First Day of School

5:30 am: Wake up
6:00 am: Breakfast
6:45 am: Pick up kids from neighboring village. Kicking and screaming, pull them to meet the kids from the bus. Covered in mud, dripping sweat.
Hours later, join the other kids from the bus and somehow herd everyone to the cafeteria for breakfast. Oh yeah, and wash their hands first with bleach water then rinse with water. Sure.
7-7:30 am: Breakfast. I believe they were all in shock and scared for their lives.
8:00 am: Join Venine (my co-worker) in the class where she proceeds with circle and attempts to explain the class and see who remembers our names; no one does.

The rest of the day went as any preschooler's first day would, filled with trips to the bathroom, showing how to wash hands, get in line, hold hands in line, get back in line after recess, make sure you have all 26, trying to remember faces, "is he in our class?", doing anything to avoid tears, no one recognizing French needless to say English.

By nap time, even before nap time, everyone was dead and fell asleep with their heads on their desks, some even falling short and into the floor. We woke them up for after school care, they were still falling half asleep into the floor and back out into the playground.

English is tomorrow, we'll really see what their attention spans are like. Luckily we've recruited extra help for the morning routine, which was helpless!

For now, I'm having a Prestige and trying to figure out the local currency, which needs to be changed twice; into Gourdes and into Haitian Dollars. It looks something like this (sorry if there are errors Christina!).
5 Gourdes = 1 Haitian Dollar
10 Gourdes = 2 Haitian Dollar
50 Gourdes = 10 Haitian Dollar
100 Gourdes = 20 Haitian Dollar
250 Gourdes = 50 Haitian Dollar
500 Gourdes = 100 Haitian Dollar
1000 Gourdes = 200 Haitian dollar

$100 USD (x 8.63) = 863 Haitian Dollar

I do this mostly for my own repetition and memory. The actual bills we get when we exchange money say 'Gourdes' but you have to convert them in your head to Haitian Dollars to pay. Unless, the price is marked in Gourdes, but then the vendor can still ask for Haitian Dollars, and as always, you can bargain. Welcome to Haiti.