I Smell Like Mildew

I'm in the Fort Lauderdale airport once again, only 11 days since I was last here although I feel like it's been much longer. It will take me days to write about all the experiences I had, people's stories I heard, and all that I learned in Haiti and about Haiti, and I promise I will. 

At the moment I will just share with you how it feels to be a dirty traveler. I did my best to cram all my dirty clothes into a plastic bag inside my backpack, in a futile attempt to contain the odor. 

Unfortunately my backpack, as well as myself, reek of mildew, sweat, and dirt. I was able to shower throughout the trip, but my clothes went unwashed and the humidity was kind enough to share its dingy scent with all my garments. 

While I stood in the customs and border potrol line for two hours, I enjoyed listening to the elderly Hatian man behind me make jokes in Kreyol to our fellow travelers, which I can only assume involved the ratty, dirt-covered flip flops dangling from the back of my pack. I was glad to provide some entertainment. 

I had to go back through security, which meant I had to remove my shoes again, and try not to scatter dirt and gravel all over the floor in the process. I managed to do this fairly successfully, then arrived at my gate in time to wait four more hours for my flight to board. I killed some time on the phone, purchasing some Chapstick to battle the dry airport air, and ate a hamburger. 

To my utter delight, while pacing the terminal, I discovered that my flight was delayed by an hour, and then again by another hour. Although I'm being sarcastic, and I really would rather be home two or three hours sooner, my time in Haiti has reminded me of all that I have to be not just thankful for, but to rejoice for. Stay tuned for many pictures and posts about the trip, and get ready to laugh and cry. 

A 10-hour Layover and My Most Embarrassing Moment

Disclaimer: this post is not for those who get nervous or squeamish around conversations involving babies, pregnancy, or motherly duties. You know who you are. Seriously, I don't want any irate or annoyed comments about this post. You've been warned. 

I wasn't planning on writing any posts until I returned from Haiti, but I'm on a 10-hour layover in Fort Lauderdale, and something just happened that I will never be able to write about it the same way as I can right after it happened.

This story must be prefaced with the fact that I breastfeed my 3-month-old-- not because I think she'll grow up dumb or end up in jail if I don't, but because I know it's good for her, and also it's 100% more free than formula. That said, I have nothing against formula and completely understand many mothers don't nurse because either they are unable to, it doesn't work with their lifestyle, or their babies have an intolerance to their milk etc. This is not a "breast is best" post, this is about my embarrassing moment.

I bought a manual pump to take with me to Haiti so when I get back I can still nurse my daughter. Since I am on this horribly long layover with nothing to do, and I hadn't nursed my daughter since right before I was dropped off at the airport, seven hours prior to what I will forever refer to as, "the incident," I decided it was a great time to pump. 

I proceeded to the stall that was as far back into the women's restroom as possible. As I was pumping I was distinctly aware of everything and everyone outside of my little stall. I could hear chatter over a janitor's radio, and thought to myself, radios sound so official; why does that make me feel like I might get in trouble? I sat in the stall laughing on the inside about how ironic it was that I felt like I was doing something wrong when really all I'm doing is trying to be a good mom. 

While I was laughing on the inside, I was thinking I would love to tell my sister-in-law, a mother of 3, that I would like to add manually pumping breastmilk in an airport bathroom stall to the list of things I never want to do again. Still laughing on the inside, I disassembled the pump, and to my horror, I dropped a piece, which proceeded to roll over into the next stall. I leaned down, hoping no one was in the stall, and my dignity all but vanished as I watched a stranger's shoe tentatively slide the piece back into my stall's territory. I quickly memorized the shoe to ensure I would never make eye contact with its owner. 

I spent the next five minutes standing in the stall hoping I could remain anonymous. My efforts were not in vain, because I checked everyone's shoes out while I washed my hands, and none were a match to my stanger's shoe. 

After sharing this story with my sister-in-law, she said I had to write about it. I told her it was extremely embarrassing, but I guess that's what makes a story good. If you were able to enjoy some laughter at my expense then my work is done here. 

Haiti

A couple of days ago I mentioned going to Haiti, and I promised to elaborate so I will, but the story goes back a few years, so bare with me. In January 2010 Danny and I were living just outside Washington D.C. when we heard an earthquake had struck in Haiti. USGS called it the largest earthquake since 1770. We immediately called our friends, Bryan and Lisa Bartow, who live in upstate New York, because for them it's a second home. Lisa is half Haitian, and still has family members who live there. In addition to visiting family in Haiti, the Bartows and extended family support nine churches in the country, and frequently take teams on short-term mission trips there.

The Bartow family in Haiti, two years before the
earthquake.

By the time we called, the Bartows had already taken action and had coordinated their own relief effort. In a matter of days, through friends and local donations, they had a small charter plane and a half ton of supplies. Their action gained so much attention that an article was written about them in their local newspaper (To read the article, click here).

Having grown up in Papua New Guinea, my heart was wrenched for the people in Haiti, and although I was unable to join the Bartows on their initial earthquake relief trip, it left in me a desire to be a part of their efforts their as soon as I could.

Fast forward four years, and the opportunity has finally come when I can help. In a few days a team, led by the Bartows, will be traveling to visit one of the nine churches they support, in a town called Doko. Due to the rigorous, 7-hour hike up a mountain, crossing a river 60 times, the church hasn't been visited by outsiders in over 50 years. Lisa explained to me the value of visiting people in the Haitian culture, and how by taking this journey just to see them will be an incredible encouragement to the church there.

I will be helping take video of our journey to Doko, which will be used in the production of a short film after returning to the U.S. The film will be used to not only document this historic visit to Doko, but will hopefully bring awareness to the needs of the Christian church in Haiti. I'm incredibly excited about this opportunity because for many years I've wanted to be able to use my passion for photography and videography to be used by God.

My friends and family have had a lot of questions for me about the trip, especially in regards to my 3-month-old daughter. I will be honest, I almost chickened out on going a few weeks ago. I was feeling a lot of apprehension about leaving her for almost two weeks, and how she'll think I don't care about her and feel neglected and how that will damage her psyche or give her some weird complex for the rest of her life. But after a lot of prayer and self-reflection, I realized I was making myself way more important than I am. My daughter knows I love her, and in the long run she will have no memory that I was even gone, but I will be able to tell her about this trip to Haiti and tell her about what God taught me while I was there. Maybe when she hears about this trip she will want to take adventures for God too. Ultimately I don't know what will happen, but that's where I am trusting the Lord to use this trip for His purpose.


So I spent most of yesterday packing for my trip. It's extremely important to pack light since we will be hiking many hours, but it's somewhat difficult to do with heavy camera equipment--my camera body alone, without a lens, is two pounds. However, I delight in the challenge of packing lightly, and got a bit giddy organizing everything to be as light and small as possible.

I managed to pack everything in the photo on the left, into the backpack in the photo on the right, with the exception of the clothes I will wear on the airplane. I weighed it and came out with 14.8 lbs. I won't lie, I'm pretty impressed with my packing skills.

I'm extremely excited for this trip; growing up as a missionary kid in Papua New Guinea, I never really feel "at home" the way I do when I'm overseas. I'm excited to meet the people in Haiti, and hopefully be a blessing to them in whatever way I can. And most importantly, I'm looking forward to what God will teach me through this experience.

Needless to say, not watching TV will not be a problem while I'm on this trip. However, I won't be updating the blog while I'm gone, for several reasons, but I will be doing my best to write in a journal about the trip and when I return, I will back-blog (Get it? like back log? I crack myself up).

Birthdays, Boogers, and Answered Prayers

We spent most of yesterday and my brother's house because it was my niece's first birthday. I love spending time with family and it was extra special to watch my niece eat her first cake. I would have loved to stay longer, but our little one hasn't been sleeping well, so we thought it would be better to head home. Thankfully, she went to sleep at 9 pm instead of 11 like the night before. When I emerged from the nursery looking haggard, my husband gave me some vitamin C tablets and told me to go to bed early. Before I fell asleep I prayed that me and my daughter would both be able to sleep through the night.

I woke up this morning feeling more rested than I have in several days. My daughter slept 10 hours straight, and I slept 7. When I came out of my room I was amazed to see the living room, kitchen, and dining room completely clean. It had looked like a bomb went off for two days, and my sweet husband decided to clean and organize everything while I was sleeping. It made me think of those Ryan Gosling "Hey Girl" pictures-- Hey girl, I noticed you were tired and stressed out, so I cleaned the house while you were sleeping. Except, this was real life, and my own husband, which is so much better.

Handwritten Letters and TV Withdrawls

I have a three-year-old cousin, Henry, who loves checking the mailbox. My aunt or uncle will go with him to check it sometimes more than once a day. Yesterday morning I got to thinking about his love for mail, and how people rarely get "fun" mail anymore. When my husband or I check the mail we  ask the other one, "did we get anything?"; we don't mean literally, because there's always something, but it's usually a pile of Burger King coupons and a free newspaper. What we're really asking is, "did we get something from someone we know?".

Several times, in the almost seven years of our marriage, my husband and I have been apart from each other for weeks or months at a time, and a couple of those times we decided to write letters instead of e-mails. We now have a shoebox full of letters that I'm sure our grandchildren will find either romantic, or hilarious some day.

There is something special about a letter, but people rarely send them anymore. We still send and receive birthday cards, or thank you cards in the mail, but not a letter. We send an e-mail, or a text, or we call on FaceTime or Skype, but it's all electronic. Don't get me wrong, as someone who has lived away from family, I greatly appreciate video calls, but I can't keep them in a shoebox for my kids or grandkids to hold in their hands 30 or 40 years from now.

With my new free time, I've decided to write a letter a week. Hopefully this isn't too lofty a goal that I will end up disappointing myself, but once a month is so far apart I might forget, and once a day is just ridiculous. I don't think I know enough people to write that many letters. Since it was Henry who inspired me, I'm going to send my first letter to him.

In other news, last night was the first night that I really wished I could watch TV. My daughter and I were both feeling under the weather, and I couldn't sleep. Between being poised to hear her if she needed me, and the horrible tickly and scratchy feeling in my own throat, sleep was a mere fantasy to me. All I wanted to do was curl up on the couch and watch a few episodes until I passed out. Instead I  stared at the baby monitor until I knew my daughter was asleep, and ate throat lozenges like they were my last meal.

Banana Bread Win, Curtain Fail

My husband returned from his backpacking trip at midnight, and when we woke up he asked if there was anything for breakfast. I was very excited about this because I had been wanting to make chocolate chip banana bread, and breakfast seemed like a good enough reason.

An internet search for sour cream banana bread led me to Cookbook Chronicles blog, so I took that recipe and got to work. I reluctantly made the batter into muffins for the sake of time, but expected them to be dry. NOPE. These were the best banana bread muffins I've ever eaten, and I'm usually the worst critic of my cooking or baking, so you should definitely trust my opinion on this. 

Coffee is a staple for me in the morning, but I wanted to break from my usual stash and try some of the coffee from Caffe Vita in Seattle that my husband gave me for Christmas. It was delicious.

Unfortunately, my success could not extend beyond the morning. I was so excited to bring home efficiency curtains to put up in my daughter's room on the curtain rod I installed while procrastinating about other things. They boast of blocking 99% of the light, absorbing sound and lowering your heating and cooling bills. This all may be true, but first you should make sure you know how tall your ceilings are.

When I installed the curtain rod I followed the design tip of hanging the curtains from very near to your ceiling, which makes the room seem taller. My sweet husband put the curtains on the rod for me, and we were both excited that it might be easier to get the little one down for naps.

NAILED IT.

I thought our ceilings were seven feet, but sadly they are eight feet, and the curtains hover around eight inches above the floor, and I'm sure they're allowing more than 1% of light to enter the room. In addition to negating their efficiency, they're hideous; they have a million fold lines, and they are the consistency of a tarp. We will of course return them, but I not before I get one good nap out of them. 

Banana Bread Recipe

Makes 1 loaf of banana bread, or approximately 12 large muffins

The secret to this banana cake is sour cream.

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp kosher salt
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp. cinnamon (I omitted the cinnamon)
• ½ cup vegetable or canola oil
• ¾ cup brown sugar
• ¾ cup sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 ½ cups over-ripe bananas, mashed (about 3 large bananas)
• 1 cup light sour cream, or whole milk yogurt
• 2 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and line a 9×5” metal loaf pan. (Or, if making banana muffins, line 12 muffin cups with liners.) 

In a bowl, stir together the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon.

In a large mixing bowl, mix together the oil, brown sugar, and white sugar. Mix in the vanilla extract, mashed bananas, sour cream, and eggs.

Stir in the dry ingredients until combined. Pour the batter into a pan and bake for approximately 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (If baking muffins, fill each lined muffin cup 3/4 of the way, and bake for approximately 20-25 minutes.) Let the banana bread cool for 10 minutes before carefully turning it out on a wire rack.

Procrastination Takes Determination

I'm a procrastinator. I tend to make simple tasks much larger in my mind and then I avoid them like the plague until there's no possible escape. Unfortunately for me, everything I procrastinate about still weighs on me like a ton of bricks until I do it, and when I do, "it" usually only takes me a fraction of the time and effort that I expected.

There are several things I'm procrastinating about currently, which brings me to my next point about procrastinating -- it causes me to be extremely productive in anything else I can come up with. Busying myself with other tasks allows me to convince myself that I do in fact have more important things to accomplish before the "it."While pondering this concept, I came to the realization that procrastination takes a lot of determination, and so I should probably get some sort of award for this behavior.

Christmas break is almost over and I haven't graded my students' assignments from the last two weeks before the break started. I also need to do lesson planning for myself and for the substitute I will need when I'm in Haiti next week. Oh yeah, I'm going to Haiti next week. I'm very excited about this, and will elaborate on what I will be doing there in another post. There's a mountain of paperwork and bills I need to go through, but it's at the top of my things-to-procrastinate-about list.  I'm sure there are other things I'm procrastinating about, but I'm suppressing them for my sanity.

Since I was procrastinating, I got many other tasks around the house done. I washed a load of cloth diapers, I made the mint chocolate fudge, I spray painted some round tins that will contain said fudge, I installed a curtain rod in the nursery, folded and hung laundry, cleaned my bathroom, and the kitchen. This was all done in between taking care of my 3-month-old. I should definitely get an award.

Unrelated to procrastinating, my grandma invited me and my mom over for dinner and Scrabble. I lost. I also learned that my grandma plays a game of scrabble on her computer every night. She gave me a cheat sheet of all the two-letter words that are legal in Scrabble, so I'm feeling confident that I will improve.