Shopping in Petionville

Today I decided to join three other volunteers in travelling down the mountain to do some shopping in Petionville. We began our journey by walking uphill... basically straight uphill... to the main road and then continued to climb until we reached another main road. Then we stood there on the corner waiting for a tap tap to pick us up. A tap tap is a Haitian version of a taxi, only it's just a truck with a roof on over the back and benches placed along the sides in the back, and also down the middle. Finally a tap tap did stop and pick us up and we managed to cram ourselves into the already full back of the truck. I counted and there were about forty of us inside the truck, with more people sitting on the roof. It was great fun! One of my roommates from Manitoba, Trish, ended up sitting on my lap for most of the ride because there really was nowhere else to sit! We each paid about sixty cents American for the ride. It was a great cultural experience!!!
When we arrived in Petionville, we walked down a road that was just full of street vendors selling all kinds of beautiful paintings, wood carvings and all sorts of tourist things. We were of course immediately surrounded by all the men who wanted us to buy from their stands. I was suprised, but the all spoke great English. I think they get a lot of practice, because I noticed they all gave us the exact same lines. They all called themselves 'Mr. Cheap' and promised to give us a good price. In the end, I did buy a couple paintings.
We also walked to that wonderful ice cream store and had ourselves an ice cream cone. The ice cream tastes so wonderful here, because of the Haitian vanilla that is so intensely flavourful!
Unfortunately, although we had a wonderful morning in Petionville, we arrived home to the grim reality of living in Haiti. A little baby was brought to GLA this morning. He was ten days old and only weighed two pounds. His parents had brought him to the hospital at the Baptist Haiti Mission, but I guess they couldn't help him, cuz they told the parents to take him down here. He only lived here four about four hours before he died. It can be very difficult emotionally to handle all that goes on at GLA sometimes. There is a lot of difficult things to handle, but there is also so much hope here. I'd hate to think of where all these children would be if they weren't here at GLA!
Please continue to pray for little baby Petersen. He's the little three week old baby that I held all the way to his psycology appointment. He has quite a high fever and has had for about three days now. I noticed it when we got back from the psycology appointments, and told the nurse. She started giving him medicine right away. He also has some kind of rash or something that's spreading over his face. Please pray for this little life that is struggling to survive. Pray that God would miraculously heal him and that he would be able to grow up in a good home somewhere.
Thank you so much for all your prayers!