week 22: crossing the border (november 10-16)

road trip: the nuestros pequeños hermanos homes in the dr and haiti have a very strong connection... the national director here worked for 12 years in haiti before deciding to come start the home here, many staff members have worked/lived in haiti and there are many ex-pequeños who work here. so, for the past 5 months i have been hearing a lot about haiti and how things work at the home there. one thing that people talk about a lot is the special needs home and how wonderful it is. the director here has been encouraging me to go visit, especially since we are working with this group in chicago to build a new special needs home. so, i got a group of volunteers together (because i did not want to go alone!) and our director let us take one of the nph vans and a driver and we headed off to haiti. it was about a 12 hour trip each way with stops and trying to get through the border. it's amazing though once you do cross the border how much different it is. haiti and the dominican republic may be on the same island, but they are two different worlds. sure the dominican republic is poor compared to the united states, but i've never seen anything quite like haiti.

nph haiti: situated only a few hundred miles from florida, haiti is the poorest country in the western-hemisphere (the average annual income per family is $250 (usd) per year). while it is on the same island as the dominican republic, it is very mountainous and does not have the access to natural resources that the dr does. the people lack sources of natural energy, clean drinking water, jobs (80% unemployment rate), education (60% illiteracy rate), and any kind of stable economy or effective government leadership. haiti is also one of the most densely populated countries in the world… just a little smaller than the state of maryland, its population is estimated at 8 million. for the average person living in haiti, daily life is very hard.

nph-haiti, or npfs (nos petit frères et soeurs), was founded by fr. wasson in 1988 and has become the home to hundreds of orphaned and abandoned children over the past 20 years. the npfs organization in haiti has three separate locations: the orphanage, the administration office, and the hospital/special needs center. the main orphanage, called st. hélène, is located 5,000 ft. above sea level in the cool mountains outside of a town called kenscoff. here there are about 480 children living in small homes similar to the ones we have here in the dominican republic. they also have 2 schools for these children and another 200 children that come in from the outside on daily basis.

about an hour down the mountain in a town called pétionville, lies the administration office (former hospital), called the father wasson center. here the office staff works and there are also development classes and job trainings for former pequeños and a physiotherapy/rehabilitation center for children with developmental disabilities.

about 20 minutes from there, in the town of tabarre, is the new hospital, called st. damien chateaublond, and special needs center, called st. germaine. the coolest thing in my opinion about npfs-haiti is all the outreach they do for the community, outside of the close to 500 kids that actually live in the orphanage. the hospital and special needs center are located almost 1 ½ hr. from the actual orphanage, so they are mainly serving the surrounding community. the hospital, which has 120 beds for in-patient care and serves about 100 out-patient kids daily, focuses mainly on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malnutrition and cancer. they also have a dental clinic, laboratory and public health facility. next door, at the special needs center, dozens of kids come in daily (many with their parents) to receive all different types of therapy, education and treatment. it's estimated that all these programs reach about 30,000 haitians every year.

kay christine: it addition to the special needs outreach center that serves the community, there is an amazing special needs home called kay christine, within the orphanage at kenscoff. it was here that i met a wonderful woman named gena. gena came to haiti about 15 years ago from ireland. she came to volunteer with no experience working with special needs kids, ended up falling in love with her work and the kids and is still there, with no intention of leaving. the things she has done with the special needs kids were amazing and inspiring. the home has 30 special needs kids with every kind of disability imaginable. she has developed a home where all the kids are cared for, loved and their needs are met. she has a staff of about 30 haitains (about 20 at a time) that have been trained to come in and take care of these children… feeding, cleaning, playing and even providing physical therapy for those who need it. the best part is that it seems that every child has his or her place. for many of the kids who are severely physically handicapped and in wheelchairs, life is very simple… they eat, are changed and taken for a walk, but most importantly given love and affection by the caretakers. for the more capable kids, they have chores and jobs and contribute to life at the orphanage. one of the things the special needs kids take great pride in is their homemade peanut butter. every week peanuts are brought in and the kids that are capable de-shell all the peanuts, then they help with the roasting and smashing (and whatever else goes into making peanut butter) process and the peanut butter is distributed to all the houses in the orphanage. and it’s delicious!

it was also cool because we happened to come on one of the days that the special needs kids got to go horseback riding. all the kids from the orphanage that are capable (plus a number for the special needs outreach center) all headed down to a nearby horseback riding center. i guess it is something they have been doing for years and some of the older kids are really good. one girl has even won multiple awards in the special olympics in miami. being at kay christine and seeing everything that gena has done was great, but also a little overwhelming. looking at someone like her, who has devoted her whole life to this, you start to wonder what you can do in only a year’s time. but then i guess we just have to be thankful that there are people in the world like gena, who have the strength and desire to do such wonderful things and be inspired by their example.

morning hikes and delish food: when i decided to go to haiti, i tried to prepare myself for what would probably be a very hard trip (and at times, it was) but i had no idea that it would also be almost like a little retreat. now i'm sure if i had just went trekking about haiti by myself, it would have been a different experience, but i was lucky enough to be able to stay in the visitor house/retreat center at the orphanage. now like i said, the orphanage is up in the mountains and it is absolutely gorgeous. there are amazing trees, beautiful views and it was cold! now, there were downfalls… things that reminded us that we were in haiti. for example, while we get electricity about 12 hours a day in the dr, this home gets it for 3 hours, if they’re lucky. i also learned how to take a bucket shower, in which you stand in the shower in a bucket, then take another bucket (of ice cold water) and use that to wash your body and hair, letting the water fall into the bucket you are standing in. then, all that water is poured into another bucket to be used later for flushing the toilet. (really makes you think about how we waste water on a daily basis.) but the beauty and peacefulness of this home up in the mountains really overshadowed any of these things. the home is about a good 40 minute hike from the very top of the mountain, so every morning i got up at 5:00 to take a hike and watch the sunrise at the top. it was absolutely beautiful. and we ate really well too… really simple, but really delicious. lentil soup, homemade bread (the home makes its own bread every monday, wednesday and friday) and homemade peanut butter. yum.

funeral ministry: i saw and heard a lot of amazing things in haiti and with most of them came a story of fr. rick. fr. rick, i came to find out, is a priest from the states who has been with npfs-haiti since the beginning. (unfortunately i was unable to meet him because he was off helping with the nearby schools that had collapsed… maybe you heard about that on the news). one of the stories of fr. rick that stuck out in my mind the most was the story of his funeral ministry. now, like i've tried to explain, the dr is poor, but haiti is just on a different level. there is only one hospital for every 100,000 people and for many people that hospital is very far away. people lack food, clean water and most diseases go untreated. haiti is a country where 1/5 of all children die before the age of 5 and the average life expectancy is 51 years old. every day people die in the hospitals and on the streets and most bodies are never claimed and the identity of the people is never known. to people like fr. rick, something like this is unacceptable. so, he has a house just a little down the mountain from the orphanage, where he builds caskets out of cardboard and wood. every week he and the ex-pequeños, or older pequeños in the home, take time to build caskets and then go to the morgue and take the unclaimed bodies. they then give them a proper burial and a catholic funeral so they can be put to rest in dignity. just hearing about it was pretty crazy, i can’t imagine actually doing it… actually picking through dead bodies that no one wants, cleaning them up and burying them… but again, there are some amazing people in this world

tap-taps: the public transportation in haiti is pretty much the same as in the dominican, but a lot more colorful. i was introduced to the strange world of what is called a “tap-tap”. basically people get trucks of all different shapes and sizes and board up the bed of the truck with wood or whatever. then they decorate them… very colorfully… it’s like a work of art. then they make places to sit in the back and basically just start throwing in as many people as they can. they are everywhere and, like in the dr, you can take them anywhere… get on wherever you want and get off wherever you want… you just give a little “tap-tap” on the side to let the driver know you want out (hence, the name). i had the unfortunate, but memorable, experience of taking a tap-tap from pétionville (at the bottom of the mountain) to the orphanage at kenscoff (at the top of the mountain)… it is a bumpy, narrow, very windy road, with people crammed into every crevice and no way to see the outside. now i come from a family that can’t swing on the swings at the park, never mind ride any type of roller coaster or anything like that, without getting sick to their stomach. let's just say it was a very long hour and while tap-taps are fun to look at, i found that i’d rather stay on the outside.

the kids: we didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time with the kids, but what we did get to do was really fun. they were all so sweet… and just like the kids at our orphanage, they love visitors. i did however feel like i was back at square one in terms of communication though because everyone speaks creole… it’s similar to french, so most of the kids understand that too, but i don’t speak either, so it really didn’t matter. it was very overwhelming, but they were just so sweet. a really cool thing happened with the kids though… we went to visit one of the boys houses just to see what it was like and ended up deciding that we would play a game of soccer the next day after school. when we got to the court the next day, we weren’t able to play our game because there was already a game going on between the girls!! it was so inspiring… and they were so good! it kinda gave kelly and i hope for our girl’s sports program (which is struggling a little right now). the last day the kids put on a show for us with singing and dancing and even gave us homemade haitian art (keychains, things to hang on the wall, etc…) it was so sweet and they were just so loving and grateful, which was so interesting because we were only there for 4 days and didn’t even get to spend much time with them. i don’t think they realized that we were there to learn from them!

inspired: i'm not gonna lie it was a lot to think about and i’m not really sure that i've still processed everything. you can’t help but look at a country like that and feel somewhat hopeless or overwhelmed, that the world is a mess and nothing is going to change anytime soon. and i couldn’t help but wonder what i'm doing in a country that has seemingly has so much more… clearly there’s a greater need in haiti, right? and then at the same time, i look at the npfs-haiti home and see a home that has been running for 20 years and when you compare it to the orphanage we have here, we have a lot of work to do. it was an easy temptation to look at everything they had there and get frustrated or to complain about all the problems we have, or the things that aren’t going right… but at the end of the day, i think we all walked away with a sense hope. everything else aside, it was an inspiring trip… to be in the midst of this country that is a disaster and to be inside an orphanage that was kinda a refuge from it all, a place of peace and hope was a good feeling. and to see an orphanage that has been functioning for many, many years and seems to be doing it “right” inspired us and gave us a new excitement to come back to our kids in the dr.

tons’o’pictures here… http://dominicanrepubliccitypics.shutterfly.com/

***(side note) - rematch: on the monday before we left for haiti, the kids were off of school for some holiday, so my boys and i finally got to play a re-match with the other boys that we tragically lost to in the rain back in september. the game began much like the last and by the end of the 3rd inning we found ourselves down 6-0. i could tell the kids were down, but i was determined (i think i'm probably more competitive than they are), so i gave a little pep talk and we held them in the top of the 4th. then i don't know what happened, but we scored 6 runs in the bottom of the 4th, tying the game. we went back and forth the next few innings and we found ourselves down 10-11 in the bottom of the seventh. it wasn't quite as dramatic as the last game (no rain, or thunder or questionable calls), but we did manage to score two runs and win the game. we were all very excited! the boys also love to play soccer, so we told them our next two games will be soccer games... should be interesting for me, because while the kids get excited when i'm up to bat in baseball, they might want to trade me when they see my soccer skills... we'll see…


"if you wish God to stoop down to reach you, carry the woes of Christ crucified in your heart." - st. bonaventure