Hello everyone! Today is our third day in Haiti and it has been amazing! My name is Kenzie S and I am a senior at Orono! This is my third time in Haiti, and I am soooo happy to be back. Last night before bed, we had a three hour long conversation about our day and we were all crying because we were laughing so hard. It was an amazing way to unwind and just get to bond as a team again. (Minus Lauren… we are so happy she is here now! Safe!)

This morning Paige and I got up and went to volunteer in the burn clinic. Next year I am going to be a nursing student at Point Loma Nazarene University, and I absolutely loved the opportunity to spend time actually doing things that I will get to do in the future. When we got there, it wasn’t super busy so we helped the missionaries with the stocking the supplies room! After a little while a bunch of people started showing up. I was handed a pair of scissors and told to go cut off the bandages and help start washing the burns! I couldn’t believe that they trusted me to do this and it was such an honor! At one point, there was this little girl named Miley that came in. I was told she has been coming for a year already, but her burn looked like it happened yesterday. She was really calm when she came in, but that changed really quickly. After I cut of her bandages, she was told to sit in a tub and start washing her wounds. Because she has a fever and infection, washing out her burn hurt a lot more today than it usually does. She instantly started crying and screaming. Her dad was washing out her burn at first, but he started having a hard time watching her cry and scream, knowing he couldn’t do anything. She had to start washing her burn herself then, screaming in between each time she poured the water on her. I sat down next to her, and just started rubbing her back and arms but she didn’t even falter… she just kept screaming. It was really hard time watch her and her dad, and knowing I couldn’t do anything really just sucked. Paige was praying for her, and I just started crying and couldn’t stop. Every single time I looked at her dad, I just continued to lose it. We then had to dress her wounds again, and she kept screaming and kicking and biting. When we finally finished, we gave her a sucker. She asked for a second sucker, and laughed. She got off the table and hugged me, and I got to hold her for a while and she was laughing. Right before she left, she gave me a kiss and it really meant a lot to me. The rest of the day at the burn clinic went pretty smoothly, and I am definitely looking forward to going back on Wednesday!

Next was camp with the T12 kids! However, we found out that the President of Haiti was coming back from visiting a city because it was Flag Day, a holiday here in Haiti. The road was closed because of this, so we took a little detour…. again. It was actually really cool because we got to see another part of Haiti that none of us had never seen before. We went to Wadson’s house, and met up with all the kids there. We hadn’t met the other kids yet, and it was awesome to get to meet them! We walked to the church with them and we got to sing some songs! Chrisla, the little girl my family and I sponsor, had a lot of energy. Teagan and Paige said they had never seen her giggle and dance and talk so much, and that was so awesome to see. It made me so happy! We got to see some of the kid’s talents, and that was also really cool to see! Benzaza showed us his bracelets and told us how he makes them and how he learned. Jolienne sang for us, and Isaac played his recorder. It was touching!

Guy’s mom Bethanie made us Haitian food for lunch today. It was amazing! We spent that time eating with the children, and noticed that they seriously don’t say a single word when they eat. We all knew that this was a cultural norm, but most of us had never witnessed this before! The drive to the ocean was crazy. 15 passenger van packed with 25 people… and no air conditioning. The drive went really well though, until there were too many people trying to get to the public beach, whose entrance was before the beach that we were planning to go to. After sitting in the car for a while, we ended up turning around and prayed that Kaliko Beach Club would let us all in. We sat there while Paige and Teagan went to talk to the owner. They came back and we were allowed in! We all changed quickly and were soooo excited to get into the relatively cold water. We didn’t know this, but it was some of the kids’ first trip to the beach! The kids got right in and laughed like crazy. Chrisla was screaming “WA WA WA” and giggling and just couldn’t stop! She instantly started acting like she was washing herself, and we think it is because she hasn’t ever been in that geography or situation and just had no idea that it was for fun. All the kids were screaming and laughing and just so happy to be there, and it was a beautiful moment for all of us!

This trip to meet all children and see what Transformed Twelve is doing has been an amazing opportunity and one I could not be more thankful for. Four of us girls are graduating in two weeks and being here means missing out on a lot of studying for finals and a lot of other things that are going on at school right now. Before we left it was a hard realization for some of us that we would be missing out on some of our final high school days. Being here now though I think I could speak for all of us in saying that even just this first few days is worth missing all of it. Haiti has been life changing for me and the fact that I am back here already for the third time is incredible.

-Kenzie S