I’ve found the lunchtime equivalent to making soup. Because making soup takes forever.

Chicken Salad sandwiches. I made a deliciously complicated chicken salad last night and I was going to make a sandwich for work and forgot to this morning. You can put everything, anything in them. Raisins. Red onion. Celery. Sunflower seeds with or without shells. Although in this world, when you can buy bags of sunflower seeds without shells, why would you ever bother with shells? I haven’t done any research on this, but I hope it’s a machine that de-shells them and not humans. If it’s humans, I’d probably stop buying them since I can’t think of anything more asenine than someone de-shelling tiny sunflower seeds just so some 20-something girl living in America can buy a bag of it for a dollar. Which segways nicely into:

One of my freelancer friends, Andre, went to Haiti to shoot children playing in Port Au Prince for the Life is Good “Playmakers”, which is really nice. I normally understand the fact that millions of people are starving on our planet constantly or that people get killed pretty much all the time for disgustingly stupid reasons. I’ve gotten to a comfortable level with it where it doesn’t make me really sad anymore… except when your friend comes back from Haiti with pictures of children:

Living in squalor

Being very cute

Having on adorable outfits

Playing and laughing

All while probably being very hungry

Because people in Haiti were starving before the earthquake

Now, still starving, with less shelter

A lot of them were playing soccer barefoot

I don’t know if you’ve ever kicked a soccer ball barefoot… it really hurts

They were really good at soccer

They were having so much fun and really loved being in front of the camera

My friends shot it and it looks like a Fisher Price commercial

That means there are many many shots of Haitian children looking innocently into the camera and singing lyrics from the reggae song

Oh yeah, they were shooting a music video… for children and fundraisers…

Again, they were laughing a lot

I heard about this organization with Life is Good from Andre but didn’t do any investigative work on my own. Until now. My friend saw me shed altruistic tears of sadness at the sight of the initial raw footage he showed me. Which is just as well since the edited, polished up version is probably going to tug at your heartstrings more vigorously than any raw footage could. So, again, he saw me cry and I almost never cry! I cry maybe three or four times a year, which I don’t think is very much. Considering how much stuff can happen to you in a year.

And I embarrassingly uttered strands of emotionally abusive and annoying phrases like: “But what’s gonna happen to them… I mean… are they always hungry? Did you give them any food? What. What do you mean it wouldn’t make a difference, of course it would make a difference. Why didn’t you just buy everyone food all the time how expensive can food be in Haiti?! But they’re poor right… I mean they’re always gonna be poor… they’re going to grow up and realize everything sucks and you’re right, it DOESN’T matter if you bought them any food does it???”. He and I are very good friends.

I wish he would have elaborated on the work the Playmakers actually do in Haiti and I’m a little annoyed with myself that it’s taken this long for me to find out. They do this:

THE PLAYMAKERS GET TO WORK: Working with local partners, Life is good Playmakers has trained a large group of front-line child care providers to bring healing play to children in the tent cities and orphanages around Port-au-Prince. They call themselves the Gerye Jwa (Creole for “Joy Warriors”) since they are committed to protecting the playful optimism of Haiti’s children. Already they are conducting Playmaker groups with thousands of children every week.
A core team of these Gerye Jwa received additional training both in Haiti and in the United States, enabling them to take the lead in training hundreds of other relief workers throughout Haiti. Talented, dedicated Haitians equipping more and more of their fellow Haitians to heal and strengthen children — this is a sensible and sustainable model for a stronger Haiti.

You can look at their PLAY MAKERS website here!

I’ll post the video once it’s done editing, but it’s probably unsafe for work because you’ll be crying and everyone’s gonna know you’re a sissy.

And just to tie in the beginning of this a little better, I meant what I said about chicken salad. It’s so awesome! Don’t be afraid to put pieces of fruit in it. It makes it better. And if you don’t like doing that, get over it. It has nothing to do with your taste in food, it has to do with your spirit. Let it reign free. Like the joy warriors of Life is Good. Your spirit wants to mix sweet and savory things. Or sad and joyous things. It’s all about balance and we like balance.

We all do.