Special events at Espwa

Here is a recap of some of the activities we had planned on doing while we are visiting at Espwa... we sent money ahead of time to Free the Kids for paint to be bought in order to paint one (or two) of their houses in the main village. We also brought paint supplies with us to use... like brushes, rollers, pans, etc. On Wednesday most of the group went over and spent the morning painting the inside and outside of one house. I was working on the laptops while they did that so I missed out... but on Thursday, I broke away and while the girls treated the various housemothers to a 'spa day', us 4 guys went back over to the village and while we expected to put coat #2 on that house... but the older Haitian kids who were directing us brought us to house number 2 for its paint job. While it could have used another coat, to them the house looked great and it made more sense to put our paint and efforts toward painting a second house. The houses are fairly small, they have three rooms, and are loaded with beds. The only belongings we saw were the kids' backpacks. To me, the houses seemed  small and cramped, but that is a western perspective and we are obviously so much more used to compartively luxurious accomodations. BTW: only painting in the morning... it is too hot in the afternoon for that activity.
On Wednesday evening, we filled over 1,000 water balloons in preparation for the water balloon fight with the kids. Sometime after lunch on Thursday, we climbed up on the roof of the second floor and prepared for water war! The kids started swarming (most of them rembered the activity from the last time our group was here) and we counted down and started throwing them. We all had a blast... the boys were trying to catch the water balloons and throw them back at us. It probably lasted for 20 minutes and we were all soaked!