The day started out great. Mom and I had a nice long walk by the canal at 6 am with the german shepherd, Pal. Pal was awesome until he almost had a fit of excitement when a whole family of goats went by. We held his collar because he so much wants to play that he runs at them and barks and almost scares them half to death. The goat owners really don't like that!
When we got back from our walk, Ariane was crying because of a bad earache. Apparently she had been up in the night and Karen had given her pain medicine then too. Over the course of the morning, the pain got worse and worse and her fever kept climbing. Luckner got us some antibiotics and my friendly pharmacist buddy Christy gave me the dosage. She had a very rough day but seemed a little bit better by the time she went to bed, so I'm hoping the medicine is working so she'll be better again tomorrow.
Karen didn't feel great all morning (nor last night), but started to feel especially sick after lunch and spent the whole afternoon and evening unable to keep anything down. It's been 30 minutes now so I'm hopeful that I can soon give her a glass of water and maybe a cracker.
I managed to get some of the things done that I had planned, including packing up some of the donations that are set aside for kids in the church that are away visiting family right now, cleaning up and organizing mom's room after using it as a donation centre for 10 days, and taking down the Christmas decorations. That in between giving meds, hugs, and helping Ariane and mom make it through the day. Oh yeah, and I packed our bags and am almost ready to get the last of the laundry to pack to leave tomorrow morning.
Josiah is sleeping down at Luckner's place again tonight. Cabano and Ricardo just adore him and wanted him to come and spend the night again, so Luckner asked if he could keep him forever. When I said no, he asked if he could keep him just overnight. So he was excited to run off to another sleepover.
Tevan had a big moment today! He lost his first tooth. He was playing outside with JJ and Moise when he got bumped by a ball and pop - out comes his tooth. He's quite thrilled to have lost a tooth and has it under his pillow for the tooth fairy tonight. I wonder if she'll bring Haitian goudes, US currency, or Canadian money?
The kids were a big help today, moving boxes and helping Martha prepare food. Martha cooked a special goodbye meal for us of rice and congo peas, akra, and banane peze. Plus my favourite juice, passionfruit juice. It was a wonderful meal.
Mariah and Martha making passionfruit juice.
Josiah getting rice ready. We leave tomorrow at 9 am and catch our flight at 5 pm. We'll spend the night in Miami and will be home late on Dec 31st. I'll post one last message when we are home safe and sound.
Liette
