FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 2012

FRIDAY: Morning ceremonies, a progress check at the garden, then off to Cap Haiten to drop off soccer supplies and visit the orphanage.

An orphanage played a key role in my life. That orphanage...all orphanages have a profound impact on me.  I can't tell you about an orphanage, write about an orphanage, visit or even think about an orphanage without getting tears in my eyes.  I have tears welling up as I write this, if ever the day comes when I do not react this to any orphanage, I surmise I will have awakened dead.

So, when Friday rolled around, I was anxious about visiting the orphanage.  That said, it was wonderful -- the place, the people and the children. Mind you I had a hard time talking to Amy about it later that night, but eventually I got the story out as best I could...It took a few days to process it all.  And in the end, it was all good.

More later, just had to get that out so I could move ahead with the story...

Opening ceremonies...songs, prayers, raising the flag...wonderful way to start the day.

The band plays each morning...One day they practiced what seemed like all afternoon...one song over and over...The Frito bandito song...I'm sure it has a real name, but you know the one I'm talking about.

Lulu enjoys breakfast.

Most Haitians cook with charcoal, the school has a gas stove.

A typical classroom...I didn't take many pictures in the classrooms as I didn't want to disrupt things...

Honey bees and honey are part of the local food chain.

Progress in the garden...

The garden crew...

The new university about six miles from Terrier Rouge. The presidents of both Haiti and the Dominican Republic were there for the ribbon cutting the day before. It wasn't open for visitors until the next day.  It was built with funds from the European Union in cooperation with the Dominican Republic and it extended electricity a little closer to Terrier Rouge.

On to Cap Haitien, the second largest city in Haiti. You could call the place vibrant or you could call it chaotic...depends on your perspective.  

The streets are packed with people, street vendors, cars, trucks, tap-taps and motorcycles.  There is not a stop sign, traffic light or traffic sign to be seen and yet the city moves constantly at a frenetic pace as is guided by some unseen force.  I can't imagine why there aren't 1,000 car accidents every 15 minutes...but we didn't see any. You know your are getting close to a big city when you stop to buy gas and both station attendants are carrying the pistol-grip shotguns that are so popular in the Dominican Republic.

The city features literally miles of buildings that will remind you of the French Quarter...three stories, wooden doors, wooden windows,  lots of balconies...

Trash, trash, trash, everywhere there is trash.  We saw two trash trucks in Cap Haitien...one having a huge pile of rubish shoveled into it and the other being escorted through town by the UN...who knows?

We delivered soccer balls, goalie gloves, shoes and more to a group in Cap Haitien.  Bob Allen of Warrenton, VA heads up an effort called HANDS - Haiti and Soccer.  He collects donated soccer equipment and sends it to Haiti.  You can contact him at gkbob at comcast dot net. 

We were hustled into a small room and the door quickly shut as if the sight of so many soccer balls might insight a riot or at the least an enthusiastic round of begging.

It had to be tricky to get this baby to Haiti...

The soccer stadium...the orphanage we were soon to visit is located in the hill behind the stadium. 

Inside the courtyard of the Kay Anj (Angel House) Orphanage.

http://www.helpinghaitianangels.org

This is part of a post from Carrie Evans after she visited the Kay Anj orphanage one week after she visited it with our group:

They are beautiful, each and everyone of them.  Possibly the healthiest looking Haitian children I've seen these past two weeks.  Forty two in all. 

Twenty one of them live on the tip top of a mountain covered with cinder block homes, one on top of another.  Literally. The neighbors laundry hangs precariously across the twisted barbed wire fence just feet from the children's bedroom windows.  There is no green grass and no place to ride a bike.  There is no city park or ice cream stand just down the road.  There's a three story crooked building and a small cement play yard with a simple and well loved basketball hoop.  There is a rude and primitive kitchen with three large burners on a wrought iron frame with no obvious source of fuel. There are four bedrooms, each with bunk-beds, some of them four to a room, sleeping eight children in a space smaller than my bathroom. There is a communal closet where clean clothes are kept and a sewing room off to the side where the girls are learning a trade. All of it clean and neat and impressive amidst the squalor of Cap Haitien.  Twenty one lucky kids, a paid "momma" on each floor and the sweetest dispositions imaginable.

The other twenty one are street kids.  I don't know what that means besides that they don't live in that crooked house on the tip top of the hill, they live somewhere else. I didn't ask because I don't think my heart could take the answer. I know that among those street kids are some as young as 8 and as old as 15. Do they open the heavy metal gate and have them file past the guards that carry guns in order to keep the other twenty one safe? I don't know.  How do they choose which twenty one sleep there and which twenty one sleep nowhere? I just don't know. 

 I do know that forty two kids were there in that cement play yard today.  I know that I saw forty two smiling and cherubic faces.  I know that forty two kids climbed on my back and arm wrestled Chris and shot hoops with Jesse.  I know that forty two kids got brand new dresses and fancy new shorts.  I know that forty two kids received forty two Chick-Fil-A cows and Elmer passed out forty two pieces of gum.  And I know that only twenty one children have beds. 

Like I said, I'm not quite sure how to process this, especially as my own children are without their momma tonight.  But I do know that there is hope in that orphanage, I know that the Harvey's are full of love and God's grace, because they are giving forty two kids a place to be, even if only for a few hours a day.  In that place I saw love. I saw happiness. I saw friendships.  I saw hope.  I saw family. 

The Harvey's live just down the road from me in Haymarket, VA.  I've broken bread  with them and shared stories and shed tears.  God willing, in the coming years, those forty two kids will live just down the road from Pere Bruno in a little town called  Limonade.  They have the land, they just need the money to build. They'll move all together, all forty two of them, into a bigger house with a bigger yard with better stoves and better rooms.  They won't need the armed guards or the big metal gate.  There won't be children sleeping nowhere or kids called street kids and kids called Kay Anj kids, they'll all be just that...the Harvey's kids. 


Some people ask "What makes a family?". It isn't so much blood and DNA as much as it is love.  Those twenty one kids and those twenty one kids, they make forty two, whichever way you shake it, forty two kids and a few mommas. Add in Father Eustache and Archibald, toss in an American twenty something named Lindsey and tie them all together with the Harvey's and their love... If I've learned one thing today, family isn't what I thought it once was, just as home isn't where the gps sends me at the end of the day.  Because today I found both in a place where I expected to find none. 

The view...

A typical room.

Asiaha and a new friend.

Geraldine and I had a great time together.

She was very shy...when I spoke to her, she would smile, giggle and bury her head in my shoulder.

John attracted a crowd...ironic as he has three boys at home.

Kevin was clearly moved by his orphanage village...He had little to say and retired early that night...

Jim's balloons were the perfect distraction needed for us to be able to sneak out with a minimal amount of tears (adults, not the kids).

One of my favorite photos...completely untouched. This is exactly what the camera saw.  I took just this one image and then put the camera down to cheer them on...Eventually, they got both balloons inflated.

The drive off the mountain had an interesting moment. We came around a bend in the narrow road and there was a tractor obviously broken down in the middle of the road.  It wasn't your average tractor is was giant one with tires that were six feet tall.  It had to weigh many tons, so pushing it out of the way seemed out of the question.  The tractor guys were waving Pere Bruno to drive around the stranded vehicle.  The first motioned to the right, but that wasn't an option. There was not guard rail and no shoulder and if we had slipped off the skinny road, we would have plummeted down the hill in a ball of fire.  Thank you, no.


So, Pere Bruno opted to try to pass on the left.  The first problem was that there was an old telephone pole close to the tractor. We determined that there was at least two or three inches of clearance which brought us to the second problem. The narrow gap we had to shoot had a deep ditch running through it at a 45-degree angle meaning the Land Cruiser was likely to rock back and forth in a tight space which afforded no room for any variance.  Pere Bruno navigated the car through without touching either the pole or the tractor prompting John Connolly to say "Pere Bruno you really are a man of faith."  The driver behind us hit the pole...or the tractor...or both. Not sure.  It was classis Pere Bruno -- calm, steady, unerring...no problem. 

Street scene in Cap Haitien. This is fairly typical, but not as crowded as many of the streets we traveled. 

Note the Coke and Sprite bottles...served with ice!  No Diet Coke or Coke Light as they call it everywhere else but America, but plenty of Coke or Sprite with ice.  Ice = Cold.  Cold is good.  I learned in Haiti that I can live happily without air-conditioning or hot water, but I need cold drinks and ice.

Pere Bruno took us to lunch and then for some shopping at the market under the restaurant. 

Yes, that's ESPN's Sportscenter over Tony's head.

The food was good, but slow...the power was provided by a generator in the men's room.  Not near it, IN it...two armed guards greeted us when we arrived...

Before we left Cap Haitian where we visited the Tourist Market.  I'm told cruise ships used to stop here.  Having recently been on a cruise, I can only imagine my fellow cruisers getting off the ship in Haiti, taking a quick look around and returning immediately to the ship...It just isn't a tourist destination in the traditional sense.  So the local merchants sit in the Tourist Market waiting for a handful of Americans to wander through and, no doubt, hoping that some day a thriving tourism industry will return to Haiti.