travel alarm for 5:30 am, but I didn't quite roll out of bed at that time. We were downstairs for a bagel and PB around 6:15. Terriot picked us up at 6:30 for our trip to the US Embassy.

We drove past the Haitian Police headquarters, where we were stopped on the street, to respect the flag-raising that was going on right then. They raised the flag, saluted it, then let us get on our way.

After we'd gone a ways, we kept noticing that Terriot kept talking to a few people out his window. One of them we recognized as Ernst, our driver that brought us to GLA from the airport. Pretty soon after that we were headed down a residential street to Magaly's house. The other adoptive mom we were with, who understood/spoke Creole, told us that he'd been talking to people out the window asking them to call Magaly and tell her we were almost to her house, because Terriot didn't have his cell phone with him that day. Magaly came out about the time we arrived, and followed us in her car as we headed the rest of the way to the US Embassy.

However, shortly after leaving Magaly's house, we came to a small traffic jam, and then realized it was because the road we needed to be on was washed out from the rain the night before. There was a huge rut where you could see the rain water had carved a little river down the street the night before. There may have been a path on the edge of the road down the hill, but there was a truck stuck spinning its wheels trying to get up the hill there.

Terriot conferred with the locals out the window, whether there was another road that would get us around and back to the main road where we needed to be. Someone told him there was and pointed and gave him and another driver a little bit more information, and off we went. And if we thought the main (-ish) roads were rough, these felt like we were driving through farm fields. Soooooo bumpy! I somehow hadn't had any problems with forgetting to take my dramamine the day before, but was very glad I'd remembered to take it that morning!

We did indeed make it back to the main road, and made it to the US Embassy between 8:30 and 9:00. We had purposely left most of our electronics back at the guest house except for our camera and cell phones which we left with Terriot, along with our water bottles in the vehicle. We headed inside with less drama at the security entrance. We waited quite a while for them to call us up, one family at a time.

They didn't only have us sign our documents in front of the official - she actually interviewed us. It wasn't very private, as she was using the microphone on the other side of the glass so we could hear her - the same one she used to call us up to her window. She asked us some demographic questions about us and about James, questions about our trip, when we met James and how the first meeting went. She then asked us if we felt like we have bonded with James. Uh, um, well, as much as you can with a child who's under 2 years old and can only spend 2 hours with him. She also asked if we thought he recognized us. Uh, he's not even two years old yet, so we had to be honest with her and tell her we weren't sure. We did tell her that we thought he'd been told that we were coming and he was excited when we arrived, and held his arms up for us to pick him up. She didn't really react to our answers, just was writing them down on her questionnaire. Then she had us sign our documents and it was the next family's turn. They, of course, had the benefit of hearing our interview, so had a few moments to think about their responses.

When both of us had finished with our interview/signing, our jobs here in Haiti were done. Both court appearances, and our I-600 signing were accomplished! We headed back out to meet Terriot, and he took us back to the Guest House. I took lots of scenery photos on the way back from the Embassy to the Guest house.
I assume the person/family living in this tent runs this nursery, selling the plants along the side of the road.

Tent city on a hillside somewhere between the Embassy and Kenscoff.
We drove past President Martelly's house. Many trees along the road in his neighborhood were painted like this. Terriot said that GSMM was some sort of political organization. There were GSMM bilboards along the roads too. Also in his neighborhood were many of the pink signs with his face on them. I didn't look up translations for what these signs said.
A park we drove past a few times. I didn't look up what the banners over the roads said, but a few of them had dates on them, like we might see in the states, advertising a summer festival or something.
Another park with a fountain, but apparently traffic was moving freely because I didn't get a very good picture of the fountain fast enough.
A very full tap-tap!







Terriot was in a hurry to get back into Port-au-Prince for another adoption errand/appointment, so just dropped us off at the guest house and headed on his way. We debated whether we should have him take us to the main house, but we both wanted to change clothes, so we got off at the guest house, around 11 or 11:30.

Once there, the pastor's wife asked us what our plans were for the rest of the day, if we'd planned on just staying there or going to the main house. Of course, we'd planned on going to the main house after a bit, but we'd no idea how we were to get there. We'd been told it was only about a 15-minute walk, but we didn't know the way through the maze of walls, curves and hills. She also hadn't planned on us for lunch - we were to eat our meals at the main house. We had plenty of snack foods we could have lasted until dinner, but she said there was a big bowl of soup in the fridge, so we had a small bowl.

A few minutes later she came back and told us that Susie and Melissa would be coming to the toddler house to pick up a few kids from the main house who come to the toddler house every morning for preschool. We could ride back to the main house with them. We waited a while for them, but realized that it didn't matter anyway, because James has lunch around noon followed by a nap. GLA does not like you to interrupt the kids' schedules, so we would not have been able to spend that time with him anyway.

Around 12:30, we were on our way back to the main house. However, the plan was foiled when on the second-to-last hill, there was a water truck broken down, blocking the road. Melissa didn't know another route to the main house, so she called Emmelyne to bring the Gator. Jock, Susie and I brought walked the three 2-year-olds (Susie carrying one who was already asleep) down the steep hill to meet Emmelyne with the gator for the rest of the trip to the house. I think we finally arrived around 1:00. Always an adventure! As it was, James was napping when we got to the main house, so we got a few photos of our precious boy sleeping. :)


The little girl standing up in her crib next to all the other sleeping babies was the same one that had fallen asleep on the way back from the Toddler House. She had apparently slept through lunch and was up earlier than the rest of the babies. :)

Our crazy life, part 98623845

We interrupt the Haiti Trip postings for, well, life!

Last Thursday was our final small-group gathering for the school year. We had lots of fun grilling out at a local park and playing sand volleyball, while the kids played at the playground or in the sand at our feet.

Friday, Elijah & Josephine graduated from preschool - so fun!

Saturday we had Josephine's t-ball game at 8 am, Kaylen's soccer game at 10:30 am, Elijah's t-ball game at 2:00. In between, we were able to come home and switch laundry loads and get a little housework done. After Elijah's game I somehow sneaked in a nap before we headed over to a friend's graduation party around 4:30, where we had dinner and played some more volleyball.

Sunday we went to the 8:30 church service, as usual, then visited for a bit afterwards, as usual. Then we had a family birthday party at noon at Jock's brother's house. When we left, we went to Home Depot for gardening supplies. We came home with lots of veggie plants, but didn't get any of them planted. Jock spent the rest of his energy on planting the apple tree he'd found. I, having sprained my ankle playing volleyball the night before, wasn't in much shape for gardening, but I was able to cut a ton of lettuce, and then distributed it to several friends. The lettuce really should've been cut around the time we left for Haiti, but it got neglected, so we had a ton of it to share.

Monday Kaylen had soccer practice. Tuesday was our 13th wedding anniversary, which we celebrated quietly at home. Today the girls had their dance classes. Tomorrow, if it's not raining, Kaylen will have soccer practice again.

Maybe with the three-day holiday weekend, free of soccer and t-ball games, we'll get around to planting the rest of our garden, doing so more blogging about our trip, and maybe finding some photos of the above events!

I'm sure we'll find several other things we want to get done too. There is never really enough time to get caught up on everything, is there?!?

Haiti Trip, May 2012 - Part 4

Tuesday, May 8th, we were up early to get ready for our day of appointments at the US Embassy and the court judge.

Terriot (pronounced Terry-o) picked us up promptly at 7 am. Thus begun our adventure of driving in traffic down the mountain into Port-au-Prince. Tom recently posted this video on GLA's blogs to show what traffic is like there. So very true! We were in a small SUV, not a motorcycle, but this is what we saw on Tuesday. :) Terriot was an excellent driver! Unbelievable how he weaved us through traffic, uncontrolled intersections, down side streets to bypass traffic jams, around potholes and speed bumps, etc., without hitting anything or anyone! And use of the vehicle's horn seems to be mandatory in Haiti!

Despite his excellent driving, we arrived to the US Embassy at 9:00 - an hour late for our 8 am appointment. Magaly met us there - she lives about closer to the Embassy than to GLA. Terriot took a close parking space with his car, then jumped in Magaly's car and parked it for her then waited outside for us.

Terriot told us to leave our cameras and cell phones with him, and he locked them in his glove compartment. Even so, we still had to leave one of our backpacks outside the front door, because we were not allowed to take water bottles, medications, sunscreen, or any other electronics into the US Embassy. The guy at the table outside gave us a number to claim our things, then we proceeded through security and went inside. We waited in the large waiting room for less than an hour. They looked over our paperwork, but asked us to come back the next day, since the officials were in a 2-hour meeting. Ugh - fail. But the next day was left open as back-up, so it would probably be fine.

Back outside, we met back up with Terriot, who took us on another adventure, driving us across town to the court building. We drove through some pretty rough areas, and also right past the Presidential Palace - still looking the same as it did 2 years ago after it collapsed during the earthquake. There were places where you could tell they'd torn down collapsed buildings, and there were piles of rocks sitting on a lot. I was surprised not to see as many tent cities as I'd expected.

Once we arrived at the court building, there were no parking spots, but someone was leaving, so Terriot parked in the spot they vacated and took us inside. We sat in a small un-air-conditioned room. It was pretty hot in there, and there were several people waiting. It was around noon when we arrived, and we were hungry, so we asked Terriot if it would be OK if we ate our snacks we'd brought with us. He said that'd be fine, although it was a little uncomfortable eating in front of the Haitians sitting there waiting as well.

Men in suits kept coming in and out of the room, and to the office just past the waiting room. Then they'd come out and ask us to keep waiting because they were "very busy". We must've sat there for a couple hours, before they finally called us to come back to a different waiting room. We sat there for a while before a secretary brought our dossier to us. Then a man came and called us in, one family at a time. He asked us for our passports, then had us sit in a couple chairs to the right of the door, passed our dossier to the judge sitting behind a desk on the other side of the room. I'm not sure he even looked up at us, just signed the front page in the dossier folder, handed it back to the man, who handed it back to us and that was it!

We went back to the waiting room and waited for the other family that was with us. Then we waited for Terriot to come back for us since we didn't know what we were supposed to do or if we were truly done. He took our dossiers back to the original office we'd waited in, and then we got back in the car for the trip back to the Guest house. Terriot graciously waited 5 minutes for us to change clothes and took us to the Main house. We had about 1-1/2 hours to spend with James before dinner.

Susie had shown us a shelf with some small gray boxes the day before. They keep those boxes for special items for each child brought by their adoptive families. She said that the volunteers assigned to a child will get their box out when they play with that child, and look at the photos, etc, with the child. That seems very special to me that they take care of the toys that each child's family sends and plays and looks at them with them. With our previous Haitian adoption, there really wasn't much of a means to keep things special for one child, so I was very impressed by this. We decided to leave the toys we'd brought for James there, along with a couple of the books, including a baby photo album with photos of him, us, and his siblings. We're hoping to bring them home when it's time to bring James home, so he has some familiar toys and books to play with when he comes home. :)

We were only upstairs on the balcony for a few minutes before a couple of the volunteers were talking about taking a couple kids for a walk outside the GLA gate. I was a little surprised by this, but after several hours in the car that day, the walk sounded good, so we took James along with them for the walk. It was about to start raining, but we got to the end of the road and back just as the rain started. The other little boy about James' age with us was walking more slowly because his shoe kept falling off - but James wanted to go faster - was dragging me along, even though I tried waiting for the others. :)







Back upstairs on the balcony, James had fun stomping through the puddles from the rain. Such a typical boy! I bet his nannies love that we'd let him get soaking wet before we brought him back to his room. He also sat down and played with a puzzle with his volunteer, and rocked a bit on Daddy's lap.

Supper that night was another very American meal - hot dogs, hashbrowns, dinner rolls and fruit. We were on our way back to the guest house fairly soon after supper, so we had some time to play cards with the other family we traveled with, before showering and crashing from the long day. The next day we were headed back to the US Embassy - sooner than we'd left that day, so we could arrive on time and get our appointments accomplished.

Haiti Trip, May 2012 - Part 3

Upon arrival in Haiti on Monday, May 7th, we were given a ride by Ernst (in Creole, the "er" is pronounced like "air", and the "t" is pretty much silent) in the back of the truck from the airport to the guest house.

We were met in the yard by Nikki, Pastor Brandon's wife. She told Jock and I after unloading our luggage from the truck that we were to continue to the Main house with Ernst - all we needed was our I-600 paperwork and our passports to go over with Melissa and for an appointment with Judge Bob. I asked if we needed to change into dressy clothes for Judge Bob, and her response was, "Nah, not for Judge Bob". Apparently he's very OK with casual-ness, and very informal. She also said not to worry about bringing our luggage in, they'd take care of it.

Well, I heard that and literally just took my folder out of my backpack and off we went - not thinking that we were going to meet James at the main house as well! So, we didn't have our camera for our first meeting - duh!!! Well, we did have Jock's cell phone, so we got a few good photos, and Susie had her camera out and ready as well! :)

We were met at the main house gate when we arrived, by Susie and Melissa. They said James was downstairs and ready to meet us as well! We walked in, and now thinking back, I'm sure he'd been told that Mama and Papa were coming, so when we walked in, and someone said something like, "Here he is!", or "There they are!", he had his arms up ready to be picked up and held by us! So sweet!!! Susie started taking photos as we stood there soaking up our first meeting of our son and him us.

We were told that we had a little time before we'd have to leave to go see Judge Bob, so we could just hang out with James for a bit until then. I didn't have my backpack, so I didn't have any toys or books or anything to do with James, but there were a few books downstairs, he had a toy in his hand, and we also found a basketball sitting out that we played with for a while too. We also realized then, that when the babies are brought downstairs it is to go for walks outside, because he was ready to go! We walked around the yard quite a bit that afternoon also. James is such a sweet, cuddly little boy, and also a very busy and curious almost-two-year-old! :)

Our appointment with the local judge, Judge Bob, that afternoon was even more informal that we were told it would be! Apparently when they called him, they found out he was in the neighborhood, so Ernst went to pick up the other family and Judge Bob and his two daughters, and bring them to the Main House for our appointment!

When he arrived, he sat down with Magaly for a few minutes then they called us over. There were a few lines written on the top of a page in a legal notepad, then our names were written. Below our names, we had to sign our names, print our address, and our passport number. Judge Bob and Magaly each took photos with their camera as we signed. The only thing Judge Bob actually asked was after I'd signed my name, he asked me if I signed or printed - I guess I signed too neatly! :) That was it!

Afterwards, we were told that Judge Bob had never done that before - he's always been fairly informal, but the appointments were always done at his office. I'm thankful that he seems to go with the flow and is understanding of time committments - as we were told that we needed to have that appointment done that day, since it had to be done before our other court appointment the following day. He was in the neighborhood, so he made it work.

After our meeting with Judge Bob, we went over our paperwork for our I-600 appointment the next day with Melissa. Then we took James upstairs to the 3rd floor balcony for some playtime - James immediately went over to the car and jumped in. Then he handed me the string to pull him around. I shouldn't be surprised - just like his big brother, he's fond of anything with wheels or that rolls. :) We took James back to his room around 5 pm. The babies have their supper around then, and they didn't want us to disrupt his schedule while we were there. Then apparently after supper they are bathed and changed to get ready for bed, so that was it for our first day's visit with James.

Supper that night was with the volunteers, the other adoptive family, and GLA staff. Supper was mashed potatoes, beef gravy, peas/corn, dinner rolls and fruit. We weren't expecting American food, but it was very good. After we'd had dinner and chatted for a while, we rode back to the guest house. It must've been around 7 when we got back. We sat down and talked with Nikki about some ground rules at the guest house, what her and our plans were, got a quick tour, etc. Then we all retired to our rooms. It was pretty early yet, so Jock and I showered off the day's sweat and dirt, then played some cards for a while before getting organized for the next day and getting some sleep.

We had a busy day planned for the following day - 7 am departure for the US Embassy, then our appointment with the court judge in Port-au-Prince. We were told to expect a very long day, and a long wait in an office without air conditioning.

Haiti Trip, May 2012 - Part 2

We were out of IBESR April 18th, 2012. The next step was for us to travel to Haiti to file our I-600, and attend two court appearances. We were asked to provide weeks that would work for us to travel, and they would get back to us, knowing that we'd likely have to arrive in Port-au-Prince on a Monday, and depart on a Thursday. We told them that our first preference would be to travel the week of May 7th, but that we could also travel the weeks of May 21st or May 28th.

The grandparents were on stand-by to come stay with Kaylen, Elijah, & Josephine. Work was notified of possible travel dates. And then we waited. We were asked if we'd be willing to share a room with another adoptive family if that would help getting our preferred dates, and we immediately responded that would be fine. We finally heard on April 29th, that we could travel the week of May 7th. Then it took us another day to coordinate flights so we would arrive in and depart from Port-au-Prince on the same flights as another adoptive family that traveled at the same time - yes, we booked our travel 10 days out!!! Then had 10 days to finish travel preparations.

Most of our travel plans went off without a hitch. We flew from Des Moines to Miami on Sunday, May 6th. Luckily our flights were routed through Dallas-Ft. Worth, as many flights through O'Hare were cancelled that day due to storms. We hadn't booked a room at the airport hotel, because we weren't sure if it'd be worth it upon arrival to Miami at 12:20 am, especially if we were delayed. Well, we were on time, and the airport hotel was full, so we found another nearby hotel that had rooms available and their last shuttle of the night was arriving to the airport right then. We ran outside and hitched a ride to the Hampton Inn. We were able to get about 5 hours of sleep, before hitting their included and very nice breakfast buffet, and then heading back to the airport.

Our flight to Port-au-Prince was on time. We met the other adoptive family we were traveling with as we passed their seats on the plane, then met up with them to get through immigration and customs, and find our driver on the way to GLA. Our trip to GLA was ridden in the back of a pick-up truck - there were wooden benches to sit on, and cages to hold us and our luggage in and to hold on tight when we went over bumpy roads and potholes. A very interesting first experience for us in Haiti. Hello sunscreen and dust/exhaust allergens, but it was nice to see the scenery and get to know the other family along the way. They were a fun couple to travel with, and very handy also, as she understands and speaks Creole very well, having grown up in Haiti with missionary parents. She did say her skills were a little rusty because she'd been back in the states for 20 years, but very helpful none-the-less.

More on our schedule of appointments while we were there over the next few days...

Haiti Trip, May 2012 - Part 1

We just returned from a trip to Haiti. We were there to meet our son James for the first time, to attend two Haitian court appearances and sign our I-600 at the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince. It was a wonderful trip! It was so exciting to meet James for the first time, and to see how God has had a hand in the matching process for the perfect child for our family. Our court appearances and I-600 signing were accomplished as well. More on those later, but I wanted to get down some overall thoughts on the trip and on GLA in general... I was SO impressed with how everything at GLA was run! Very well organized and very purposeful in everything they do, which was awesome to see.

We stayed at the guest house, which is run by Pastor Brandon and his family and also where they live. Brandon and Nikki were wonderful hosts, even though they had an extremely busy week with family visiting them, and the Associate Pastor's wedding on Thursday that they were preparing for. They house the mission teams that visit, adoptive families coming for courts or to pick up their children, and a classroom for the children from the toddler house.

Pastor Brandon's church is just a few doors down from the guest house. He said the church meets on the second floor of this building (the green floor), and his associate pastor lives on the upper floor.

The toddler house is between the church and the guest house. Molly and Joyce run the Toddler house. Both have been in Haiti for 8-10 years. Melissa lives there as well (she's been in Haiti for 3 years), but works mostly in the main house as the adoptive family coordinator. Some of the short-term volunteers are housed at the toddler house as well. I wasn't there for more than 10 minutes the whole trip - just the day we walked from there to the main house with Melissa.

The main house, where Dixie lives and where the babies are, is about a 5-minute drive or a 20-minute walk from the toddler and guest houses. We did walk it one day, and my calves were sore for more than a full day afterwards from the steep hills which were also very slippery because it's rainy season - but it was nice to get out and walk! It's interesting being in the countryside and mountains instead of in the city. The locals are very polite and no harrassing to get you to give money or buy something on the street. In fact, I kept forgetting to look up from carefully watching my step, to say, "Bonjou," to people as we walked past - so rude! :)

The building off to the right of the main house is has rooms for some of the volunteers.

The first floor of the main building contains a sitting room, a large dining room where all the volunteers, staff and adoptive families have meals together. Just under the stairs is Magaly's office - she's one of our adoption processors. Behind the stairs are Dixie's office and an office shared by Emelyne, Susie, and Melissa.

The second floor is where the babies live. If I remember right, there are 5 baby rooms, with bathrooms, storage, etc.: the NICU, a healthy little-baby room, a room for crawlers, a small room for those starting to walk, and two rooms for the walkers 2 and under. There are 2 or 3 nannies in each room, and their shifts are for 4 days straight - they sleep there as well, then they rotate off. When I was in the rooms they were busy doing little girls' hair, lotion/powdering, wiping noses, diapering, sweeping/mopping, changing sheets, singing with them, and just keeping an eye on them.

The third floor has a large balcony play area for the babies, and also I think is where John and Dixie live. There is a rotation of short-term volunteers that come to help at the baby house. There were 7 there when we were, and most are there for 1-2 weeks, one for a month - also a couple had been to GLA multiple times previously. They're each assigned certain babies, and they have a set schedule of when they go get each baby from their room to bring them to the 3rd floor balcony for some one-on-one play time, where they're supposed to work on certain developmental skills, like sensory, eye contact, small or large motor skills, reading books, doing puzzles, etc. Sometimes they take the children outside the complex for a walk in the neighborhood as well. VERY COOL!!!