{"id":7028,"date":"2013-12-28T04:14:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-28T04:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=7028"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:30","slug":"mommy-i-missed-the-plane-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=7028","title":{"rendered":"MOMMY, I MISSED THE PLANE!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(This has been a VERY different Christmas for us and I will post more about our recent experiences soon, when I’ve had more time to process everything.\u00a0But I couldn’t pass up sharing a bit right now about this evening’s events.)About a week ago, our good friend Johnny was saying that his family doesn’t really do anything special for Christmas.\u00a0 Nothing out of the ordinary at all.\u00a0 In fact, he explained, without electricity it isn’t even possible to watch any Christmas specials on TV.\u00a0 That got me curious.\u00a0 Just what kind of “Christmas specials” show up on Haitian TV each December?”Well, there’s ‘Maman, J-ai Rate L’Avion’, of course,” he told me.\u00a0 That’s French for\u00a0“Mommy, I Missed the Plane”.Johnny and\u00a0Mikenn and Ruysdael described it to me and it slowly dawned on me that they were talking about\u00a0“Home Alone”!Later, I got to\u00a0thinking about how to bring “Home Alone” to Johnny’s house over our Christmas break.\u00a0 With a set of computer speakers Melissa ordered for Christmas that draw power via USB, I had everything I needed to show a movie without requiring an electrical outlet.\u00a0 We borrowed\u00a0the DVD\u00a0from the Heckmans and I made sure Caleb’s laptop was fully charged.\u00a0 One of the best investments I made before we left the States was a mini video projector from Brookstone.\u00a0 It can run for two hours on its rechargeable battery.\u00a0 I have used it numerous times in my classroom and for showing movies on the wall for movie nights at home.\u00a0 So tonight we used it to show a movie on the front wall of Johnny’s house up on the hillside.\u00a0 Mikenn supplied the white sheet and he and Johnny pounded a couple of nails into the concrete with a rock to tie the sheet tight.\u00a0 Family and friends and neighbors gathered around to watch – I suppose about 20 or so – bringing their own chairs.I\u00a0was excited to find that the DVD included a\u00a0French dubbed version of the movie. I turned on the English subtitles for Caleb and me.I also attempted to take a couple of pictures.\u00a0 Keep in mind that the quality is poor because everything (inside the house and out) was pitch black\u00a0if not for\u00a0the camera flash!<\/p>\n\n\n

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About the point where Marv and Harry finally realize that Kevin is\u00a0staying in the house\u00a0alone, Johnny leaned over and said, “It’s raining.”\u00a0 I didn’t feel anything so I dismissed it.\u00a0\u00a0A minute later\u00a0he said again, “It’s raining.”\u00a0 I said, “I don’t feel anything.”\u00a0 “It’s raining – down there. And it’s coming this way.”\u00a0 Thirty seconds later, big drops started pelting us and we gathered the electronic equipment and the bed sheet and went inside.\u00a0 Johnny’s mom’s room is the biggest space in the house, so we set up there to watch the rest of the movie.\u00a0 “Watch” and not “hear”.\u00a0 The rain on the metal roof was almost deafening and completely overpowered my little speakers for much of the remainder of the movie.\u00a0 In the course of the evening, Johnny and Mikenn were excited to show Caleb and me the bedroom they share.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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They share a full sized bed that almost fills the entire room. Mikenn’s school uniform hangs on the back wall, protected from dust and dirt.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Johnny, Caleb and Mikenn stand at the entrance to the bedroom.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Some of Johnny’s artwork hangs on the wall.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u00a0Outside of Johnny’s room is the kitchen, where his sister was cooking in the dark when we arrived.\u00a0 She ran from\u00a0my camera, though!<\/p>\n\n\n

Johnny also wanted to show me the bedroom of his twin brother, John, who is also an artist.Johnny, Ruysdael and Mikenn\u00a0were real sweet after the movie was over.\u00a0 They made sure they helped me get the pickup turned around and heading down the right street.\u00a0 The heavy rain had made some of the bad gulleys even worse!\u00a0 I think they were afraid that we wouldn’t find our way out of their neighborhood – about five minutes after Caleb and I arrived home, Mikenn called and Johnny texted to make sure we were safe at home!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(This has been a VERY different Christmas for us and I will post more about our recent experiences soon, when I’ve had more time to process everything.\u00a0But I couldn’t pass up sharing a bit right now about this evening’s events.)About a week ago, our good friend Johnny was saying that his family doesn’t really do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7028"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7029,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7028\/revisions\/7029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}