Haiti Thu 10/22

This is our last full day at the beach. We decided to not go snorkeling, but just hang out. I'm at the restaurant with the computer while everyone else is sleeping (6:30am). The rooster crows like clockwork about 6am. Then I walk outside and hear the workers sweeping.

Charlene slept all night. She did start coughing about 1am. I even moved her up to the propped up end of her crib, but it didn't help. Finally her coughing woke her up, she cried and stood up. I was right by her crib again, so I rubbed her back and spoke and she calmed down. She stood as long as she could, even briefly falling asleep :) She eventually layed back down and slept (w/o coughing) the rest of the night.

We all ate breakfast: Taylor had an omelet with ham and cheese, I ordered an omelet w/o the ham, but got it w/o the cheese too :) and Nathan had french toast. He normally really doesn't like french toasat, but he loves how the haitians make it. It is crispy and so delicious. They also gave us a platter of bread, peanut butter, jelly, coffee, real creamer, and fresh orange juice.

We then got readyf ro the beach. T. got in the water right away, swimming and playing. N8 went out to the floating dock and saw jellyfish! I just held Charlene. The sound of the waves puts her in a trance almost. I even waded out in the water where she was wet, too and she fell asleep. this happens every time, so soothing for her. N8 came back and took Charlene then I swam out to the dock. I layed out in the fabulous sunshine for a while, dipped my hand to splash water on me...it felt so good. Did it again and my hand hit the top of a jellyfish. I sat up, looked around and saw a few. I was able to pet them some more, such a wierd feeling. I tried to get T. to swim out. She started, but then spotted one and turned around and swam back to the beach. There were only about 5, so it would've been easy to navigate. I swam back to shore and Nathan took T. out to the dock b/c you can stand on it and see them good. She is the only one with goggles, so she had to tell N8 where to swim to avoid them. They did great, stayed out there awhile, then swam back to shore, b/c the snorkel guy had brought us snorkel gear for us to borrow for the day. So, N8 and T put their gear on and went back out. I was having fun holding a sleepy Charlene. She loves being held and listening to the ocean. Normally she is scrambling to get down and move around, but not at the beach. Nate then went over by the stone wall and saw some really neat fish. He said there was more fish there than at the reef. He even saw a Lion fish! I've only seen those in aquariums. Taylor was over with him and long story short..she all of a sudden starts panicking and swimming for shore. I knew she had been stung. nathan swam to her and Isaac (a Hatian vendor we had befriended) ran to her also. He said she needed lemon. I went to the restaurant, they didn't have any. He then went somewhere and came back with a lime (his English isn't perfect...it was a lime we needed). He and Nathan rubbed lime all over her, but she got stung on her bottom and her back. She was crying and screaming. Isaac said to wait 3 minutes, then give her a shower, so nate ran her back to the hotel, gave her some Zyrtec and a shower. How we had running water in the middle of the day, I don't know.

While this was happening, the guy had some buy with our lunch. Nathan told him to come by at noon. he did with fresh, fried chonch, fried plantains and about 4 coconuts (for the cocunt juice). I also had 'ordered' 3 coconuts and that guy had come by too. So I stayed at the beach with Charlene, all our food and all the good we had purchased and Isaac. We are still the only patrons. I drank one coconut and part of another b/c they leak and I didn't want to waste any. I sat down with Charlene and Isaac had started eating his lunch...a fresh avacado and some bread. He gave us a large slice of avacado and some bread. Charlene ate it all. the avacados here are much different than the ones in the stores at home.

Nate came back and helped carry our stuff back to the room. We ate the lunch there. He loved it. I didn't like it, but I don't like seafood like that...lobster, etc. It was spicy, but good. I ate the plantains, and so did T. She loved those and the coconut juice. Coconuts are really heavy!! I poured out all the juice into a cup for her.

Nate said her bottom and back had swollen, but by the time I got to the room, she was calm and the swelling had gone down and it just looked like about 300 bee stings. She watched her science videos to get her mind off of it. After awhile, T and I walked around (it was naptime for Ch.) and we noticed the pool was looking much better, I could actually see the bottom! So, T put on some shorts and a tee and we went to the pool. After Ch's nap, she and N8 came too. I kept Ch. on the chair with me and she snacked on ritz crackers and N8 and T played in the pool Taylor wanted to pretend they were sea mammals. She chose to be a Green (sea) turtle (as opposed to a loggerhead turtle--and she had her reasons. She listed several differences thanks to her science videos). When I was in the pool, I chose to be a blue whale, N8 chose to be an Orca. They had fun. The clouds rolled in prob. around 3:30 or so. We finally left around ?5pm and got cleaned up and went to supper.

N8 and I ordered grilled fish and T. ordered spaghetti noodles. Charlene threw 2 fits during this meal. N8 walked her around once and I took her to the room to calm down once. Finally, I just took her to the room to go to bed. She gets real tired about 7pm. She did fall asleep no problem.

Charlene likes to throw temper tantrums when she doesn't get her way...about anything.

She slept good though.