Our first week with Verlande:
So many things happened, we saw, were said. So many firsts. Here is a write up (yes, again most likely without proper punctuation… but that is the way I roll these daysJ!!) on some things I don’t want to forget.
OUR FIRST DAY THERE:
*We were surprised by Verlande at the airport!!! After a night spent sleeping in chairs and our bodies contorted around the arm rests on the airport chairs and eventually resorting to the floor in the Miami airport (trying to save money by not going to a hotel) we were exhausted but totally running on adrenaline/ ready to get to Haiti. We got to the airport in Port au Prince (PaP), and it did look better than before. There were no military planes/helicopters, there was a new back part built onto the airport that we entered into, and we got super lucky and just walked right up to customs. Super easy. Had a hard time finding luggage, but then we were out and ready to walk by the (scary in my opinion) gates where Haitians seem to congregate. We had to go to end where people were waiting, and we were met with a crowd of people and trying to stand behind these gates to see if we could find Eliette. Ryan ended up spotting her, so we walked out of behind the gates into the crowd and we got to Eliette and I heard the word “surprise” and was shocked to see a child standing by Eliette. Within a quick second in my mind, I thought 1.is this verlande, or is eliette taking care of another child this age possibly? 2. She had her baby doll’s pacifier in her mouth so she looked much younger/smaller 3. But I noticed that she was wearing the clothes that we had sent her- it was VERLANDE!!! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I was so excited! VERLANDE was already here! (also scared, oh gosh what to say, she doesn’t speak our language, she seemed very shy in this crowd of people by the gates), so I got down low to her, and think I said Verlande, I’m so happy to see you, and asked if I could hug her and I hugged her. She gave me like the strongest BEAR HUG, like both arms pulling me in. Then she went to Eliette and said something/ Eliette laughed and told me that she just asked “is this my mommy” and Eliette said yes, Verlande came back to hug me. Ryan was also down low and he was able to hug her and take pictures real quick with her also. And we were off to car.
*Our first car trip together/ Meeting Ryan: The car ride was very funny. Once she got used to sitting between us, Verlande seemed very curious about Ryan. After maybe just 3-4-5 minutes, she was reaching over to him and reaching up touching his hair. She seemed very FASCINATED by this (diminishing in volume) blonde hair! She was also very gently putting her hands on his face and like feeling his face. It was very very cute. I tried to take a picture real quick and this set off of course the CAMERA frenzy. She loved seeing pictures of herself, and she is very much not afraid to take the camera and try on her own. She was taking pictures and not doing too bad at all!
*Orphanage: This was very sad. It didn’t seem like when I was there before- maybe because it was only Ryan and I, rather than a big excitable group? Maybe because it was a surprise, they didn’t know we were coming? The girls seemed very just “in a zone” to some extent for much of the visit. Not as much interaction as we had the first time, or maybe it was just harder to get it started? Also, I just was heartbroken to really not see/recognize any of the girls there. WHERE WERE THEY?> I asked some of the older girls there, “where is Claudemei?” and a few other names, and they shrugged, they said they didn’ t know. Where did ALL OF THEM GO? This is still something I am concerned about. Again: there was nothing there. Well, actually, they had beds- these little bunk beds with like 2 feet in the middle of them. That was it. TOTALLY IT. The good news we thought of later was: there wasn’t garbage in their orphanage area. That is nice I guess. But it is just nothingness. Hot, open, nothingness. Every day of their lives. I wanted to just really get out of there.
But no- it was also okay. I had made these crochet flowers for each of the girls, I brought 30/ enough for all. And they all wanted them around their wrists or their hair for headbands. They were happy with these, and it was nice to have Verlande give these out to her friends. Ryan taught the girls Uno as well as Connect 4, and they caught on and seemed to really enjoy him.. especially HIS HAIR!! I looked over and about 3 off the older girls were up close with their hands on his head examining his hair!!! SO FUNNY! Good thing he has a bit leftJ This whole trip, his hair seemed to be a novelty to them and also Verlande! We gave the girls also food that we bought from the grocery store, and I brought them hair stuff and bracelets/necklaces, just fun stuff, something bright. And we brought candy also that we left them for a surprise later. Overall though, I was glad to leave. It convinced me “yes, we are doing the right thing.” It reminded me of the whole essence: we cannot just let someone grow up in that if you can do anything about it.
*PAP and the COURT: It wasn’t until THURSDAY that we went into Port au Prince- it was about 30 min drive to get there- first had to go through the mountain area, and you could see the earthquake effects starting to increase the closer in we got. BUT.. that being said, it definitely didn’t seem to be to be AS bad as last August- I never saw any tents on the median this time. We also were in totally different areas- so it is very hard to compare, but I never had as much of a heart wrenching feeling- seeing people drink and bathe in puddles (then again there were no puddles- it was dry). So overall, it is so hard to say. We had to first go to Eliette’s office, which was demolished by the earthquake and they are just fixing—there is a part that has a copier and work space, but other than that, workers were there putting cement walls up, etc. They were so nice when we walked through. When we pulled to the side of road by court in PaP, we got out and there were two little boys, sitting on the curb in button up white shirts. Immediately, I knew these were Verlande’s brothers. I then right away saw her dad there to meet us, and it confirmed to me that these were her brothers. Her brothers are ages 12 and 11, names Anvilo and Verlando (yes, exactly verlande’s name just with an O on the end). They were truly the sweetest precious boys ever. They did not stop smiling and Ryan and I got down to shake their hands to meet them, they were so cute. We went into the court- somehow walked past all these people waiting in line- I think it was because Eliette was with us? But it wasn’t difficult- we had to do some papers, then come back in 2 hours when it would be written up and sign again. It didn’t end up taking 2 hours, and that was very nice so we didn’t have to kill as much time in PaP. Getting back into the car w/ Verlande’s brothers was so amazing- they were behind us in this van and could not stop staring at us- they were up close to the seat and we were trying to say some things to them/ ask their Dad questions/find out their ages, play little things w/ them, etc.
I brought enough power bars for everyone for a snack, and I think they liked their power bar and were so sweet when they took it. They were just as easy to love as Verlande. Yes, I was also having a hard time with this. I knew that Verlande loved her brothers so much, and to see them, I started thinking- her family (dad and brothers) are HERE in Haiti…. How can we have her leave Haiti???? Her brothers and her lived with their dad’s mom when their mom abandoned them (when verlande was age 2, so 4 years ago). After the earthquake, the two boys went to live with the dad, in a very remote area, while Verlande went to the orphanage. We are not completely sure how this worked/why/ if it is gender related, etc. We do know that although the dad had her go to an orphanage, he loves her and came to visit her around every 3 months (although she hasn’t seen her brothers since the earthquake. Also, Verlande/brothers/grandmother were right in PaP during earthquake, so they were right there- they experienced this. I don’t know what Verlande remembers.) Eliette told us what a big deal this was that he came to visit her—to get the money to travel to the orphanage she was in cost money, as well as he had to leave money for the two boys to eat on the day that he was gone, etc. Anyway, so there were all sorts of conflicting things going through my head. On one hand, this is her family. On the other hand, she has been in orphanage and would continue to be, just like those other girls, until what? Until she was 18? And then what? Nowhere to go, no education, no life, etc. But this is family, I don’t know, it was (is) very confusing. What is right? Who knows. I got very emotional about this later in the day, I think Ryan may have been struggling with it possibly also. I teared up and cried slightly later with Eliette and said, “I feel like we are doing something bad- that we are taking her away” and Eliette was very reassuring and said “no, she is not with her family, she is in an orphanage and she will be. Her dad cannot take care of her, and he is so happy for this opportunity for her”. Eliette’s words were: Verlande has no future if she grows up in the orphanage. And I do know this is true.
*PLAYING: Verlande all week was playful. Just as she was the day I met her. She does smile all the time (well, most of the time, she also did have her moods, more justified than anything else—she definitely has the right to be a bit sad and to with draw at times), she is COMPLETELY animated. Her eyes are HUGE and expressive, and she loves making all sorts of faces. She makes faces with her eyes/face, but also her shoulders/and her body are always moving and grooving. She still LOVES her baby doll that we sent to her in January- that thing was with her nonstop! She loved it, although she would hit it sometimes and we kept reminding her “gentle “ (jenti in Haitian). We brought her a backpack, which ended up being one of her favorite things to carry all of her new little posessions in. She always had her jump rope in there, (some stashed food, see below), a ball, any little things she wanted to carry, she loved having stuff to put in that backpack! All of the little things we brought for her in terms of “accessories” she loved- we had a few bracelets/necklaces (all honestly phoebe’s stuff as we can’t get phoebe to really wear much), and Verlande would each day put everything on at once—every little bracelet, she would put a headband in, or two, as well as this little bandana that I brought her also! Very cute. She loved her jumprope- there was a Japanese group of 3 people staying at our guest house who LOVED Verlande and loved to take pictures of her (and thus she loved them as she loved posing for them!), and one of the women took my jump rope and had Verlande double jump with her. She loved that. She loved playing catch with this little soft ball we brought and GOOD THING it was soft- honestly that girl has ARMS—yes both arms- she seems to do most stuff lefty, but also throws and eats sometimes with right hand. She WHALED the ball, it was crazy that she could do it so well. Oh.. and yes, surprisingly enough and I need to say this now: she honestly would get down on the floor and do like 10 full body pushups.. I have no idea why- she didn’t see me doing pushups yet when she did this, so somewhere she has been taught push ups? I have no idea. I’m sure they don’t do this at the orphanage, and my thought would be that in Haiti, the goal may be to slightly CONSERVE energy.. but nope, she rocked out those pushups. She loved the dominoes that we brought her,, as well as UNO game and caught on right away to these, HOWEVER…. We learned that it is very challenging to teach a child from an orphanage to “get rid of all their stuff” (as in dominoes and uno cards). She does not want to get rid of her cards, she is trying to collect them and stash them behind her. We gave her a book that we recorded our voices in, and she loved listening to that- she would bring that with her and keep opening it. She loved the end- we recorded “we love you verlande; give yourself a big hug from us” and she knew this recorded part came on the last page, and would always open to that and repeat with us “we love you verlande” and get all ex cited and smiley and laughing. She also just loved playing silly things with us all week—little kid games where we didn’t even have to talk/ understand each others languages. Hand games where one person had to move their hand away before the other flipped their hand over on top of it, she would come up behind me and kind of tap my butt, and I would do this big clown act of turning around all silly – like pretending to try to see what was on my butt and just continue to do big circles like a dog trying to catch tail. This would send her into roars of laughter. She loved when Ryan would play with her and “honk” her nose. We just did silly stuff, and laughed most of the day.
*HAIR AND SHOWERING: Ok I had no idea how to do Verlande’s hair, but I had to make a go at it. The first morning there, she got in to take her shower/bath and that child LOVES a bathtub. Oh m y gosh. Who knows how much experience she has in an actual tub, but she literally was in her heaven- she loved the water coming down on her, she loved dipping her head under the faucet. The more wet she got, the more she was trying to jump up and down in shower, while we are saying careful careful with our hands out in front like “stop”. She would then get down low in the tub where water was accumulating and lay in it and just DELIGHT in it- she would splash like a fish and GIGGLE the happiest sounds. I will never forget watching this. We were getting so wet standing there trying to make sure she wasn’t falling, but it didn’t matter, she was JUST SO happy. I gave her this bunny loofah sponge and she just loved sudsing up with soap.. oh she just thought this rocked.
OK: onto the HAIR. OH NO.. she got out of the shower and I am asking her which order these products go into her hair that Eliette had us bring: “pomade” “hair food” oh boy, I have no idea. So of course Verlande did! So she did this, and then I am saying, “OK I should try to braid this” and I make a braid motion with hands.. nope, she takes her hands on my head/hair and like “pets my hair back” and points to her- like she wants me to do hers like mine. She pulled hers back and up into a cute little pony tail, all curly at the end and I thought, OK that looks cute to me!!! So we saw Eliette and her daughter/son later and they thought this was very funny looking. I tried to tell them that I was going to try and need to learn, but that Verlande was doing this motion with her hands and wouldn’t let me try. Eliette spoke with her and told me that Verlande said she wanted her hair like mine. Very funny.
*FOOD/STOMACH issues: Oh boy, WHERE TO START HERE. Long story short: lots of issues.
#1 is that Verlande had parasites/tapeworm and her stomach was hurting her very bad at times there. Literally hurting her where we could see it really just excruciating and no position was comfortable. Her stomach would bloat out so far and it was HUGE at times. She had diarrhea the entire week. This was hard and we learned “vont fait mal” very quickly (stomach hurts). Eating was an experience. My first experience watching her eat dinner was horrible for me. Some of you know I don’t eat much meat. I was a vegetarian for almost 10 years and now eat meat. Anyway- Verlande loves meat. OK so she is eating her chicken that we were served at this first dinner and I literally just sat there with huge eyes watching her- I literally thought (many things) but 1. That she was possibly going to eat the bone, and 2. That I was going to be sick. She ate every little piece of this chicken and basically the bone was just plain spick and span cleaned when she was done. At the end I had to kind of grab this piece that was just a pure fat piece (she had already eaten others) and put it over on Ryans plate to get it out of the way when she wasn’t looking. But I didn’t want to be seen taking any sort of “food” away from her, I didn’t want her to feel like she had to hide an ything at all from me (I know how that is with food). The entire week, we were gently trying to remind her to go SLOWLY with her food, and to not just put the entire food in her mouth at once. She literally sometimes would put so much in her mouth that she had to tilt her head, open her mouth and huff and puff breathing. She would often have so much in that she literally had no room to chew, so we’d have to help her spit some into a napkin and basically “re-eat”. It was eye opening, scarey, and just the saddest thing to me. I tear up writing this, thinking that a child has learned these survival skills. That a child age 6 knows that she better eat the food quickly before it is taken by someone else maybe? She also “stores” food. One day after breakfast when we had peanut butter on bread, I saw her about 10-15 min later walking out of the bathroom of our room, rolling something up in toilet paper and she clearly did not want me to see hwat she was doing and she put it into her backpack that I brought for her. I had Ryan take her out to play so I could see what that was.. I had a feeling it was something I needed to know what was going on. So she had somehow stored this ball of peanut butter (like an inch diameter so pretty good size HUNK) in her mouth (it wasn’t the consistency of our peanut butter, it was like hard). The next morning they had hot dogs, (yes, not my favorite thing to watch her eat, but I said nothingJ) she grabbed two to devour. Then she took two more and wrapped them up in a napkin and put in her backpack for later. I had brought these fruit “strip” things, kind of like fruit roll ups, but a bit different, and I kept taking those out and giving them to her, explaining to “put in backpack for LATER.. not now… later.. just when you feel hungry” all casual… hopefully she’ll get used to having food when she is hungry.
She also is very “highly skilled” at using her little tongue to spit things out of her mouth. She’ll eat the beans/rice, but if she comes across an onion in there, that onion is cleaned off 100% and spit out on her plate again. She gets everything out of the food that she likes, cleans off the rest and spits it right out. So we were trying to teach her to just use her hand to take it out and to place it on her plate. (I’ll die if Forrest sees her doing this spitting as then I can just imagine the monkey see- monkey do behavior).
She also will need to learn any sort of “manners” I guess. She now is at the height of the table it seemed, and eating food, she often would just put her mouth up to the edge of her plate on the table and use her spoon to literally shovel food in her mouth. (again, Forrest would love to use this!).
*PARENTING: This is getting far longer than I imagined. I’ll leave it here to: she definitely didn’t want to listen to us telling her any directions. She often would run away/ down the stairs (and she is DARN FAST) and we had to go after her quickly. The place we were staying was secured so she couldn’t have gone anywhere, BUT, we needed to make sure we at least knew where she was! We would say “don’t go” in Haitian, so she definitely knew what we were saying “verlande stop” etc.. but she would just BOOK. She also had a few fits- once we took the TV remote away from her as we didn’t want her to break the TV- she was going all over the place forever changing the channels, and she basically screamed/cried for a full hour, and cried herself to sleep as we hugged her or rubbed her back. Some of the things we would of course not let our own kids do, BUT we also realized that this one week visit wasn’t really the time to be too extremely forceful- we wanted her to see that we were going to be her parents, but overall have a lasting impression of us as people who she enjoys being with, and wants to be with. We will have to be very careful of how in the world we parent when she comes here- to make sure we are fair to Phoebe and Forrest by not allowing Verlande to do things that they would no way get away with.
Overall: it was a great trip. Leaving her at the airport was miserable. MISERABLE. She was upset with tears in her eyes. I got down low and told her that we love her and will be back soon and she just shook her head “no” and turned away. She looked sad, hurt, angry, disappointed. And of course there was nothing I could do. And I would feel that same way. Funny thing is I probably would have almost the same reaction- my impulse would be to say no and turn away. I am so sorry for her that we don’t know how long it’ll be. I can’t imagine being a child and trying to understand this situation and WHY.
So it was a good overall week, just has a very sad feeling to end with because of having to leave her, as well as knowing the work and the waiting that we have in front of us. I am reminded that we were so lucky to have been brought to her- she has a brightness that is so beautiful. We just need to use any sadness about not having her here to work our hardest to do all of the steps that we possibly can to make this happen. There is a little child counting on us now and we cannot and will not let her down.
(Sorry this was longer than I anticipated, thanks for reading).
J
