Dinner with the family

Last night was our dinner with the Haitian family that my husband met on Friday. They are absolutely lovely. It was the mother, her 12 year-old daughter, 4 year-old daughter and her 2 month-old baby. The mother is a very sweet, VERY thankful woman, intelligent, well-spoken and very scared about the future here with her children. She had come to the States to stay with relatives here and to have her baby here where the health care system is obviously far better. The earthquake happened shortly thereafter.

The older daughters were in Port-au-Prince with their father during the earthquake and experienced the horror of the aftermath in person. The adorable little 4-year old went through a psychological evaluation when she got here in the States, and she has all the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder that you might imagine. We didn't see anything at dinner - here she was a VERY well-behaved, sweet, giggly little thing that fell in love with our girl dog, Sadie! She just followed Sadie around petting her and petting her and then giggling wildly with happiness! It was very, very cute!

The older daughter is VERY smart, speaks perfect English and is already attending school here. She attended private school in Haiti, as the parents were seemingly pretty well off. Both parents worked in one capacity or another for the government; she was a secretary and he was a journalist and professor. Of course, there is no money coming in any more, they scraped everything together to get the two girls here with their mother and baby sister. The father is still in Haiti, injured, and living on the streets. It sounds terrifying.

The mother, with her kids, are all living with a cousin in a nearby city. There is absolutely no room for all of them - they already had 9 people crammed into a very modest house, and then you add 4 more and it's not do-able for long. I drove her to a few places today to try and find help for her - food and diapers; not luxury stuff at all. She and the kids are moving into a shelter on Wednesday; no idea where at this point.

All this stuff is so scary and it makes me realize how fragile our comfortable existence is! Three months ago, they were a well-off family living in Haiti. Now they're basically homeless, with three kids, starting all over again with nothing but the clothes they had.

Be thankful for what you've got! I know I am!