It’s not that we don’t know or we’re not shown the proof of poverty. It’s not that we don’t have the tools to go to break this yoke of slavery. We quit because it’s not an easy fix and then forget that they are even there. We forget to care.
This is from a song by Jenny & Tyler. This is what I have been thinking about a lot lately.
As I am writing this post I am inside my favorite Haitian family’s house. I think my bedroom is bigger than this whole house. 11 people sleep here on 3 beds. I am dripping sweat as I write this. There is very little ventilation and no fans. This is real. I am not writing this for you to say “poor people”; they do not want your pity. I am writing this to open eyes. Many of the people that read this may have seen or even lived in a 3rd world country, so you know what I am talking about, so maybe this will be a reminder. We get caught up in the comfort of America. We start complaining about the littlest things, things that these Haitians are not even able to complain about. Keeping food on the table is enough of a struggle for them. Being in Haiti, I am constantly reminded how grateful I should be to be born in America and having a loving and supportive family.
Teaching
I am teaching only one English class now because two was too much. I teach with a Haitian. We take turns teaching and I just help him out if he mispronounces something or needs help. This class is about 8-12 people ages 18-35. Some of them are almost intermediate and some are complete beginners. I teach from a book called English in a Changing World. The book is from 1970 or something. I often just improvise and make up my own lessons. It is a blast. We were supposed to have test last Friday, but there was a lot of traffic downtown due to the arrival of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. If you don’t know who that is, look it up. He’s got an interesting story. We did not have the test today because elections were yesterday. So far things seem tranquil but many people did not want to risk going out into the street. Just in case. Things may still get wild. We will see.
My hangouts
When I am not in the house, or at the office, which is also where I teach, I usually have two main hang out spots. The first is in a ravine. This ravine has one house and about 12 tents and shacks. I walked through many times without stopping, but one day some guys called me over. The guys who live in the house hang outside of it every day with their friends. At any given time there are usually 3 or 4, but sometimes 8 or 10. Three of them speak good English and the rest of them speak very broken English if any at all. These young men are 19-26 years old. They all think they are gangster and party pretty much every night. Some of them have jobs, but may only work 2 days a week. In this same place, there are about 8 regular kids that live there. They all know my name and I am learning theirs. They are adorable children. I at times find wifi there and I show the kids pictures on my facebook. They are usually all on top of me, but I could care less. I love the people in this ravine. I want to help them. They all ask me for money or food on a regular basis and I know that I could possibly feed the entire community for a day or two, but what about after?
Before I talk about my second hang out, I want to talk a little but why I am overwhelmed here at times. I have heard plenty of sermons where the pastor will talk about giving. He tells us to give that homeless man a dollar or two. That sounds great, but these pastors have never told me about what to do when I am in Haiti. I have twenty-five or more people asking me for money on a daily basis. If I gave everyone of them $1, I would be out of money in no time.
This brings me to one of my favorite analogies dealing with helping Haiti. I am not intelligent enough to come up with this, but I am not sure who did. Haiti is full of hurt. Many aid organizations and missions groups are coming here to help relieve the pain. These organizations are putting band-aids on Haiti and just keep replacing them and applying more, but the wounds will not heal if the band-aids never come off. While I was in church today I gained insight on what I may be called to do in Haiti, which is to create sustainability in Haiti possibly in the fields of youth ministry and agriculture. In order for any of this to be successful, we must remove the band-aids and let the wounds heal. This not going to happen overnight, which means I may be involved in Haiti for quite some time.
That second hangout I promised to talk about is about a 30 minute walk from my house. It is my friend Ruth’s house. Ruth is one of my best friends here and she is an amazing person. She is excellent at speaking English so I go to her house to just chat. When I am having a rough, I go over there and just play with the kids. After school there is almost always at least 8 kids from ages 3-9 playing in the street. These kids are incredibly goofy.
Trailblazing
I am learning to relearn everything. Americans are caught up in the word success. At first when I came here and had relaxed days, I thought I cannot tell people that I wasn’t doing anything, but I really was. I am not going to come back to Wisconsin and tell you about how many houses I have built or bags of rice I distributed. I will be able to tell you about connections I made with people and relationships I have built. . I walk about 2 miles every day and often times just stop and talk with the people. It is difficult most of the time because my Kreyol is horrible, but many people are patient with me. The organization I’m with right now is really just beginning to make an impact in Haiti. What I am doing right now is blazing trails
This place is amazing. Something about Haiti sucks me in. I have yet to figure what that something is. There are some days here when I get discouraged and it is not easy to move forward, but I am blessed to be here.
I will add pictures very soon. Be on the look out.I wake up at 5:40. I am scheduled to meet Mr. Max at 6:15 about ½ mile way. I brush my teeth, take a shower, get dressed, and get everything in my Nike bag. I was running late, but little did I know that Mr. Max was way behind me. I got to his office around 6:30 and Max arrived at 7:15. He said it was very difficult to find a tap-tap.
We leave immediately and meet with Pastor St. Cyr. This man speaks great English, but what I love about him most is his heart for Haiti. He has the opportunity to move to the US and live there with his family, but he chooses to pastor a church in a tent city. Now, I should be more specific here. This tent city is THE tent city. The largest one in Haiti with 55,000 people! I met Pastor St. Cyr yesterday and asked to see his church. He said whenever, so I asked about tomorrow, now here I am.
This day the Pastor’s car was in the shop so he was renting a tap-tap. This tap-tap was stripped inside was the worst rental I have ever seen. The only way for me to get out of the front seat was to roll down the window and open it from the outside.
Entering the tent city was something else. I don’t know how to describe this place. My heart hurts just writing about it. I told someone that being there made me want to cry and puke at the same time. 50,000 people who lost their homes, living in tents, with no place to go, this is heartbreaking.
Ups and downs
So, someone recently asked me if things are going smoothly here for me. I hesitated on that one. According to my plans, no, things are not going smoothly, but I have to roll with the punches here.
Jaumpas
After about 2 weeks of trying to get a ride up to Baptiste, we finally get one!
On our way to Baptiste, the car breaks down. Perfect. We were about half way there. So we start looking at the car and it takes less than 10 minutes before we have a crowd of 20 people surrounding us. Renald our translator hopped on a bike to find a mechanic in the nearest town. We were stuck for at least a few hours and our hope of reaching Baptiste was lost.
The great part was we got to take a tour of the area. We were way out in the country and we went for a mile or so walk down to this very large lake. It was magnificent. The people in this area called Jaumpas were beautiful people. I had a great time p
laying with kids and talking to the few people who could speak English.
At first I was very discouraged, but I honestly had a great day. By the time the car was “fixed” we just went back home not wanting to risk it.
Teaching
During the week I am teaching 2 different English classes. Both classes are 2 days a week and 2 hours at a time. I really don’t feel like I am the most qualified, but I try my hardest. I can see they are learning and the majority of the students are very eager to learn.
The place I teach has also become Mercy League’s new office location. I go to our office about 4 times a week and I would say it is about a ½ mile walk. I love the walk though. I am used to almost being hit by cars on a regular basis and everyone staring at me.
There are two women on a street corner near the office who sell food and beverages who I talk to every time I see them. They’re very relaxed and love that I am trying hard to speak their language. They are very patient with me.
Baptiste
Last weekend I finally made it to Baptiste! We found a tap-tap driver who Shane knows to take us. We took his tap-tap pickup truck all the way there. It was a great ride. Once we got to Baptiste we immediately met a man named Pastor Hilio. He became our g
uide in Baptiste. The trip as a whole was excellent. I love this town. We came on a Friday and left Saturday afternoon.
On Friday, I had a bit of trouble. It was very hard to find the coffee and it turns out now I bought the wrong kind of coffee.
This trip was a learning experience for me. I did not exactly succeed in everything I did, but I tried hard. Shane even gave me a compliment that I am courageous to just go to markets with a translator and hundreds of Haitians who do not speak any English and negotiate and buy coffee. I don’t know how courageous I am, but I thanked him for the compliment.
On Saturday morning we had a meeting with coffee farmers. This went amazingly well. I will try to describe to you what the meeting looked like.
The Meeting
It was about 8:00AM and I am standing in front of Pastor Hilio’s house. The grass was still a little wet from last night’s rain, but the sun was going to d
ry it all up in a matter of time. “It’s time” Jemmy, my translator tells me. We walk back into Pastor Hilio’s yard where there are 2 wooden benches set up. On these benches are about twelve men aging from 22 to 60 who were owners of coffee farms. In front of these benches were four pink plastic lawn chairs. Two of these chairs were directly in front of the benches and two of them were off to the side a bit. The two chairs in the middle were for Jemmy and I. The ones off to the side were for Pastor Hilio and our Chauffeur, Wilderson. I sit down and immediately feel their gazes. All eyes were on me. We started the meeting with a prayer from Pastor Hilio. I then introduced myself and why I was there. I told them about the coffee project and about Mercy League. Jemmy then translated what I said. They then asked questions. It felt like a fairly formal meeting. They seemed intrigued by my project and said they were willing to form a co-op. I know have connections. After the meeting, I shook every farmers hand and thanked them. This is the start of Kafe Revรจy, which is Revival Coffee in English.
Troubles
Yesterday I heard some horrible news via facebook. My friend Caleb Acker was killed by an avalanche in Montana Monday. I was not incredibly close to Caleb, but I would definitely call him a friend. This news hit me hard. I didn’t know what to do or say. I skipped out of teaching my English class because my heart was hurting. I felt pained. My heart goes out to the Acker family and all his close friends. I also heard from my mother yesterday that there is a surgery date. On March 7th, my mother will be having an operation to remove a cancerous tumor on her pancreas.
I knew this day would come soon, but now I have a date. This is makes it much more real. I can’t help, but think about it.
These two pieces of news really made me feel horrible, but later last night, the 3 Haitian guys came for our Bible study and we had a great discussion about fellowship. I really feel like when we tell each other about our pains we go through them together if there is a tight fellowship.
I need to remember to keep taking it one day at a time. I cannot keep worrying about the future when the present has enough troubles of its own.
Haiti.
I am taking Creole classes 2 days a week. I cannot converse much with the locals, but I love to try. I am feeling very comfortable here. I love the people.
