To Cäiman and Back Again

Easy English Club

Back At Home Base

I find myself back in Port-au-Prince tonight after spending a few days with the Mompreimiers at the United Chirstians International site that houses the schools and university. While there I was able to use some of the skills for which I was trained as I worked on their computer lab and university networ (along with some remote help from some of the guys at Westgate Chruch who helped initially set up the network). Too long a story for e blog and likely not of interest if you are not into this sort of thing. But a big thank you for the Momprimers for their hospitality. It is truly a wonder what God has done through them in Cäiman.

And to think that I saw it on the road to Cäiman

On the road to Cäiman I tried to keep my eyes open to the sites of Haiti as it wakes up and prepares for the day. Below are a list of those things in no certain order. 

• Very young children carrying 5 gallon buckets to fetch water
• Some fetch water from public spigots
• Some fetch water from hand pumps
• Some were filling the buckets from a stagnant green pool under the overpass
• Beautiful lake formed by the hydro-electric dam
• People fishing in home made canoes 
• Kids untangling a fishnet bye the lake
• Fish traps in the water
• People walking cows, goats, pigs, and chickens
• People riding donkeys and it's not out of the ordinary
• Crowded market as people sell cows, goats, pigs, and chickens
• Children in uniforms making their was to school
• Long walks
• Some that looked like kindergartens walking alone to school beside a busy highway
• Many children not in uniform, not going to school
• Concrete homes give way to hand cut wood homes as you leave to the more rural areas
• Some wood homes painted in beautiful, bright colors 
• Some wood homes painted with vodou symbols
• University out of place in their rural area, but much needed and full of activity
• UCI is a beckon of light in Cäiman

Bible Story with the Children

I didn't get to spend a lot of time with the children today because I wanted to visit the Easy English Club, but it was a nice time while it lasted. When the chairs were delivered last week along with them was a box of children's bibles in Creole. Wilkins and I borrowed two this morning so I had the children read to me in Creole from the Bible. We read the parable of the prodigal son. I knew the basic story, so that made it easier to follow. 

Easy English Club

The Easy English Club meets at the church and does some worship, some Bible study, and its members help each other learn English. I got involved in this club years ago and am an official member, so it gives me great joy to visit the club why I can. Today's journey to the club and back was particularly joyful as the Pastor finally conceited to let me use the tap-taps to get from the guest house to the church and back, as long as Wilkins was with me. If you are not familiar with what a tap-tap is I urge you to search for them on the Internet and look at some of the pictures.  In short they are an ad-hoc public transportation system that most Haitians use to get around town. They are crowded, confusing, and cheap. But thanks to Wilkins' know how we made it there and back easily. 

Being back at the English club was great fun as the members are very insightful and bring up lots of interesting points.  Tonight the subject of discussion was the parable of the good sumaritan. Wilkins started by reading the parable in English and then posing questions. All discussion is in English so as the group digs into a subject they also practice their English. It really is a great club. 

Tonight a pray of thanks for a safe journey back to Port-au-Prince and for the safe ride on the tap-taps. A prayer of thanks also for the Mompreimiers and for all the wonderful work being done in God's name through them. A prayer of thanks and continued blessings on the Easy English Club as they form a Christian community of caring and learning. 

Bread, wine, a rough road, and a communities outrage

Last Sunday was communion at the church in Port-au-Prince. It was nice, as I don't believe I have ever had communion in Haiti before. It is true that having communion does make you feel a part of a broader Christian community. I think I felt that more being in Haiti.

After the service I ran into and old friend, as you might have seen on Facebook. I met Junior early on in my travels to Haiti when he was working as a translator and was an officer in the Easy English Club (EEC); of which I am proud to be a member. The EEC meets twice a week as they study English as well as the bible. A couple of us were participating in a meeting and we were doing role playing as a mechanism to learn English. I played the father of a teen girl, a young women played the part of the girl, and Junior played the part af a young man attempting to convince me to allow my daughter to go out with him. I can't honestly say I remember the outcome correctly, but my recollection is he didn't succeed. As I have daughters that role playing was easy.  We had a chance to catch and joke around a bit it was great to see him again. PG, another of the translators that works with Junior was able to come, but it seems he is doing well too. I expect unto come back one year and be introduced to their wive, once they break down, find a girls friend, and convince her father they are worthy; which of course they are. 

Monday had and early start as I was to travel from Port-au-Prince to Cäiman, which is about a three to four hour drive. Frandzy, his girl friend, and Wilkins drove me from PaP to Hinche, which is the paved part of the drive, thanks guys, and a friend of the Pastor that leads the church in Cäiman drove me the rest of the way, i.e., the unpaved part of they way. I was on this road about two years ago and it was bad, but apparently the company that was contracted to pave the road failed to complete the job and their contract was terminated and the road has been uncared for at least a year. So not the road is just about unpassable. Deep crevasses, collapsed bridges, and pot holes big enough to hide a small army. Let's just say by the end of the drive I was quite happy to see the mission compound and a certain part of my body was a bit sore. 

The mission at Cäiman is a wonderful site. It houses a primary / high school as well as a university where they teach aggreculture, finance, and nursing.  It is quite an accomplishment given that at one point this place was extremely unsafe and a center for the vodou culture in Haiti. It is always nice to visit here and it looks like some of my abilities might be put to work to help straighten out a few of the computer / networking needed. A big thank you to Pastor JeanJean and Kristie for allowing me to stop by. 

And while this place has been dangerous in the past it is not always peaceful in the present. Apparently someone has been threatening some of the local households with violence if they don't pay money. It has happened twice and tonight the town decided to push back a little. Cäiman doesn't have its own police force and while the community is justifiably upset, these situations can spin out of control. Pastor JeanJean was working to calm and correct the situation. I was thinking the best thing I could do was keep a low profile and stay out of the way. There is a bit of a gang and drug problem in the area, where people are coming from City de Sol (one of the worst slums in PaP) and enticing some youth here into the gang life. Just as you work to remove one evil from a place (vodou) another comes at its heals. The church here has an active and vibrant youth program, but evil is dangerous and can easily take from any community. 

Tonight I pray for Cäiman. That piece will come to the community and that the evil of drugs and gangs will succumb to th power of God in this place.  Amen. 

Grape Jello

Today happens to be my birthday. It is not the first of my birthdays which I have spent in Haiti. I don't really like making a big deal about my birthday as believe it or not I am sort of a private person. So you would think hiding out in Haiti would be a perfect place to pass my birthday. To be honest, while I don't like making a big deal about my birthday I do like being around my family on my birthday. And as I sit here tonight I Am thinking about them and I miss them. Thanks to my wife, Facebook, and the translators the children knew it was my birthday so I did get song to in both English and Creole.

I visit d the kids at the centre twice today.  I am trying not to call the place an orphanage, nor do call the kids orphans. They are children living at the centre. It just feel too degrading to me any other way. I visited the. In the morning during which I passed out some small plastic animal. It was fun watching their faces when they saw an animal they could not recognize. The otter seem to cause them the biggest confusion.  We then went back and forth as I learned some animal names in Creole and they learned some animal names in English. The kids have really been patient with me as I bumble through my Creole. They correct my pronunciation and help me restate sentence the correct way. I still feel like I am at the level of a three year old. 

In the afternoon I stopped by again with some coloring books and crayons.  And while I came back with hardly any crayons as I sit here it seems that the children have made remarkable progress in their ability to do a task and to cooperate by sharing resources like crayons. In years past it has been a constant battle to make sure the kids took only a single crayon at a time and then trade it in when they need a new color. It was far from perfect today and some of the little buggers kept trying to trick me and take multiple crayons, for the most part it worked.  Their ability to color within the lines seems to be improving as well. 

When I do visit with the kids I keep wishing that I had something for the older kids. Most crafts brought are really focused on the little ones and the older kids don't have much to do, or it is far beneath their skill level. The other day the decorating of crosses with wood was great for the older kids and I was happy seeing them engaged and challenged. I was thinking it might be nice to get the older kids a dominos or chess set. I have seem older kids living outside the centre playing dominos and thought that might be a good fit. It would have to be something that was understood for the older kids as everything the older kids get the younger want as well. 

I continue to notice two behaviors in the kids and even in broader Haiti that bother me. The first is the quick reaction to violence. What I mean is that when there is a conflict the children are often quick to raise a hand to each other. It is something that is just somewhT accepted in Haiti. Haiti is a tough place and these children have some very tough backgrounds, so this behavior is likely not unexpected and in the US the children would get counciling with how to deal with conflict.  Here the culture is just a bit more direct. I was speaking with a translator and he mentioned it is just the norm and when he was a child he was "beat" by his parents if he came home with a dirty school uniform. He agrees it is not good, but the question is how to change that bit of culture. 

The other behavior that bothers me, and I have written about this before, is the way, in general, the male population treats the female population. The males tend to believe that they can do whatever they want to the females and the females seem to just accept that this is the way it is. You can see this behavior started even in the young kids and I have seen it in general in Haiti. This too is a behavior that must change in order for progress to be made. 

I understand that what I stated above is a generalization and that there are many who don't act this way; but there is a significant populations that does. 

Good news! The building that they are converting into a church at the centre is supposed to have it's first service tomorrow and the kids will be able to attend. Not sure if I will be able to or not as they may expect me at the main church. 

It is a bit odd when the task in front of you is to just be in a place. There are times when I am at the centre and I am not directing crafts, instead I am just there. I am standing or sitting and the kids are just going about their day. Ever now and again one will come over for a hug or chat and then be off. The odd feeling that I am struggling with is that while my brain tells me I am not doing anything and thus fairly useless, something deep seems to be telling me that my task is just to be present. It is a sort of feeling that says your purpose is being there so that the kids know you are for no other reason but to be there. No alterier motive, no planned work, just there. And if t hey need to reach out they will, if they don't need to reach out that is ok, because they know you are there. Not sure that makes sense. But there it is.

Ah, the grape jello. I was all alone for dinner tonight. Saturday is a transition day at the guest house as teams tend to arrive or leave on Saturday. No one  else was about so I started to eat. about halfway though my meal up came one of the women from the kitchen with a bowl full of grape jello for dessert. Dessert is not a normal thing here and they don't know it was my birthday, but it was nice to have a little sweet for a birthday treat. 

Tonight I pray for healing for my wife. She has been under the weather and battling through in my absence. May she get the rest she needs so that her body may heal and that I truly love and appreciat her with all my heart. Amen. 

Reflections

A week ago I was sitting in an airport looking for a place to spend the overnight hours as the last leg of my trip to Haiti was over six hours away. Tonight I am sitting in the guest house in Port-au-Price Haiti. I started this trip, or at least tried to, without expectations. I also sit here tonight thinking about the past week. Things that have happened. Conversations that I have had. 

The week's pattern has been to either hang out at the guest house preparing for the afternoon with the kids or visit somewhere in Haiti learning more about the history; and then spend the afternoon with the kids doing a craft and just being and talking to them. 

Learning more about the history of Haiti has been well worth it. As I stated on Facebook you have to understand the history of a place and its people to really understand. In brief, Haiti was first settled by people from South America, commonly called Indians here in Haiti. Along came the Europeans, Columbus, who first enslaved the people and then wiped them out. Needing more labor they turned to Africa. After several failed slave revolts the slaves of Haiti revolted and won their independence and split the island into several areas, each controlled by one of the generals of the revolution that declared himself some sort of ruler. There was some infighting, murder, some unions, some foreign intrusion, etc. And it has been difficult here in Haiti for most of its history. This isn't 100% accurate, but I hope you get the picture. 

I spoke with a man this week who was born in Haiti, but moved to the US when he was five. He moved back to Haiti in December of 2009, two weeks before the Earthquake, at about 45 years old, and has lived here ever since. We talked about why things are still so difficult in Haiti and why change and recovery is so slow. He talked about how in Haiti there is a lot of corruption and not just at the top political offices. How after the earthquake, seeing the influx of money many people started orphanages, calling themselves pastors, filling the orphanages with their own kids or their friends and relatives merely to collect money. About people getting foreign organizations to purchase property in their name and then selling it, taking the money, and fleeing. Of stories of pastors either collecting money from groups to pay translators, drives, etc, but only giving 10% of what the promise to the workers. Or having the workers pay a fee for what they earn back to the pastor so they can continue to get work. How to change it. Education is one aspect of it, but another is getting the Haitian people to start looking out for each other and not just themselves. It is getting people elected and in office who care mor about the people they serve than their own pockets. 

Some of these problems are not unique to Haiti; but Haiti has these problems on top of extreme poverty. 

All these issues weigh on my mind and heart. 

Tonight I pray for Haiti. That it will heal itself. That the good people in Haiti, that far outnumber those that are doing harm, will succeed in taking their country and raising it and it's people to a place of respect, safety, and blessings. Amen.