Last night was quiet except for the soft rustling of the leaves on the roof. It was so quiet, in fact, that I could NOT sleep. I was awake for hours, listening to the silence. Here I thought it was the noise that was keeping me up.
The morning came quickly and both Cali and I had a little trouble getting up. They are digging up a pipe in the street outside our house, which should have helped rouse us.
During our Spanish class, the teacher’s dog joined our class. Even though we’ve only met with her four times, her dog knows where to find us, scratches on the front door of the school, they let him in and he finds his way to the back porch. Smart pooch. What was a little distracting is how he proceeded to clean himself noisily, with great gusto, throughout our lesson. The teacher kept telling him to stop and he kept ignoring her.
Then we had the little earthquake. It’s interesting how when it happens you don’t react quickly. We are sitting on the second floor of a large three story brick building, and I probably should have grabbed Madi’s hand and gotten out of the building. But by the time it registered what was happening, it was over. It was more than a tremor, it was a good little shake. The kids in the school were just hooting it up after it finished. Earthquakes are fine when they’re small and harmless like that, but I couldn’t help but think of all the people in Haiti.
After Spanish class I came home, I was tired and managed to take a snooze. Hooray, my first real nap since arriving here! I slept until Cali came home, I was beat. The girls both had lots of homework to do, so that’s what we did all evening. Madi is doing an essay on the earthquake in Haiti. She has decided to focus on the importance of clean water, and how that is a huge survival issue for so many people. She’d considered writing about the orphans, but I think that subject area may be a bit too heavy for her. It’s heartbreaking, and I think a bit too depressing for her to handle. I reminded her that her dad and I started dating when we were living in Haiti for SST.
We skyped home a few times, hanging online with Kier right now. I’ve been having some issues with Skype, I often have to remove the program and re-download it. The next time I have the problem with it, the guys at Madi’s school are going to try to fix it. Sweet. Gotta love this techno-savvy generation.
Cali is getting used to the church services that happen every evening. Tonight she was saying she hopes they finish the singing soon and get to the sermon, so she can sleep. The services usually go for about an hour and a half. Our Spanish teacher lives a few houses away from us. She said when the church used to only have 2 services a week, but have ramped up to daily services. She says they also do house exorcisms upon request. I think we’re good.
Cali’s Frog Blog: Today I had lots and lots and lots of fun, because I got to go back to school, yay! I was really happy about that. But this morning it was really hard to wake up. This is how my day went. I walked to the kitchen table for my breakfast. Then I went on the tuk tuk to school. We had a little earthquake as you all know because it was on our news. That’s why you know about it, too. It was really grumbly. I was at school when it happened. My teacher was giving us our homework for tomorrow. The earthquake was really shaky and bumpy. She told us to get under our desks, quick. We got under our table just in case the roof falls on us, it will only fall on our desks and we will be ok. Then when it was over, we had to go outside. We had to walk outside with our hands on our heads. We do that so that if something was to fall on our heads, we can protect our brains. Of course that may protect our heads, but then what will protect our hands? Why don’t people ask these questions? Then we all walked to the garden playground far away from the school. Our school grounds is really really big, so we could be far from the school. We were outside for our messages from the guy that gives us all our drills. He is really nice and intelligent, that’s what I like about him. We lined up and went back into the school. It wasn’t scary actually, because it was just a little earthquake. When we got in we had lunch and then went outside. For lunch I had pizza, corn treats, chocolate pudding. When we got outside we played lava monster runs from the earthquake. We were like, “Kaboom, rockety rock!” The lava monster ran home to his volcano after the earthquake, because that’s his home. The slide looks like a volcano, so that’s his home. Then the bell rang. We did some science class. In that class we wrote down sciencey stuff, then we wrote down math stuff. Then it was English. In that class we drew and played Bingo. My friend and I were the only two who got to play Bingo. After English the bell rang and we went home. This time my glue didn’t explode like the lava in lava monster. Today I was waiting and waiting for my tuk tuk. Then I saw that one of his friends was with him, maybe that’s why he was late. We drove home and when I got in the house I said, “Why is there a big hole in our road.” mom said there was something wrong with a pipe and they had to fix it. Then I went to the store for Doritos. When I got back I decided to give the bag to mommy, because she said she also wanted Doritos. I forgot and only bought one bag. I gave it to my mom, but she said, “No, you can have it.” We took my homework booklet to Madi’s school so the big kids could translate my homework from Spanish. It took 3 high school kids to figure out my homework, because they wanted a picture of a new neighborhood and an ancient one. None of us could figure that one out and they said, maybe it means this or maybe it means that. On the way home we got Sarita’s ice cream. I tried something new but I didn’t like very much. Then I did homework for the rest of the evening while we skyped Kier and daddy. We had spaghetti for supper, it was good. I reminded Kier that the way to spell “because” is Bears Eat Candy And Ususally Swallow Everything. I brushed my teeth and finished my work. I washed my little toesies, and the water was really cold. There was an ant on the toilet. P.S. Whoever is reading this, I really hope you have a good one.
Madi Speaks: How the FABULOUS,HIP,GORGEOUS,TALENTED,SMART,KIND,ROCKSTAR,NON-SELF-CENTERD,QUEEN OF THE WORLD’S DAY went:>Today i woke up and ate breakfast read a bit of Eragon. Then I left for school with mom. On the way there we saw Winnie-the-Pooh, Matted, Shirley Temple, and Som (stray dogs). When we got there we had Spanish class. In the middle of the lesson we felt a small earthquake. Everything shook for about 40 seconds. I was ecsatic afterwards because I’d never felt an earthquake, not even a small one. No one got hurt because it was such a small one, no buildings collapsed. Everyone in my school was whooping and yelling. Wow. I set up my desk with the cloth we bought on Friday. I read a bit of Foxtrot. After school, mom, Cali, and I got some ice cream from a new shop we found which is on the way home. It has Topolinos. Then we came home and I started to research my two-page essay on the Haitian earthquake. I’m going to write about the lack of clean water. I have to write the outline tonight, and then I have to write the essay tomorrow. We skyped with Daddy and Kier and I updated Kier on stuff at the school. Now I have to do more homework. By, the queen of the world.