Ripe Mango Chronicles

The Village of Hope kids have all been through some sort of trauma, how else does someone end up in an orphanage? At the very least they were abandoned or suffered the loss of a parent, which is much more than a child should have to deal with. When we bring a new child in we do our best to welcome the child with open arms, make them feel safe, help them feel like they belong and are an important part of our family, but some of them still have emotional struggles. We recently had a therapist visit who works with children struggling with abandonment issues. We knew we had lots to learn from her so we planned a 3 day seminar for our full time caregivers. It was time well spent. We all learned a lot about our children, and some of their underlying issues. How we can support them and the importance of our role in their emotional health. The mommies and daddies were fully engaged in the seminar, absorbing all the information we had to share and asking incredible

Two years ago if you would have told me I would be the mother of a 7 year old today I would have told you to double check your math skills but SURPRISE here I am momma to not only Olivier who turned 7 this weekend, but also Joshua (8) and Joseph (4). God likes to keep us on our toes, that’s for sure! This weekend was a special one as Friday was Olivier’s birthday! We planned his birthday party for Saturday night at 6:00. Apparently the Hope House boys didn’t get the message as they were giggling at our door at 4:00 with their toothbrushes carefully stuffed into their pockets!! After a dinner of banana pancakes and peanut butter the party officially began. All 10 little boys sat at our dinner table where we played some games; they were actually English lessons on opposites, but they won candy so they didn’t know the difference!  Once everyone’s pockets were full of candy it was time for cake and coke before we opened gifts. I love that all Olivier needed to thin

My afternoon job today was bringing donations down to the orphanage. I headed to the guest house, loaded up the truck and bumped my way down to the orphanage depot. In the donations I found a suitcase full of AWESOME baby stuff so I decided I would hand deliver the super cute onesies.…an hour and a half later I had rocked both Soudline and Soudnel to sleep, spent some quality time with Pierre, joked around with Jeremiah, and watched the toddlers get completely covered in mango juice as they each devoured their very own mango. They were literally covered in mango juice from head to toe! It was pretty hilarious. After they were cleaned up I decided it was due time for Julien and Gilner to have a haircut. They are one of three sets of twins in the baby room, the other two sets are boy-girl. Thankfully we only have one identical set, as it’s pretty hard to tell them apart. It doesn’t help that they both answer to either name! A month or so ago we decided it was time for a h

Today was a special day for a number of reasons. For one, today is a Haitian holiday. It’s either Labour day or Agriculture day. I never quite figured out which; one is today and the other is tomorrow.  Kenol and I decided that we would celebrate both by labouring in our new garden! It was a perfect combination in my books. Some of you may know that I enjoy gardening, and have for a few years now. The garden in my old yard was looking pretty good after a few years of serious trial and error. Gardening in Haiti is so much different than Canadian gardening! I still don’t have it all figured out, but I have a much better idea now.   Since moving to our new house we have started a few new projects, specifically in the yard. We unfortunately had to cut down three beautiful and humongous bougainvillaea’s as they were literally ripping the metal fence down. One they were cut down and the fence welded back together we bought a load of rock, 3 truck loads of fertilizer and