Screaming Kids

With a little more time in yesterday’s schedule than usual I was able to sleep in a little before I started my day. Even though I could only will myself to sleep until 6:30 it was nice to get a few extra minutes of sleep. After a delicious breakfast, I went straight to work on my paper in the computer lab.

Not much after I settled down and started writing, I got distracted by a noise coming from the driveway. It sounded like yelling, crying children – which was weird because all of the students had left. After about two minutes of continuous screaming, I finally realized what was happening. What I was hearing was not the screams of human children, but of the goats that were being delivered for next week’s graduation. Definitely not the type of kid I was expecting.

Just some screaming kids!

The goats will be prepared, along with chickens and possibly some other animals, towards the end of this week for a celebration after Saturday’s graduation. In the meantime, the goats are currently tied down on the soccer field next to a few classrooms. Something I never imagined I would see in my lifetime, I took a picture as proof of this experience.

After that excitement, I spent most of the day working on my paper. I took a few breaks to do some leisure reading and relax, but otherwise I was focusing on the paper. At 6:00, Father Isaia, who Deacon Moynihan has celebrated Mass alongside the past few weekends that we went off-campus, came over to celebrate Mass for the Volunteers. This time though, everything was in English! I was excited to hear one of Father Isaia’s Masses in a language that I understood, although I did enjoy witnessing a typical Haitian Mass. The Mass was truly beautiful. I am not sure if I mentioned it before, but all of the Volunteers have beautiful voices and some of them are musically talented, so listening to them perform at Mass reminds me of being back at a PC Mass.

Mass was followed by a regular Saturday night dinner – ham sandwiches, which are always good and satisfying. After dinner, we had another movie night. Some of the Volunteers made some popcorn, and then we all gathered together to watch Silver Lining’s Playbook – which is such a great movie.

None of us really cared that the movie ran late because this morning we were actually able to sleep in. My internal alarm clock of course would not let me sleep past 7:30, but it again was nice to not be in a rush this morning. (I should mention that I have not slept past 7:30 for about a month now, which is somewhat of a minor miracle for me because I love to sleep in late).

Today was a really relaxing and productive day. One of the Junior Staff members had gone out and surveyed one hundred University Students for me, and he returned the results to me today. Most of my morning and afternoon was spent inputting this data, but I was able to do this outside at one of the tables in the shade. There was a nice breeze today, so once I figured out how to hold down all of my papers, I was pretty comfortable. I also was able to finish what I could of my paper. Although I still have a lot of data and analysis to include, as well as some conclusions to draw, I am glad that I have completed a large chunk of my paper.

I felt so accomplished after all of my work today that I actually went for a run by the basketball courts. Just to put in perspective how big of a deal this is, I have to admit that the number of times that I have stepped foot in Concannon Fitness Center these past two years is less than one. So, this was a huge deal. I was not able to run for a long time, but it was great to exercise. For some reason I thought that going at 5:00 PM that it might be a little cooler, but my logic was definitely flawed. Although the breeze from earlier was still there, it was still hot and humid. When I came back and checked the weather it was 84 degrees out, but according to Weather.com it felt like 94 degrees (I would definitely agree). Taking a cold shower was absolutely wonderful after that.

We just had dinner here, and now we are headed to watch a movie again. I think we might be watching Miss Congeniality, a movie I have not seen in years!