Ben and Katie in Haiti

Visiting TeacHaiti

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Sun, 10 Aug 2014 04:46:00 +0000

Scribing for the docs at TeacHaiti School of Hope

Miquette bragging over her 6th graders' scores on the national exam. All passed!

Leading the daily flag raising ceremony and singing the national anthem.

A prayer to start the day

His application to the TeacHaiti School - big dreams, big needs

Sebastien is sponsored by a Dallas friend!

One of my favorite kiddos- he was a pre-K student at the time of the earthquake

Three of my discipleship girls! Loved getting to catch up with them. They are headed off to college this month.

We went to Haiti back in March. I wrote this post at this time and somehow never hit "publish." This day was my favorite thing about the trip- getting to help out at TeacHaiti. We saw how the school has grown- new classrooms, new students, ever expanding and including more kids in its mission to educate Haiti's poorest kiddos.

We happened to be there on a day when a TeacHaiti board member from MN was in town. He was a physician, so any kids who wanted to see a doctor got a checkup. I furiously scribbled down notes in their files during the checkups. It was a delight to get to see so many kids I recognized from past visits, especially the 20-plus kids sponsored by Texans.

K

Haiti Art

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Wed, 12 Mar 2014 21:27:00 +0000

We're in Haiti for a spring break visit and today visited two of my favorite boutiques featuring Haitian-made artisan products. Apparent Project and Haitian Creations (with a new line called Fait la Force launching this fall) were chock-full of jewelry, bags, metalwork, soaps, wall decor, stuffed animals, and pottery.

Apparent Project was a hive of activity, with over 250 artisans working to create beads and throw pottery. There was a group experimenting with batik patterns on dyed cloth using wax. Another group was tapping out designs on tin hearts likely recycled from giant oil drums. They've expanded to include a cafe with fresh fruit smoothies as well as a library. Upstairs I watched a lady stringing green and gold beads. It felt good to chat briefly in Kreyol; it's not lost! One of AP's founders, Corrigan, opened a new shop called Ayiti Ink for his tattoo business. So much growth since we left in June!

In the same building with Ayiti Ink is The Irish Embassy, Haiti's one and only Irish pub. Baby Grace made use of the giant carved pulpit to deliver her first sermon.

Over in Tabarre, Haitian Creations is working on sample products in anticipation of their new line launching this fall. Chandler is particularly expanding into handbags made of a soft, supple leather that looks like something off the Baggu website.

We attended chapel today and saw our former student, Timothy, share his testimony. Stories about his childhood in Nigeria and his German parents were touching.

We attended pizza dinner and Bible study at the Grahams' house with 20 or so teachers, then took the long trek up Montaine Nwa to stay tonight with John and Jodie. Now I'm falling asleep to the distinctly Haitian combo of tree frogs and the hum of inverter batteries...

Return of the Kilpatricks

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 20:57:00 +0000

We're back! Sweaty as ever, Ben and I are back in action in the Ayiti. Our primary purposes are to love on our friends & students as well as help at TeacHaiti. Today was spent at Quisqueya.

The school is now purple, our beloved juniors have now received college acceptances, and basically everybody had a baby. In our first 24 hours I accidentally attended a La Leche League meeting (and stayed just to be with my friends and their new babies) and we dropped in to our old friend Eagle Market for a $5 bag of pretzels. When we checked out, my name still printed on the receipt... I stood in the hall during the passing period at 11:00 and kissed basically every kid in the high school. "Miss, you're shorter!" "No, hon, you're taller!" We visited home ec class and saw my discipleship girls whip up fried mozzarella as the guys tried to master the sewing machines. I saw an 18-year-old guy rip out a seam that wasn't right. Lunch was white fish and green sauce with a heap of pikliz. I bought a lunch ticket for the first time ever. New school rule- all water, no Kool Aid. Ben sat in on Bible class and I peeked in Jodie's Kindergarten class on the first day of the new unit on African animals. The seniors were having a parent meeting about their upcoming trip, so I got to hug several moms with whom I've spent many hours. We ran into Madame Meristel, our former housekeeper. She asked specifically about my friend who had cancer last year. She said she's continued to pray for her. Josiah's dreads are gone, Stephanie's engaged, Nathaniel is married...

Everything is just the same. Except for all the differences.

Money News

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 18:04:00 +0000

44 months. That's how long we've lived on other people's gifts.

Mostly of my Southern girlfriends hate receiving gifts. We say, "you shouldn't have" and we mean it- cause now we've got to write a cursive thank-you card within the next 29 minutes!

Imagine all your livelihood coming straight from other people's debit cards.

It's humbling. Why would people be so generous? How could God be so good to us, such a faithful provider? How could my friends, whose finances I know are tight, be so sacrificial? Not to mention the total strangers!

It's guilt-bringing. I am not worth it, seriously. Does no one sees what hot messes we are? Have they been fooled into believing we're extra-holy angels? Am I using this money correctly? I hope they won't judge me when they see my French manicure- it was a gift from my mom, I swear!

It's embarrassing. Asking for money is the WORST. You feel like a burden, a leech, indebted and the worst sin for an American: a failure at our prized virtue of independence.

It's faith-producing. God has literally brought tens of thousands of dollars out of nowhere- often from the people we'd least expect. He provided. Everything just in time, just enough.

We even were able to give 40% of our support money directly to ministry in Haiti, which was a wild and unrealistic dream at best. We've written fat checks to TeacHaiti, and built a roof for Madame Meristel, and given to the Heartline maternity clinic and prenatal health care program. All with your money. That part rocks, I've got to say.

I wish I could write all our supporters' names down. You would be so blessed by the stories. I will treasure those people all my life.

We asked our supporters to continue through August, as three months following the end of field work is considered the standard. Almost everybody has. We are so grateful. I can't even say.

Now I ask for one more thing. Would you consider not ending your giving to mission work, but transferring it?

Ministries in Haiti I Trust and Love:

TeacHaiti
Imagine your kids are hungry and you live in a tent. What if the only schools around required tuition fees? Almost 300 kids from Haiti's poorest population are in school now because of their TeacHaiti sponsors. For $35 a month you can put a kid in school for a year, providing tuition, uniforms, books, supplies, shoes, innoculations, and daily hot lunches. On Saturdays an art program feeds kids and teaches them to make jewelry, paintings, and carvings. About 100 of the kids in K-6 attend the TeacHaiti School of Hope, at which I've spend many a happy day reading and playing in the lime green classrooms. Of all our time at TeacHaiti, you can read about my favorite day here or Ben's favorite day here.

Heartline

Maternity Program
From conception to six months after birth, women and babies are given excellent, free medical care including weekly classes that feature doctor checkups, high-nutrition meals, and training on subjects like breastfeeding, baby care, and prenatal health. They are invited to deliver their babies in a safe, clean birthing room attended by Haitian and American midwives and nurses. If trouble arises, Heartline has an ambulance that can rush women to local hospitals. I blogged about my first visit to Heartline here, and then I went back a second time to help deliver a baby (a top life moment right there!).
Haitian Creations
Simply put, most "orphans" in Haiti have living, loving parents. However, those parents lack income. Haitian Creations employs ladies to make adorable bags, jewelry, wall decor, and other items that will provide enough income to raise and educate the ladies' children. I blogged about my visit to the Haitian Creations boutique and workshop here.

Apparent Project
Just like Haitian Creations above, Apparent Project believes in empowering parents to raise their own kids well. Their artisans' guild has hundreds of Haitians employed, and their products are selling everywhere from Donna Karen's Urban Zen shops to the Disney store. They have a large array of jewelry, glasswork, pottery, cloth dolls, metal wall art, and more. Their headquarters in Port-au-Prince employs even more people as boutique clerks and staff of the library, smoothie shop, and massage area.

Missionaries Around the World I Trust and Love:

The F Family in South Asia
Mom, Dad, and their four kids work at an undisclosed location in South Asia. Through discipling and training local pastors, the church is growing and being led by nationals.
Anna in England
Anna is a pastor to college students in the huge university town of Leeds. With tens of thousands of international students, often from closed countries, there is huge opportunity for relational evangelism.
Michelle in the Middle East
Michelle works for an organization that provides lifesaving medical care for children as well as training of local doctors and nurses.

To contact these three, please email me at benandkatieinhaiti@gmail.com and I will put you in touch.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. To God be all the glory.

Katie

What I Miss The Most About Haiti

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Sat, 27 Jul 2013 23:07:00 +0000

Here we are, home again. We went to children's camp, on family vacation to Jamaica, and have attended approximately 234098 hours of teacher certification classes.

People keep asking how I'm doing with the transition back to Texas. It would make sense that I'd be experiencing some grief. But you know, there's really only one thought about Haiti that makes me really sad.

It's the first day of school.

In a few weeks Quisqueya teenagers will bounce back down the mountain or wind their ways through the nameless streets of the capital of Haiti. They'll come through the gates onto the dusty drive-through. They'll kiss the cheeks of every single person they pass as they crunch on the gravel and survey the green soccer field, be it five or fifty, on their way to the secondary building. They'll stand on the steps under the mahogany tree, or sit on the cement half-wall next to the little grove of palms meant to hide the electrical boxes. There are two cement picnic tables build around tree trunks, and the ground is rough cobbled stones (note to new people: do not attempt in heels).

The teachers will be mingling outside the first day, meeting new kids. Everywhere you look will be cheek kissing and sparkling white new polo shirts. The teachers will blow their whistles (no bell system due to lack of 24/7 electricity), and everybody will walk down the cement steps, next to the creek bed where the Haitian workers grow corn, past the door to the basement science labs, and up cement steps leading to the basketball court.

And I won't be there.

Sasha will be there. And Valerie, Cannelle, Chafika, Biderka, Virgloty, Anais- my whole discipleship group. But not me.

Gael will there. And Raphael, Sam, Rafael, Mandy, Hans, Emille, Stephen and all the other basketball boys. But not Ben.

Louis Daniel and Rackel and Natasha and Melinda and Randolph and all the other seniors will walk into Senior Transitions and start their college research project. But I won't be teaching it.

I will not give out lockers, assign textbooks, read a parent letter, or show them my classroom library. It will still be in room 36, but I'll be on the C hall of a different high school's second floor, finishing my new classroom for a new crop of students- strangers.

You just can't know what it's like as a teacher to prepare for the first day already knowing all the kids. It's such a relief. The first day is a safe space, not a scary unknown. The first day is a celebration, a reunion, not an awkward ice-breaker, get-to-know-you-game, "about me" survey, diagnostic test-taking day.

I hate ice breaker games. I hate "people bingo", and "two truths and a lie", and forced alphabetical seating assignments. I want to be with my kids. MY kids.

But I won't be there.

At Quisqueya I could identify the owner of every single 10-12th grade backpack.

At Quisqueya I could identify the handwriting of every single 10-12th grade student.

Sigh. Not anymore. Those kids aren't mine anymore; they're somebody else's. And I've gotta go learn 150 new names, new moms, new handwritings and new brightly-colored backpacks.

Orevwa. M sonje ou Quisqueya.

Katie

I Hate Father's Day

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Fri, 21 Jun 2013 10:00:00 +0000

I hate Father's Day.

If school was in session in June and we were ever to do some Father's Day event with my students, it would be extremely painful- more painful than good, I venture to say.

Offhand I can name at least five teenage girls who lost their dads on January 12, 2010, and the pain of having no dad on a day when Facebook is basically an endless parade of father-daughter photos.... It was painful for me to view them just because I love those teenage girls, so I can't imagine what it feels like for them, year after year. As I scrolled through literally dozens of "daddy daughter dance" photos, I think of how those girls will one day be walked down the aisle by brothers or grandfathers.

Those five girls whose fathers were taken by the earthquake are the dramatic stories, but unfortunately not the most common. I may have five students whose fathers have died, but I probably have five or fifteen times that many whose lives are enduringly scarred by their dads.

We talk a lot about fathers in English class. Between Joe in Great Expectations, Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart, Pap in Huckleberry Finn, Aryeh in My Name is Asher Lev, and Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, we are basically constantly talking about who is a good father, and what exactly that means. I have read dozens of pages of pain spilled on pages when it comes to fathers. In fact, I would say the largest wound inside the largest number of my students finds its genesis in fatherhood.

"My dad likes me better when I'm skinny."
"I make all As, but my dad is still disappointed. I can never make him happy. He's never said 'I love you'."
"My mom told my dad about the sexual abuse in her past, and he responded by beating her."
"My dad has a girlfriend, and a child with her. He gave them my college money."

I am not exaggerating or creating one single fiction. Every phrase here is welded to a face and a handwriting and a name. And then there are many more that are less dramatic...

"My dad works all day, every day. Even at home he's working."
"I think I'm more mature than my dad. He's like the irresponsible teenager."
"My dad's just not the same anymore. He's never happy."

Wound after wound after wound after wound.

I sat across from men at parent conferences,
seething, boiling, stewing,
"I know what you've said to her" seeping through my neurons.

And this is what I've come to believe:

We should cancel Father's Day.

We should replace it with a day to celebrate fathering, the more important and much more difficult work.

I look back in my memory of growing up, and I think about Randy Johnson, my youth pastor, who practiced fathering probably thousands of kids in several decades of youth ministry. I think about my brother's Young Life leader Tom Young, the last one to ever give up on one of his boys when all the parents had. Fathering for him involved taking the rottenest, ornery-est skinny suburban hoodlums on bike trips, camping trips, and Jeep offroading trips. I think about Art McMahon, who for six years has been fathering by coaching Haitian teenagers in the hottest after-school sun you've ever felt. The boys quote him in English papers frequently, and I've seen Art reduce a huge teenage boy to tears about the moral failure of not turning in homework, all without ever raising his voice. The boys with the absent fathers, the cruel fathers, the workaholic fathers- they all blossom under the loving yet demanding discipline of the basketball team. Art's wife is about to give birth to his first son, but really he already has dozens, because of all the fathering he's done alongside his assistant coaches Ben and Josh.

Fathering.

Randy and Tom and Art and all the men like them should get the handwritten cards, the ugly ties, the golf balls. I wish I could reassign all the world's children to those willing to do fathering, not just procreating. The long hard slog of loving discipline, explaining, pushing, encouraging, coaching, guiding, picking up, comforting- that's what needs recognizing, whether it comes from a biological dad or not.

I don't know if God wants every man to procreate, but I do believe that God requires every man to step in and do some fathering to the flocks around him. Men, find a herd, a passel, a gaggle of boys and girls. Some of them have sucky, no 'count fathers, I promise you (I've read their homework). Step up and do some fathering.

I'll celebrate that.

Katie

Strippers, Adoption, and My New Heroes

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 20:14:00 +0000

About a month ago a woman who dances at a gentleman's club in Waco walked into an adoption agency and asked to discuss placing her very sick two-week-old son. Unusually, she asked for a couple by name.

My friend Christina was that woman.

How did that happen? Well, several years back Christina worked for an organization in Waco called Jesus Said Love. I'm obsessed with this organization. Basically, teams of women go into strip clubs and deliver goodie baskets to the women in their dressing rooms. The JSL ladies sit in the dressing room and just talk to the strippers. "How are you today?" They just talk, take prayer requests, look through the goodie baskets, and basically begin relationships. No strings, no purchase required.

The Jesus Said Love ladies do this because they worship Jesus, and he always made a special effort to go out of his way and love on marginalized ladies. Looked-down-upon ladies, from groups of ill repute.

Anyway, Christina used to go and give gifts to strippers, and pray for them.

Then, several years later, when one of those dancers delivered a baby boy with severe health complications, she needed a person not only with more resources, but also someone she could trust, someone she knew was full of love. Who came to mind? Her old friend friend Christina- the one who wore a shirt that said "Jesus Loves Strippers".

Now Christina and her husband Brett have adopted that little boy, baby Owen.

They need prayer and a bunch of money. In addition to the adoption fees, they are dealing with the immediate emergency of a malformed blood vessel tangle near his liver. This strain on his tiny, 6-pound body will likely cause heart failure eventually. He's been in the hospital for weeks near Waco, and is now in a pediatric ICU in Dallas. Christina and Brett have two other kids, one of whom also has a lasting and serious health problem.

After that blood vessel tangle, there are issues to tackle later, including prenatal exposure to drugs that may cause developmental problems.

Christina and her husband Brett are my heroes. Please check out her blog here.

Owen looking at his new family from the PICU

To learn more about Jesus Said Love, go to http://jesussaidlove.com. Their ministry now extends to now only strippers, but truckers as well, and they operate in Waco, Dallas, Bryan/College Station, and San Antonio. They need volunteers, not just for loving on women in clubs, but also for people to pack goodie bags and pray. They also need male volunteers to act as drivers, and the men often build relationships with club bouncers and managers while the ladies are in the dressing rooms.

To shop at the Jesus Said Love store, go to The Love Store. You can even buy the Jesus Loves Strippers shirt shown above!

To read more about Brett and Christina, go to http://christinagibson.wordpress.com/.

If you're interested in helping Brett and Christina, email me at benandkatieinhaiti@gmail.com and I'll tell you where to mail a check.

Katie

Re-entry Reminders

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 00:41:00 +0000

Things to remember in America:

You can wash grapes with faucet water.

We flush every time.

You have no twelve foot wall, so peeps can try to steal your car on your first night (car alarm made thief run, but not before ripping off door handle).

It rains at any hour of the day (not just at night)... and you still have to take the doggie out.

Mom is not just accessible via Skype!

Shop Haiti

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 14:23:00 +0000

Hey friends,

We just wrote a new page on our blog called "Shop Haiti".

You probably knew there were crafty little organizations that train Haitian artisans (mostly very impoverished single moms) to make cute stuff that is marketed to Americans.

However, did you know several of these groups are rather big time and have really moved their product quality to an impressively high level?

Did you notice, perhaps, that in the picture above Victoria's Secret model Adriana Lima is wearing a necklace produced just down the street from my Haiti apartment? Did you further know that the advertisement featuring said Victoria's Secret model is from Donna Karen, who carries a whole line of Haitian-made accessories at her swanky Urban Zen stores?

If you don't know, now you know.

(I applaud those of you who just caught the Notorious BIG reference.)

At our Shop Haiti page we're highlighting a few of our favorite places to snag 100% pure Haitian coconut oil, home decor made from cow horn, and of course a bevy of jewelry.

You can find Shop Haiti here, or you can click the Shop Haiti tab on the top left of our blog.

Speaking of which, I made us a new banner.... Ben and Katie after Haiti. We'll still be blogging as we re-enter life in America, which has so far consisted of running ourselves ragged taking care of sexy, exotic tasks like getting fingerprinted for teaching licenses and replacing dead car batteries.

We are celebrating three big blessings this week, which are
1) I got a teaching job,
2) We have a house straight from God, and
3) Ben's best friend just became a daddy!

Five pounds of awesome

Baby Micah entered the world last Saturday, and meeting him was at the top of the priority list. He is a teeny little guy, and both mom and baby are doing quite well, no doubt largely due to our bringing fajitas by last night.

As for the house, for six months we are living in a parsonage next door to a church in Plano, Texas, just ten minutes north of my parents and my new school. It's adorable, fully furnished, and a huge blessing from God as a "landing pad" for us in this transition.

My new job will actually be at a familiar place- the high school I attended! I'll be teaching reading to likely 10th and 11th graders, which will be an incredible opportunity to have exactly the blend I wanted: a disadvantaged population and a strong, thriving school. I spent the morning with the outgoing reading teacher yesterday, and my heart leaped to hear her say things like, "relationships are the key component in getting this group of kids engaged" and "you have to be an advocate for them".

Thank you, Jesus.

So go shop Haiti!

Katie

Goodnight, Haiti

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 19:59:00 +0000

Goodnight, Ackermans, our faithful and dear friends. Many hours at Karibe felt like lunches in a treehouse. Thank you for your mountain air, your casseroles, and your wisdom time and time again. Thank you for loving Haiti since the year I was born. You have survived coups, embargoes, riots, and more, yet you never stop loving on Haiti's youngest and sickest.

Staff dinner

Goodnight, basketball team. You three coaches have poured thousands of hours into teenage boys in the hottest heat of Caribbean afternoons. You taught them to win, and you taught them to lose. No opponent had better manners, grace, or character.

Eagles coaches

Goodnight, students. You make me crazy, and I love you to death. Reading your writing is an honor, and a chore, and an honor again. To the next English teacher: I swear I taught them about run-ons.

Farewell pizza party thrown by secondary parents

Goodnight, Quisqueya parents.

We love our QCS parents!

Farewell party

Goodnight, discipleship group girls. You are incredibly beautiful and strong women. We shared secrets, Valerie's candy, and many laughs. We listened to worship music, prayed for each other's families, and used up a million Crayola markers.

At graduation I told you all the same thing:
1) You look beautiful, but I wish I could add six inches to your dress.
2) Please send me notes on Facebook and tell me about your college applications.
3) Please send me your English papers if you ever need help!
4) I love you very, very, very much!

Graduation

Farewell party

Goodnight, Valedictorian! Be blessed in Washington, DC.

Graduation

Goodnight, future Texan! Remember we're only a few hours away if you need us. You already know you're invited to our house for Thanksgiving.

Graduation

Goodnight, basketball boys. Remember what your coaches say: victories are won in the offseason. Oh, and from me: please read a book this summer, too.

Goodnight, gorgeous island.

Graduation at Montana Hotel

Goodnight, Angus family. I thought we were attending a big graduation party at your house, but it turned out to just be your family. I was honored beyond words! I love your two beautiful girls and will try my hardest, as I promised, to convince the younger one to go to Baylor. I love that you love Texas, too! You've made us part of your family in Haiti, and I will be forever grateful.

Graduation party

Two more sleeps in Haiti.

Then

off

we

go.

Katie

The Dirty Details

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Wed, 29 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

I move home from Haiti in six days.

Things I Will Not Miss

1. Mosquitoes

Electric racket of vengeance

2. Stank-nasty bathroom

3. Newborn-sized refrigerator (featuring broken-off freezer door)

4. Sweating

5. Dividing by 40

40 gourdes to 1 dollar.

6. Riding in the cage truck

7. Actually, while we're at it, every other car, too.

8. Everything else that's broken and/or nasty

9. Being the only one in the room who doesn't speak French

10. Being ugly

I'm ready to have my America hair back.

11. Anti-sexy

Things I Will Miss

1. Pikliz

Carrots, cabbage, scotch bonnet peppers, onion, garlic, vinegar

2. Having an armed guard

Johnson, mwen bon gadyen

3. Bougainvillea vines

4. Cerise juice

The Haitians say "cerise", like "cherries", but someone told me they're actually Chinese dwarf apples.

5. Living with five men

Real security is five men within yelling distance.

6. A 30-second commute

The view from my house to my work.

7. Kreyol

I can read that!

8. The inability to hide from reality

I met her eighteen months ago in a gross, understaffed orphanage. She's probably still there. She's probably walking around with that same look in her eyes. Can't hide here.

9. Haitian parents

Farewell gifts

Haitian parents are serious about their kids' education. In 3.5 years of parent conferences, I have never once had a parent argue with me about their children's weaknesses.

10. Hummingbirds

Serendipity

So there you have it. The dirty details. The very good, very bad, and very ugly.

Six more days.

Katie

Dear person who will object and say that I am a) whining, and b) forgetting that 95% of Haitians have it worse than I do, I just have one thing to say to you: you're right. Have a nice day.

Home with the Armadillos

noreply@blogger.com (B) — Tue, 28 May 2013 17:25:00 +0000

Katie observed that we have 7 days left in Haiti. She asked me how I felt about that at dinner. I stared at her face blankly. I felt…

How do I feel?

I feel like I am in a glass cage of emotion. Haiti is a place of juxtaposition; my feelings are a juxtaposition too. I feel dozens of identifiable feelings, plus some that I cannot name. Those feelings contradict and reinforce each other.

I cannot wait to leave. It is May, which means it is the sweaty season. It was too hot to hug Katie last night. I won’t miss that. The States is air-conditioned. I mean the whole of America- it’s like a giant dome of climate control sits atop the country.

I went to lunch yesterday and our car was hit nearly 3 times by tap-taps and water trucks simply coming into our lane. Traffic in America is a sweet tranquil blessing compared to Port-au-Prince traffic. Everything is just easier in the States. I would like to upgrade to easy.

I would like to get water from my tap that won’t caused my insides to wretch from bacteria and amoeba hell. Friendships in American have naturally deteriorated in the time I have been gone, and I hope they can be restored. I have an amazing community of people who care about me and I want to spend time with them.

I do not want to leave Haiti. This place has become my normal. I am uncomfortably comfortable in this place. When I go back to America, I feel out of place. I hate large crowds; I don’t like being out at Targets, Wal-Marts, malls, or other large gatherings. It gives me anxiety. I feel at ease walking on the streets of Port-au-Prince. I know what to do here. Finally after all of this time I know where to go to get what, who to see about what problem. I know which restaurant is worth the $40 US it will cost us to eat. I dearly love and care about my students and want to invest more time in them. I want to see them develop as post players, point guards, writers, historians, and people. I have an amazing community of people who care about me here and value the work that I do and I want to spend time with them.

Juxtaposition.

There is something oddly safe and comfortable about life here. I have been doing it so long. I never stayed in one place for long before Haiti. The 3 years in this apartment is the longest I have lived in one place in the last 11 years. Working at QCS has been my longest term of employment. I get how to do to life here. I forget about how to do life in the States. I fear that I am close to being institutionalized. In The Shawshank Redemption one of the older prisoners, Brooks, cannot stand life as a free man and kills himself. I do not think I am going to go all Hemingway, but I do wonder if I can be “normal”.

And then part of me does not want to. I have grown and learned so much from my time here. The benefits to my faith have been remarkable. I want to leave Haiti changed. Marked. Different.

On top of all of that is the deep dark unknown of what they hell lies before us? Will I find a job for this school year? Will I be waiting tables in October? Will we be forced to eat our young to survive like the Irish during the potato famine?

None of this makes a lot of sense, like I said. Juxtaposition.

How do I feel? Aren’t you sorry you asked?
-B

The Coop

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Wed, 22 May 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Our seniors are flying the coop.

My World Cultures class

Here's where they're going and their anticipated majors.

Palm Beach State College, environmental science
La Salle (Montreal), restaurant management
Saint Leo's (Florida), business
Barry University (Miami), business
Pace University (New York City), international business
Philadelphia University, industrial engineering
Duke University, business
Florida International University, biology
Manhattan College, pre-med
Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra (Dominican Republic)
Santa Barbara City College (CA), international economics
University of Hartford (CT), architecture
Marymount University (Virginia), pre-med

American University (Washington, DC), film and media

University of Colorado at Boulder, business

Texas Tech, petroleum engineering
Hofstra University (NY), biology
Florida Atlantic University, business
Hofstra University, pre-law

... and five more, too.

And speaking of seniors... the rising senior class.

American Lit.

11th grade retreat

1

4

Class of 2014!

I will miss them so much.

Katie

Baller, Shot Caller

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Tue, 21 May 2013 22:45:00 +0000

It's basketball playoff time around here.

Last week, our boys were psyched and ready for a tough game. It was Saturday, so many players' parents were able to attend the game who had never come before. One boy's missionary parents had brought their entire family and staff down the mountain to cheer him on.

Then the league director dropped the news. After being extremely late to turn in the paperwork certifying his players' ages, the coach of Quisqueya's rival team had doctored the documents. That coach intended to hide the fact that all season he had been playing kids over the age limit. An embarrassingly bad cut-and-paste job (the third world version of Photoshopping?) led him to be discovered easily. The league director disqualified that team from the playoffs. Nobody was coming to play Quisqueya.

All dressed up, no one to ball with.

What's a team to do?

Well- suit up the fans, of course!

Our coach, Art, decided to throw together a ragtag team to play against the high school boys. He suited up all three Quisqueya coaches, plus a few alumni and assorted family members.

Ben made his high school sports debut approximately 10 years after graduating. I think he secretly loved it.

Two of the blans above actually attended Quisqueya and were ballers back in their high school days. They were a little too excited to put on their old jerseys again, especially when they could locate their old numbers.....

Our coach (Art, in black) played against our star player (Josue, in white). It was quite amusing.

Please note the presence of both a Baby Boomer dad and a blue-mohawked 12-year-old on the adults' team. Both held their own quite nicely.

A fun day!

Katie

My Teaching Secret

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Fri, 17 May 2013 01:54:00 +0000

Want to know my teacher secret for engaged, happy, attentive kids?

I remembered it again last Saturday.

The 11th grade class was having their college planning retreat. It was a hot morning, and the kids had slept in tents the night before. At least five had not slept a wink. We tried to hold an outdoor educational session, fighting valiantly all the while against heat, mosquitos, noise, and sleep deprivation while discussing FAFSA and TOEFL and...... ok, I get why they were bored.

Bored, and getting an attitude.

Then, all of a sudden, five minutes later, this was happening.
Look at these faces.
Can you guess what magical ingredient was sprinkled in to produce such sweet joy?

It wasn't a Powerpoint, a pep talk, a group discussion, or anything of that ilk.

It was love.

Love! Affection. Affirmation. Silly, sweet, kind.

I told the kids to open their bags of "love notes" from their classmates. I had assigned each student to write a note to every other junior. You can't know this, but some of the pairs beaming at each other above have relationships that might be best described as "semi-hostile toleration". But love notes... love notes do something special.

In my elementary and teenage years, I went to summer sleep-away church camps led by two people who knew the power of what we called "affirmation cards". We spent hours at camp writing hundreds of aff cards to our friends. In fact, I have every one I ever received. Including one swoon-inducing note from a very cute 9th grader named Ben Kilpatrick.

Love makes bored kids bloom. Love makes everybody bloom.

Katie

Retreat, and Being Institutionalized

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Sun, 12 May 2013 15:01:00 +0000

This weekend five fellow teachers and I took 19 11th graders to the beach for a class retreat centered on the topic of college planning.

We are very lucky that one of the 11th graders' families owns a beach house and invited us out. Last year we went to Ranch le Montcel, which, strangely, has become the most-read post on this blog ever. Not sure how that happened.

The adults slept in the house, while the kids slept in tents on the beach.

Robbie was in charge of games, Irene and I split the college sessions, Ben did the devotions, and Tara and Jim soaked it all in as they will be the main college advisers next year since I am moving and Irene will be home with a wee baby.

Does NOT look like the college planning sessions I attended in my high school cafeteria!

A heated moment during a class game.

These two besties are in my discipleship group. I rode in the car with them to the beach, and they were really sweet to me when we had to stop by the side of the road... for me to spend some alone time puking in the weeds.

When I got back in the car they said, "Miss, are you pregnant?!" and "Miss, we found you a cough drop. It's a little minty- want it?"

Ben made a new best friend in the host family's five-year-old daughter Bella.

Beautiful Virgloty!

One game involved rushing to give someone a high five. The boys took this quite seriously.

Beautiful Bella. She's like some sort of cross between a mermaid, angel, and wood nymph.

Free time card game. There are two popular games in Haiti: Prezidan and Cazino.

Freshly-hacked coconut milk.

The father of the house put in an order for several lobster at 1 pm. The fishermen went in a little wooden boat, right off the dock of the family's house. When they returned, the fishermen cooked them right on the beach in front of us, and they were on the dinner table by 7.

Friends. The diversity of Quisqueya families is one of my favorite things, and by diversity I mean the myriad ethnicities and professions that mix together in our study body. In this class we have a missionary kid with a Dutch reformed background, the daughter of the Minister of Agriculture, a Nigerian boy adopted by German missionaries, the son of an elite Haitian table tennis player, and about everything else in between.

Me, Irene, and Tara.

Irene leaves on Wednesday. She's headed home to Virginia to prepare for the birth of their daughter in late June. I am resisting that goodbye with my whole heart! I refuse! I'm hiding her passport!

Another of my discipleship chicks with little Bella.

The Pruitts enjoying a truly incredible dinner. This host family could not have been more hospitable and gracious. It was such a treat for me to eat things that should be simple, but that I avoid preparing on a regular basis due to how labor-intensive they can be in Haiti: fresh-squeezed local juice, salad, banan peze (fried, squashed plantain chips).

Ben revels in taste bud nirvana.

Late night hanging out before Ben's devotion.

We had spent time studying personality inventories like the Holland career code and the Myers-Briggs. The point was to help the kids see their unique and special traits, and begin to explore how those might fit into certain careers or majors. There were many sweet "a-ha!" moments, such as when one introverted boy received "computer programmer" on both of his assessments; he had never considered that path but was now very excited about it.

Ben's devotion shared about how those unique traits are God-given and meant for us to use not only for our own enrichment, pleasure, and provision, but also to bless others.

Saturday breakfast. Haitian mangoes are in a class of their own, and the bananas were chopped right off the trees above us.

Ben's second devotion, this time on servant leadership. He said he had seen many senior classes adopt an entitled, "it's all about me now" attitude. He challenged them to look to give back and be servant leaders in their 12th grade year.

As you can see, every single one of them is attentive and energized. The one in the black shirt even appears to have been moved to tears, or perhaps repentant prayer!

(at least five kids bragged that they did not sleep a wink Friday night)

Irene leads the final college session.

We taught about types of financial aid, FAFSA, how to find scholarships, early decision, early action, the TOEFL, and more.

I gave the kids a script to fill out that would lead them in having a preliminary college conversation with their parents.

Our kids have so many more options and challenges than the average Texas senior, because they are often deciding between not just the local state schools but also a bevy of options in Canada, France, Britain, or the Dominican. They often have a confusing mix of citizenship(s), residency(ies), and Florida pre-paid tuition issues.

It was a huge treat. This is NOT what my average day looks like in Haiti, but these are the faces that fill my average days.

This is the class I've invested in the most. I've been their only English teacher for 3.5 years. Seven of my eight discipleship girls are juniors. It will be very painful to leave them in particular.

This was my last time at the Haitian beach. My last time to drive the two hours from our apartment to the coast, lurching forward in the traffic and bouncing with the potholes.

On that drive you see a fairly accurate snapshot of Haiti: bone-skinny donkeys roped to scrub-brush, hand-painted signs for tiny scratch-out-a-living stores, and huge white scars in the hills where sand is being mined to make concrete. If cotton is "the fabric of our lives" in America, the Haitian equivalent is concrete. The beach road is freshly paved, an enormous improvement, and you zip quickly by the Canaan fields where thousands of families were relocated from tent cities and promised a factory would soon be opened, only to find this was false and they were stuck living in homemade blue tarp-tents in a giant empty field miles north of employment opportunities.

You skirt the Cite Soleil waterfront slum, once called the world's most dangerous. You inch along the nation's largest thoroughfares near downtown, passing the largest French Catholic boys' school and the largest car dealership. Everywhere, people, vendors, piles of vegetables on the sort-of-sidewalks and the ubiquitous pre-teen boys wiping windshields with dirty rags in hope (or demand) of a coin.

All of it is normal to me now. Ben says we've become institutionalized.

It's all deep in my heart, and back home nobody will ever understand except Ben.

But deeper still in my heart are these kids, and I was very happy to have one last weekend chock-full of minutes with these 11th graders.

Katie

Cinco de Jefe

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Thu, 09 May 2013 14:41:00 +0000

As an adoptive mother of a Latino son, I must say I hope everyone had a happy Cinco de Mayo. Here at our house, we truly believe in connecting our son to his home culture, and celebrating its special traditions.

Especially ones involving margaritas, salsa, cilantro, and classical guitar.

Date Night

noreply@blogger.com (B) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 22:33:00 +0000

Projects in Haiti are a lesson in logistics. Any endeavor, whether short-term trip, class outing, errand to the grocery store, moving here, or setting up a long term mission, revolves around traffic, transportation, gas, and the finances to make it happen.

Katie and I have lived in Haiti for almost three and a half years. In that time we have gone on a date, by ourselves, outside of our apartment exactly..... twice. The reason? Logistics.

I realized this terrible shortcoming of our relationship in February. I sought to make good and fix it in our time left. One nice date a month, starting in March, until we left the first week of June.

March went well. Quartier Latin had only a few other patrons. We sat outisde near the Cuban jazz musican and had a great meal. We drove home. No drama.

This month we chose Papaye. Murphy and his law decided to tag along.

Katie wore a dress that kills me. It is simply a long cotton sundress, but she wears it well. I was in some rags that made me look respectable. Barely. We started up the mountain late, hoping to avoid traffic. Once we turned into Petionville, Murphy's law attacked the workings of our car.

It would not idle. If I was not pressing down on the accelerator, the car would stall and die. Even when I was pressing the accelerator to the floorboard, the RPMs rarely were enough to keep from stalling. This, combined with the fact that we were driving up a hill, meant our forward progress was laughable. Traffic piled up behind us. A man pushing a wheelbarrow full of goods passed us on the sidewalk. I swore. A lot.

I sweat when under pressure. I was under pressure to not block one (of the two) lanes of the city's major thoroughfare, pressure to not hit a pedestrian, and pressure to actually be a good husband to my wife. I was trying to take her and that sundress out someplace nice, for crying out loud! Finally, even at 7:30 is was hot in Haiti. I was sweating a lot.

I rolled into a well-lit area to park and made some calls. We sat in the car, waiting and sweating. A drunk, possibly crazy man approached our car with a stagger. Normally, I feel fine engaging those who beg in conversation. I believe it is humanizing. This was not a normal time. I shook my head and said "no" as soon as he waked up to the car. He mumbled and gestured. I couldn't hear him through the window, but "ban mwen" was his lead-off phrase: give me.

Me: More head shaking.
Him: Mumbles and wild gestures.
Me: A shrug. A head shake. An emphatic "no".
Him: A suggestion that I get my mother. (Kreyol speakers will understand that turn of phrase.)

He walked away, not in a straight line, taking the time to turn back, mumble, and gesture. I breathed a little easier.

We sweated. We scanned the sidewalk on all sides of the car. Sweated. Scanned. Dozens of Friday-evening groups walked by. A drizzle began. Sweated.

Our help arrived about thirty minutes later in the form of Dan, our mechanic friend (and Miquette's brother). He swapped cars with us and we realized we could continue our date.

When we walked into Papaye, it was like another world. In a lush back yard with all-white decor, Katie and I sat down amongst bourgeoisie Haitians, diplomats in town for the ACS conference, and expat aid workers. We took a deep breath and laughed, the tension of the last 30 minutes gone.

We have made no plans for May's date...

-B

DC 2013! Part Two

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:31:00 +0000

To continue from part one, we also visited the Library of Congress with a dozen Haitian ducklings in tow.

Ben adopted what he called the "sorority pose".

An iconic building, a freezing day.

I waited sneakily by the entrance to the Rotunda to capture this next one. I've always loved the faces of my students as they first walk into this enormous room, eyes immediately skyward. I got LD just as the "wow" was forming.

After the government buildings we made out way to my favorite meal of the trip, where we introduce our kids to the best food ever made: Tex-Mex.

This year, an adventurous eater ordered seafood fajitas. Unbeknownst to her, this came with a least one teeny octopus! Mr. K disgusted everyone by popping it straight off her fork and into his mouth.

Next, the zoo.

John Ackerman, this photo is for you.

This is the closest I've ever seen the pandas!

Meerkats.

Last but not least, part three coming tomorrow!

Katie

DC 2013! Part One

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:02:00 +0000

Another Easter, another trip to Washington, DC!

This was our third year to take students to DC, and luckily we both departed and returned with 11 kids from the 10th and 11th grades. This group included two younger siblings of former DC participants, three missionary kids, and one member of my discipleship group.

The changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I love the line etched into the side of the large marble tomb: "unknown but to God".

There was a funeral taking place at Arlington Cemetery while we visited. This is the riderless horse, representing the one who was lost.

As always, we tramped around all over the city Metro lines. Transporting ourselves via Metro is significantly cheaper, and yet significantly harder, than renting a bus. Keeping the trip cost down was a top priority our first year, and then after that I'm convinced this is better, too. The kids have fun "surfing the subway" and people-watching. They also get experience as they read the maps and figure out how many stops are left. Many QCS kids go to college in New York, Boston, Chicago, and Canadian cities with subways, so I think it's a great life skill to gain.

It's also illuminating to see my students' "America fashion" since I basically only ever see them in school uniforms.

We visited a Haitian art exhibit at the Museum of the Americas. It was teeny, but very interesting to me. The kids were decidedly not impressed.

LD discovering the Vietnam Wall. There was a group of veterans being wheeled by in wheelchairs at the exact time we were viewing the memorial. It was moving to see those men, speaking with the guides about which planes and unit they had been with.

My 11th graders memorize and perform the "Gettysburg Address" in American Literature. It's always special to me to see them asking to take pictures in front of it, because my assignment made them focus on those words- and now the words are special to them as well.

I watched Lincoln with Ben last night, and as I heard the words of both this speech and his second inaugural, I understood and agreed again with their placement inside the Lincoln Monument. They are so special, so dear, so central to American values.

Steps of the Lincoln Monument

A little PicStitch of the silly hats we encountered at the trucks-turned-vendors along the Mall.

Best of all, my mom got to join us again! I love having her come to DC, not only because she can hang out with me but also so she can meet my kids and understand more of what I do.

If you've met my father (or viewed a far-right Facebook status of his), you understand why it was hilarious that Mom and I discussed purchasing this souvenir for him at a Smithsonian gift shop.

At the World War II Memorial, some of my ladies celebrated women's contributions to the war effort.

Stay tuned for part two!

Katie

Ain't No Party Like a Port-au-Prince Party

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:27:00 +0000

Robbie, Irene, Tiff, Jarrett, Jill, Josiah, Nathaniel, Ben, and Amber

A few weeks ago our 3rd grade teacher and Kellyanne had a birthday, and her husband Wilson planned a surprise party for her. It was an extremely rare opportunity to find our campus community dressed up, so natch I took some pictures.

As we are about six weeks from permanently moving away from Haiti, a deep nostalgia has settled on me. These faces (and a few more) are my family in Haiti.

As we waited for the birthday girl to arrive, I snapped a few shots of the surrounding neighborhood. At sunset, from a fourth-story rooftop, I was reminded of the beautiful/ugly in Haiti. The concrete jungle, the rebar spiking out from unfinished everything, the lush bougainvillea blooms. The mountains are an excellent example: majestic profiles, and yet denuded of trees and covered in precariously-sloped slums.

Now let's take a break from nostalgia and waxing philosophic.

Humorous interlude. Comic relief.

Ben and Jarrett.

I wonder if I'll ever live in a place with so much natural beauty again? Dallas is my home, and nothing will replace that, but it unfortunately has much to be desired in the "breathtaking natural scenery" department.

I often forget, in the midst of the nasty city, that I live on a tropical Caribbean island.

Finally our birthday girl arrived, and the DJ kept us singing along.

Six months pregnant and never more beautiful!

At one point it was just the two of us on the dance floor, swirling and shouting the lyrics to "Hotel California", which, strangely, nobody else seemed to know.

I'm thinking of the the Eagles' lyrics in the climactic final verse describing the mythical hotel:

"Relax," said the night man,
"We are programmed to receive
You can check out any time you want, but
You can never leave."

Is that how it will be, moving away from Haiti?

We will leave Haiti,
but will Haiti leave us?
Can it?
Will we file it away as just a memory, albeit a special one,
something like our honeymoon- thought of fondly but only occasionally?

K

Thirty Dollar Diet Coke

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 18:42:00 +0000

One thing people can never understand about Haiti is how the cost of living is actually higher in some ways that the US. One example of this is groceries.

My friends Cornelius and Minday Broersma have written an excellent post about this, with price comparisons on identical items.

Bailey's coffee creamer is $1.97 in America, but 180 gourdes ($4.50) in Haiti.

The same number of cans of Diet Coke are $7.48 in America, and $30 US in Haiti. Perhaps the difference is now heavy this must be to export. But there is a plant that bottles Coke in Haiti!

For my birthday last year, I asked for the expensive groceries that I never get to buy: $10 cereal, fancy American grated Parmesan, and frozen berries (more than $10 a bag).

Please go read the Broersma's blog for many more examples, and a look at their Haiti life.

When I was first coming to Haiti, I was emailing with a teacher who had recently left Quisqueya. She was generous enough to give me her budget, and I was completely floored by the line item for groceries. I thought, "Ben and I don't even spend that much TOGETHER, in AMERICA!"

She told me I'd see, and that things were really expensive, and that sometimes you're willing to trade money for a little home comfort.

I remained skeptical, and more than a little judgmental.

I was flat wrong.

Now, there are ways in which life is cheaper here. We don't spend money on shopping, movie theaters, gasoline, or lunch at work.

But groceries ain't cheap.

Katie

PS Hey, we leave for our third annual trip to Washington, DC tomorrow! Eleven kids plus me and Ben, stomping through Washington with museums in our sights. Woo hoo!

Announcement

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 20:40:00 +0000

Photo by Matpar Haiti, a paint company.

A very bittersweet announcement.

Basically since the day after the earthquake, there's been a question somewhere between "the forefront" and "the back burner" of our minds: when should we leave Haiti? We have been on one-year contracts, so each year in the early spring we've tried to finalize our decision for the following school year.

Ben and I have decided to move back to America for the foreseeable future on June 4, right after we finish the school year. We’re going to put down deeper roots in Dallas, make up for lost time with our families, and think toward having kids.

We definitely feel like God wants us to continue teaching high school. It really fits our gifts and we love it (most days!).

The way we feel about it is that we’re undergoing a missionary transfer, not a missionary retirement. We want to figure out a way to live missionally from Dallas. We feel peace about leaving, really excited to be with our loved ones, and yet also a lot of grief about leaving “our kids” here. We’ve spent 3.5 years and thousands of hours with this same group of about 100 kids and 30 teachers, so there is a very strong pain in saying goodbye.

We don’t have jobs lined up yet for the fall. But, one big blessing was finding out recently that we will be able to live in a little parsonage/mission house owned by a church in Plano. It kind of came out of nowhere and we were shocked at the offer. Spending six months or so there will be an easy place to land (it’s furnished!) and we will get to live together without any roommates or shared walls for the first time in 4.5 years of marriage!

A special note for those who pay our support. You guys have made these years in Haiti possible. Being vulnerable to living on partial support scared me so badly, I initially rejected even the possibility of doing it. But it’s increased my faith and my generosity to see you guys be so faithful and generous. After talking to other ex-pats who work for mission organizations, we see that the standard is to ask for our support to continue for three months after we return, so that would be June, July, and August. We would like to humbly ask for our support to continue until August as a bridge until we begin receiving income for teaching jobs

Also, we are in the midst of job-hunting for high school positions in north Dallas. If you happen to have a connection in that field, we would be very happy to hear about it.

We love you guys a lot! To God be all the glory.

Ben and Katie

Haitian Creations

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 22:24:00 +0000

Recently I met Chandler, who now runs Haitian Creations. This is her boutique!

I want those displays.

And this is me and Chandler!

Outside the Haitian Creations boutique and workshop

Haitian Creations is one of the many ministries of Heartline. Under Chandler's leadership, a group of Haitian mothers create all these beautiful accessories. Everything you buy came from their hands. The ladies' incomes allow them to raise their children with the proper nutrition, education, and safe homes the mothers always wanted to provide, but never could before.

Chandler's husband, Josh, built all the white display boxes and was putting the finishing touches on this cute chevron checkout counter.

In addition to her own Haitian Creations products, this boutique is selling soap, jewelry, body oil, and t-shirts from Apparent Project, Child Hope, and Ayiti Natives, three similar programs providing life change through employment.

Here are some pictures of the workshop area.

How does one run a cloth handbag workshop in a country with spotty electricity? Old skool non electric sewing machines, that's how.

Signature cloth beads.

Chandler's office.

One of the ladies gave Chandler this straw hat as a gift :)

Chandler's desk.

Classic Haiti ("deep woods" spray) + boss (legal pad) + artsy person (stitch samples).

I was on this side of Port-au-Prince because I wanted so badly to visit this shop. I sent an email to our school staff and rounded up two carfuls for a girls' outing. We all wished we'd brought more cash.

And, if you live in Haiti, you can come too! The boutique grand opening event is this Saturday, March 23rd in the Tabarre neighborhood of Port-au-Prince.

Their website is one of Chandler's major upcoming projects. You better believe I'll be giving you the link when all these cute new items hit their redesigned site.

I am proud of you, Chandler and Heartline!

Katie

Fair Trade Shopping: Photography and Aprons

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 22:25:00 +0000

More fair trade shopping!

100 Cameras is an organization that gives cameras to very poor kids and then sells their photography. 100% goes back to the kids. You can buy any size print, but also cards- like notecards, postcards, etc.

My next new favorite is No. 41, a site that sells products made by women in Rwanda. By buying their items, these ladies are able to raise their children, provide an education, and general change their family tree for the better.

Their signature item seems to be handbags, but actually my favorite things on their site are these adorable aprons, which come in a set with an oven mitt.

The combo is $30, which would make a really cute gift for a wedding shower, housewarming, or graduation.

Win-wins. I love fair trade shopping.

Katie