Haiti Immersion Trip 2018
Haiti Immersion Trip, Friday, January 19
Dean and I have written a travel journal/blog to help us remember people and places and to let those back home know that we are alive and well when we take journeys to far away places. This one is a bit different. Dean is at home in Ohio while I travel with a group from Good Shepherd and Prince of Peace Lutheran Churches to Haiti. So, the pictures won’t be as amazing as when Dean is snapping them, but I hope they help tell the story of my experiences and thoughts throughout this immersion mission trip. I’m not speaking for the group, only me, as others will have their own unique experiences. Here we go.
Our host for the trip is Erin Murphy who is the executive director of Haitian Timon Foundation. HTF invests in children and adults to lift them from pain to home and a life of sustainable dignity. She kept reminding us that we are not here to find solutions but to walk beside our Haitian brothers and sisters.. She met us in Atlanta and we landed in Port au Prince about 3:30 pm. Getting through customs was relatively fast especially considering we had to collect 10 suitcases. The challenge was getting through the gauntlet of men who wanted to carry your bags. Unemployment rate here is about 70% and these guys were hoping to earn some extra money. We loaded our 8 suitcases of materials for the Haitians and our personal items on a comfortable bus and started our four hour trip to Jacmel. The streets are crowded with tap taps, the colorful buses, trucks and scooters that make up the public transportation. It is Friday rush hour which adds about an hour to our trip. There are lots of market places where people have sheets laid on the ground with their wares for sale or booths, or they walk the streets trying to attract customers. People are selling everything imaginable: tires, clothing, shoes, food, sticks of sugar cane, plantains... There are lots of people, filthy roads and sidewalks, strewn with trash, piles of trash. Many huts and lean to’s, and huts without ceilings. Poverty. Bustling. Many cary items on their heads, balancing the load perfectly. Every few blocks there is a canal filled with trash and dogs, goats and pigs looking for dinner. Lots of pigs in the middle of the city. In parts of town where the dwellings are tiny and on top of each other, there are more markets and many more people. We finally come to an area with stucco buildings often are missing the top floor, lost to the earthquake, or building in the process of being built. It is rare to see windows in buildings, just open holes. The people on these crowded streets are short or average height and most are thin. All are nicely dressed and look clean and pressed, proud. I look a mess after a long day of travel sitting in my comfortable bus. After two hours of Friday afternoon traffic jam we finally leave the slums with goats, pigs and many people behind. So many sights, sounds and smells that are etched in my brain. We are told not to take pictures of people without asking as it is considered rude, so the pictures will remain only in my mind.
The hour and a half trip over the mountains took place in the dark but the roads were extremely windy, extremely! And steep! I can’t wait for the trip back to see the views! We arrive in Jacmel at Wings of Hope campus about 9 pm. We were all handed ice cold water to refresh us and dinner was waiting. After moving into our dorm rooms, we enjoyed a nice dinner of pasta and cheese, roast beef, a Haitian squash and salad. They had beer for us. Those who like beer enjoyed one. We ended the evening with a centering discussion and will end each evening that way to help process our day. We slept in the lower bunks since there are enough beds that no one needs to climb to the top and each of us has our own fan on us to help us feel cooler. These feel good until the power goes out in the middle of the night, which it always does and during the day. This is how scarce energy is shared. There is a back up generator that is used when necessary. The roof has a deck. Because there are very few homes with lights, it is dark and the sky is filled with stars. The sliver of a moon looks like a smile in the sky. Tonight we start building relationships with our team of 11. Tomorrow we start meeting people and experiencing Haiti.
Sue
Haiti Immersion Trip, Saturday, January 20
I’m up at about 6:15 and went to the roof for quiet time and watched the sun rise over the mountains.The sky over the water was a pretty pink, too. Gorgeous! After a breakfast of eggs, bread and fresh pineapples and bananas, amazing bananas, we went to Wings of Hope to meet the residents. They are a family in every sense of the word except blood. This residence and school is for kids with developmental and mental disabilities. The complex is only a few years old because the previous building collapsed in the 2010 earthquake. I tried to meet as many residents as I could and then spent most of the time with two sisters, Acelene and Wislene, who are both in wheelchairs. It was music time so everyone had headphones on with music. I was singing silly kids songs to them. They clapped and sang along until I got to one song that got them giggling. They were laughing so hard that they couldn’t sing. I will remember those gentle laughs. One boy played a drum very well. This boy may not be able to talk but he oozes music. We just enjoyed the music, holding hands and swaying, until it was time to go. We are here to walk side by side with the Haitians, not come up with solutions but to build relationships and ask if there is any way we can help them.
Maya, the leader of the St.Joseph series of schools and residences that we are visiting this week, shared his story. He had been a child slave, a restavek, and then escaped and became a street kid, and was saved by a man who started a school for such children. He is now the head of all these schools. He started a program a few years ago called Rejoice for the restavek children in Jacmel and managed to talk 25 owners into allowing their kids to go to school Saturday mornings, then got 90% of them into the regular school that is here on week days. Saturday’s are for enrichment for the children in the Lekol Sen Trintie school, the school for the poorest children in Jacmel, like karate, art, music. We hung out with kids in the karate and then art classes. Lubin is a beautiful, sweet girl who is a restavek and was my partner today. She made me three pictures in my journal and we made her a fan. Lots of fun! My journal is now illustrated and has some Creole sentences that she taught me. When I asked for a picture with her she kept leaning closer and closer as pictures were snapped. By the time this picture was taken she was leaning on my shoulder. The restavek kids in this class were bright and polite. It is hard to wrap my mind around the fact that they are slaves. We were told that there are 300,000 in Haiti.
After lunch we returned to Wings of Hope and played with a number of kids. They had legos, balls, chalk for sidewalk art, coloring books. The music devices had been put away and we played. It was very warm so we distributed water to the children. Two cups were used. Everyone seems to share cups. Two kids are fluent in English. One is a boy with cerebral palsy and the other a girl who is quite outgoing and has some muscular issues but was easy to talk to. I found out the boy understood English because I commented on his beautiful eyes and he batted them and smiled. He sat with me in church on Sunday. We helped feed lunch and dinner to the kids who needed help. Lunch was a beans and rice dish and dinner looked like a mix of pudding and cream of wheats that we were told was creamed corn. It was a very good day. Playing with the kids, sharing their day, learning from the kids, sharing love.
Our centering discussion focused on our experiences today. Afterwards, Good Shepherd people stayed and had a long discussion about discipleship and how to share, evangelize, where we are seeing God here. It is hard to explain how you are seeing God in a country that is so poor, but we are seeing God everywhere. I see so many parallels between the restavek kids and some of the children at Taft. They are both in horrible situations not of their making, but are bright, are working hard to learn and are learning to be hopeful about the future. Some will succeed, escape.
Sue
Haiti Immersion Trip, Sunday, January 21
I wake early this morning and so did most of my traveling companions. Everyone wanted to see the beauty of the sunrise. We all seem to find a spot on the roof to enjoy this quiet time alone. Breakfast was again filling. We had a church service with the kids at Wings of Hope today. It was a mix of Creole and English and whatever communication sounds the kids had, lots of music and prayers. The prayers that the kids offered so earnestly, prayers that only they and God could understand touched my heart in a way I can’t describe. This service was church with a capital C. Very touching. I will never hear ‘This is the day that the Lord has made’ song again without thinking of Haiti. After some playtime with the kids we headed over to unpack all the supplies donated by the folks at church. The piles of clothing, hygiene supplies, diapers, food and medicine was impressive. We packed our suitcases and headed to a hotel in town which will be our home for the next two nights. Our transportation was a tap tap. We stood in the back of a truck for 15 minutes and held on tight. It was fun and rather frightening if you start to think of the possible things that could go wrong. I’ve had too much safety training at work to keep those thoughts out of my mind! Our hotel looks like something that Hemingway would have visited in Cuba. It is a turn of the century brick French style building. Lots of wood and brick and just shabby enough to be charming. We toured town and saw some early Carnival groups parading through town and performances. The town is full of 100-200 year old buildings. Some are in good shape and some are in ruins. The government will not allow them to tear them down. You can fix but not tear down. There are beautiful mosaic walls and sidewalks that were all built after the earthquake. They are trying to become a tourist area again. A couple of resorts are in the process of opening this year which will bring more jobs back to the locals. Life is coming back after an earthquake and hurricanes. Sidewalks are clean but there is garbage all over the beach, but not nearly as bad as in Port au Prince, but you wouldn’t want to walk on the beach. There is no infrastructure to take care of garbage here. We see people Shoveling trash into a dump truck to clean streets and then dump it in the canals, and this place is so much, much cleaner than Port au Prince but this is something they say they are working on.
We climbed into our tap tap and rode into the poorest part of town. The poorest homes are piled several shacks and lean to’s deep in front of the larger homes. It is an interesting look. In the middle of this area is Tet Kole. It’s full name is translated as ‘Heads together for a better tomorrow.’ Two young men started this organization to help street kids find homes and go to school. They were 19 when they started this and 20 years later they are supporting about 70 kids at a time. It is one of the organizations that HTF supports. This organization finds the street kids homes, helps pay their living expenses so that people will take them and gives the kids a high school and then trade education. They also have a music program and we were treated to a wonderful band concert. Because of their circumstances, these kids are older students and very willing to learn. It is not unusual for someone to be in their twenties and finishing school. This is one more place that the Haitians have seen a need and have figured out how to change the culture and improve lives.
Our tap tap drove us back to our hotel through the Carnival crowd. We finished the evening with a lovely dinner of fish and chicken and lots of veggies and rice in the hotel garden. Our centering took place in the bar, our own pub theology! It was a long and amazingly lovely day.
Sue
Haiti Immersion Trip, Monday, January 22
We slept last night with the French doors open and the mosquito netting closed on our beds. It was more comfortable than I expected even with the outside noises floating in. We hit the ground running today. Our breakfast included spicy peanut butter to have on our French bread and the omelet was a spicy Spanish omelet. Then we hopped on a tap tap truck and rode 1.25 hr. standing in the back of a truck holding onto the pipe skeleton on the truck. It was fun if you don’t think about the many potential safety issues. We rode through town and at the edge of town was a large open air market that was bustling with vendors and shoppers. The market booths were made from sticks lashed together and every kind of material that could be used as an awning or roof. People were selling everything imaginable and even though the food looked fresh, it was an exceedingly poor looking marketplace. People were coming down the mountain on donkeys carrying bags full of food to sell. There were people doing their laundry in both rivers and bathing. This place had a lot going on! I especially liked the donkeys and the creative saddles and carrying devices made for the donkeys. Passing through the market where we were quite the spectacle, 11 white people riding a tap tap with our tall Haitian guide, a man that everyone seems to know and respect, we crossed two rivers in the truck, no bridges, and climbed the mountain.
When we got to the top of the mountain we arrived at CEI school. It is named in English ‘the school of integrated education’. It is a preschool through grade 6 school and was built because a family was so concerned that children who lived on the mountain had to walk for hours to get to a school in town that they convinced others to build a local school. Because homes are so spread out on the mountain, kids still can walk an hour or more to school but this is much closer than town. We visited each class and then played with the kids at lunch and served them lunch. The preschool was excused first, so we got to play with the little ones a bit before the older kids ran to us to see how many people they could hug before they started recess. It was challenging to play as we couldn’t communicate well and there wasn’t a playground or a ball. In the end we played games, took pictures and videos of the kids and showed them to the kids, and let them play on the truck. It is proof that communication and fun can happen even with a language barrier. All you need is a smile and a willingness to have fun. When we were done and it was time for the children to head home we packed on the truck with about 20 kids and one teacher who lived the farthest from school. We dropped them off on the way down the mountain. This school came about because one family pushed for a local school vs, having to send their children into town. It was fun riding with the little ones. The adults in the front of the bed of the tuck would yell branch if there was a low hanging branch that could hit standing adults and everyone would duck. The kids thought this was funny and start chanting ‘branch’. This was so comical that we all were laughing and having fun. We dropped off our riders at the appropriate area by tapping on the roof of the cab to tell the driver to stop. This is why they are called tap taps. Some of the kids have a long walk each day up a steep mountain road.
After some time to rest after our day at school and long rides stand in a truck and time to shop, we loaded back into the tap tap for a ride to the beach and dinner. It is about a half hour ride and the beach was clean and sandy, the water was warm and the sunset beautiful. After dark we headed to Madam Gladise’s place for an amazing Creole dinner of spicy fresh fish, planktons, rice and beans, lobster and conchs. The fish was whole and the challenge was to keep the skeleton in tact and eat the head if you wanted to be a real Creole. I didn’t eat the head like my more adventurous eating friends. It was delicious! We climbed on the tap tap one last time for the ride back. The sky is so clear in a place with few lights and is filled with stars! Our evening centering discussion was about our highs and lows and when we felt inadequate. Lots of all of these in this environment! We are only a few days in and have had so many experiences that are new and life changing.
Sue
Haiti Immersion Trip, Tuesday, January 23
We packed up and headed out this morning. Our first stop was Letok Sens Trinite, a K-6 school for the poorest children in Jacmel. Maya even convinced 25 families to allow the restavek children to attend. To allow a slave to spend half a day in school is a huge culture shift! The kids have a new computer lab, music and dance thanks to groups who supported the additions to the schools. The children are so polite and happy. This was a visit, so we saw children, interacted a bit and disrupted the classrooms as they find visitors to be quite interesting! What fun! The second school we visited, Pazapa or PAP (step by step), was one for developmentally challenged children. These kids are so fortunate because their families let them live at home and support their education. The youngest, preschool children have classes with their moms so that the Mom learns how to help the child achieve. The older kids were full of hugs and wanted to spend time with us. When we walked into the school and were walking to the first classroom a boy ran to great each of us with a kiss on the cheek, a common Haitian greeting, and a hug. It was a lovely welcome. We really disrupted the classes because they got so excited to see visitors, and it was so much fun to hug them, take pictures and be with them. There were a lot of big hams in the school so taking pictures and then looking at pictures of themselves was a fun game for all. It was close to lunch time so some were released and we had time to play and be with them before we left.
We then set off on a 4.5 hr drive to Mirebalais in the central plateau region. On the way we stopped at a metal arts complex. Many artists make beautiful objects out of old oil cans. What a recycling project! This was fun shopping. Since all transactions are in cash, that helped determine when shopping was finished. The mountains in Haiti are lush and beautiful and the road was as windy as the first time we crossed them that first night, but this time with a great view. The central plateau was also green and had a number of farms on rolling hills. I expected dry, arid land because this is what it looked like 10-20years ago in a book I read on Paul Farmer. There are some hills with only dry grass, but much of the land looks green. There aren’t many trees and this is still an issue for the area. The trees that are here are often cut to make charcoal for cooking fires. Most people cook outside on a fire. The lucky ones have some sort of light for nighttime. We are in the area where Paul Farmer set up the healthcare system and discovered how to treat resistant TB. The system has been very successful but the poverty level is still horrible. We are hosted by CLM, an organization that helps ultra poor mothers get sound housing, learn a trade, learn about healthy living and get health care and send their children to school. These women are so poor that they are invisible and aren’t even counted on census. We had dinner (goat, beans and rice and plantains), learned about our day tomorrow, had our centering and now are resting. I’m exhausted!
Sue
Haiti Immersion Trip, Wednesday, January 24
We were treated with a typical Haitian breakfast of spaghetti noodles with garlic and onion, chicken in a sauce, tomatoes and fruit. They know how to do breakfast! We spent the day out in the field with our CLM, Chemen Lavi Mayo, hosts. This organization is working to eradicate ultra poverty in Haiti’s rural areas on the central plateau region. About 18,000 people were determined to be in ultra poverty about 10 years ago. 6000 have been helped by this program and about 12,000 still qualify. Today we rode in the back of pick up trucks to visit people who are currently being told that they can start the program in February. 250 people, mostly women, will be in the new 18 month program, 100 of these are supported by HTF, our hosts. This was an experience that is difficult to describe. It was such a gift to be able to visit three women and see where and how they live and meet their children and see their expressions as they learn of the opportunity that they have just been given. They were told that they are being supported and propped up like a banana tree branch when the bananas are full and ripe. This is a common Haitian saying. None of them understood what would be asked of them or how this would change their lives but they were happy and eager to answer the call.
Poverty traps are lack of secure food, shelter, healthcare and education and CLM targets all of these components. They give the people the means to build a solid house and latrine, their children are sponsored for education at the local school, and they are taught about common diseases and given health care and filtering system for water. The people take many classes and decide which of 6 forms of commerce they want to learn about and work in. Then they are given a small grant to start the business and are supported in all these endeavors for 18 months. After this time they are eligible for micro loans to expand their businesses. A group of 5 women group together to be accountable for the repayment of the loan.
We then visited women who have finished the program. The two I met were doing well. One had a number of animals and was a hairdresser. The other also had a number of animals. She walked by us as we talked to the first woman and waited until we were finished and took us to her home. She was very proud of her home. She is in school to finish high school and is about to buy a cow. Cows are considered a status symbol so it is remarkable to go from being invisible in their society to being one with their own home and livestock and soon having a cow. It is easy to see why she was so happy to talk with us! She had painted her house green and pink, common colors for homes here, and her 6 year old son decorated the door with a black crayon. He must have worked at it for quite a while as it is really colored!
We had two long discussions after returning to the CLM headquarters about CLM and it’s impact. Our centering focused on how these women were being anointed today, chosen to work to get out of ultra poverty. This work is so important to starting families out of the long cycle of poverty. We on this trip were given the gift of being witnesses, and this ministry is exciting because of the impact it has on people who are so forgotten that they aren’t even counted in the census.
Sue
Haiti Immersion Trip, Thursday, January 25
Today after a spicy eggs breakfast we traveled from Mirebalais to Port au Prince. We saw the hospital that Paul Farmer (Mountains beyond Mountains) built in town before leaving. What a feat of strength and perseverance from a brilliant man with an extremely caring heart. This was his call. We passed many bustling marketplaces on our way into Port au Prince. It is so easy to see the poverty here but during this week I also have learned to see the beauty, the strong, proud, gentle people among so much poverty. The people who are helping have a true calling. The Haitians know exactly what the issues are and what needs to be done. Outsiders have come in with good intentions that have ultimately made things worse. The dam up here is a good example. It was put in for hydroelectric power. It also covered all the good farm land and sent country residents into the hills to eek out a poor existence. But these people take it in stride. They are very accepting of their circumstances, sometimes too much so. The invisible women that I met yesterday had so little faith in themselves to change their circumstances, but the CLM group is changing that one woman at a time, actually about 250 at a time.
In Port au Prince we visited HELP. This organization takes some of the brightest kids from around Haiti, the ones at the top of their classes, who have no ability to pay for a college education and gives them the means to pursue a college education. This year over 370 students qualified and they had the funds to take 25. They used to have funds for about 50 per year but lost corporate donations that had covered costs for a large number of students. They have started getting funding from local employers who are finding the graduates to be wonderful employees. A few kids are in the states in medical or graduate school and the rest have found employment in Haiti. We listened to a presentation from several of the current students and then had lunch and discussion with the kids. I talked with a young man who is in the last year of study as an industrial engineer. He is so confident and does such a great job of articulating his ideas in English. HELP teaches the kids English, leadership, and service. Haitian don’t have a culture of helping each other. So, 85% of most graduates leave Haiti after graduating. Over 90% of HELP graduates stay in the country and are helping to improve Haiti. One young lady I talked with wants to go into finance. For someone whose parents are quite poor and know nothing of finance to being someone whose career will be in this area is quite a leap. She asked me what my impression of Haiti was and I sincerely told her I saw strong, caring people with dignity, beauty in the country and people, and a lot of folks helping those who needed help so that they could have a better future.
I have learned that even with the government’s push for free education, only 50% of eligible children go to grade school, 30% to high school and less than 5% to college. Education is the foundation out of poverty. The graduates that HELP gives funds for school and living and all the other aid, bring up their whole families with them. The average family in Haiti earns less than $900 a year and starting graduate earn $15,000 on average. This is creating a middle class and these students are paying for food for their families. This is another family without food insecurity. They are paying for younger siblings to go to college. These are the ones who are pulling people out of poverty. The beginning of a wave. It costs about $9000 per year per student for a college education including book, living expenses and all the help that HELP gives. Money well spent!
Sue
Haiti Immersion Trip, Friday, January 26
I woke early. Who knew there were so many roosters in the city! We were used to all sorts of animals making noise all night long in towns and country and the city is no different. Windows and doors are open because there is no air conditioning anywhere that we have visited. There are fans and they stay on as long as there is electricity. It turns off sometime during the night and usually during the day. Our hosts turn on a generator to cook and make things comfortable for us when we return at the end of the day and it stays on until the electricity kicks on.
The rooftop deck at St. Joseph’s is lovely and so is the sunrise. We had as close to an American breakfast as we have seen in Haiti. Scrambled eggs (no hot peppers), bacon, toast and rolls, and fruit. Peanut butter was not spicy either. After breakfast we headed to the National Parthenon Museum of History. It is set in a beautiful park. The museum is underground with a fountain on top. The fountain has 7 conical shapes that turned out to be soaring ceiling and windows for the museum below. Our guide was knowledgeable and interesting and answered all of our questions concerning the history of this small island country. All of the original natives were killed off by the early 1600’s by Europeans or the diseases they brought, then the French brought pirates and then African slaves and built large plantations. The slaves revolted several times finally securing their freedom in the late 1700’s, then Napoleon brought an army to win the country back and failed and Haiti had officially won it’s independence in the early 1800’s. They were finally free but had many years of hardships under their own rulers and from outside countries including the USA. They are strong, resilient people! There was an art gallery in the museum with paintings and other art that concerned the history. This was a very interesting museum.
After returning to St. Joseph’s home we had a concert by a local singer who had once lived at St. Joseph’s. He sang American and Haitian songs and one that he composed and accompanied himself on the guitar. It was a lovely way to end our stay. The drive across town to the airport was crazy, as usual. There are no real driving laws, people seem to play a game of chicken or finely orchestrated dance to weave through traffic. If you hear a horn this means that someone is passing and will drive on the wrong side of the road as long as necessary to get to the place in line that they wish. Our driver is able to thread the buss through streets only a couple of inches wider than the bus; he does this many times as we work our way to our destination. We reach the airport and go through two sets of security. Not sure why, but one was like the ones we have in the USA and one was a hand check, pat down and drug check. We find a little dinner, my first hamburger and fries in a long while. We are on our way to Miami where we will stop for the evening and will land in Cincinnati at noon tomorrow. This group of people that we have been traveling with have gotten to be like family. We have lived in very close quarters, have learned to live in a country with a severe water shortage and unreliable power, have journeyed together, eaten together and played together and have been transformed together.
It was a great trip. I was told many times that it would be life changing. I think every major experience is life changing and this was no exception. A week ago we arrived in a very poor country, spent two hours winding through the slums on our way out of town seeing how the poorest in the country live. Conditions are horrible but the people were very neat and clean and walked with dignity. With every stop this week we met wonderful people, young and old including people who had great passion for their calling to help raise people, young and old and some with disabilities, to better situations. They work to make the invisible and forgotten know that they are loved and important. They give hope to those who have given up. They find homes for those who have been thrown away and they are creating a culture where helping others is something that is the norm. They use education as the base to lift people out of poverty and help with food and shelter and healthcare as necessary. God truly is at work in this place and there is so much work to do. It is the church based groups, the health based groups who are walking along side the Haitians to make the change happen. The Haitians know what the issues are and are working on the base issues to fix them. They have built systems that work, are training Haitians and giving them jobs to build, teach, conduct social work, raise crops, feed, and provide health care. Mostly they need funds and sometimes they will ask for specific items. We were told of need for children’s wheelchairs and musical instruments, for example. They need funds to sponsor children in school, to sponsor college students, to sponsor the program to irradiate ultra poverty in the Great Plateau and for micro loans. They need our prayers and our help. Pastor Heidi said before we left that God is calling us to do the most loving thing. God is calling us, to Haiti, now, at this very time so that we will bear witness to the beautiful creation and people in Haiti and work of restoration we will see. We will be the ones transformed. She was right.
Sue
