Haiti

I had the amazing opportunity to serve at an orphanage in Haiti for Easter break.  It was an incredible experience that is impossible to fully describe in words. I’ll do my best to describe the adventure! I left my apartment Monday morning for the Caribe Tours bus station.  Twelve hours later I arrived in Port-au-Prince.  The bus ride was nice and even included food.  The border was a long and somewhat scary process due to the unknowns.  The bus company let us off on one side of the border without any directions in English or Spanish.  Unfortunately, I didn’t know a single word of Creole.  The border was congested with overloaded trucks and bustling people.  I weaved in and out of the obstacles on the dusty dirt road trying to follow familiar faces from my bus.  Finally, we reached a customs shelter and a LONG line.  Eventually we made it back to the bus, stopped at customs again and then headed into the beautiful country of Haiti.  I was in Port-au-Prince the entire week and returned to the capital the following Sunday.  The return trip was much easier and took 3 hours less. 

The week was nonstop, just the way I like it. J  The orphanage currently has 138 kids ages two months-16 years old.  They are divided in groups by the babies, toddlers, and school age.  The orphanage has three houses.  I lived at the largest house where all of the babies, toddlers and school aged girls lived.  If I wasn’t at a planned activity, there were always plenty of kids to play with at the house. 

The orphanage runs a two room school (roughly K-2^nd grade and 3^rd grade-16 yrs old).  My school days were filled with teaching lessons (both on the fly and prepared), playing games, eating lunch, etc.   When I wasn’t at the school the infant and toddler rooms always needed someone to help with feeding, playing or just holding a little one.

Of course, one of my favorite parts was building relationships with individual kids.  It was incredible to hear some of their stories. 

I was constantly surrounded by loving smiles and warm hugs, but I had heard their stories of being HIV positive, being left in dumpsters, Earthquake tragedies, and so much more.  It’s amazing to see kids that love each other and all that enter their home with such agape love despite the adversity their lives.

I instantly fell in love with a little boy named Luke.  He arrived to the orphanage from rural Haiti only a few months ago.  No one has been able to find any adult that can identify the child.  The orphanage knows nothing about him, no age, no name, no history.  Another child at the orphanage named him Luke and his age is estimated to be about 7 years old.  The catch to all of this is that Luke is deaf.  He knows no form of sign language.  It was difficult for me to imagine what this precious child’s life has been like without the ability to communicate.

Since Luke had unique needs, one of the projects I undertook for the week was introducing some basic language to the teachers and students at the school.  Even though a week isn’t long enough to learn much, I knew that anything I could do to help Luke feel included would help.  I always use a few signs with the students in my class (bathroom, water, yes, no, etc).  I taught the signs I knew and then used the internet or books to look up other useful signs like good job, book, thank you.  I also taught the classes two songs with sign language.   A highlight of the trip was with Luke finally used one the signs on his own.

(Below are a few videos of some of the girls practicing the sign language before bed one night.)

The work of all the staff at the orphanage is amazing!  They are dedicated to providing a loving home to so many children.  I’m so thankful for the opportunity to serve and will continue to pray for the children and staff of HIS Home for Children.

crossing the border

beautiful country

Port-au-Prince

tire shop

tent city still left from Earthquake relief

They are having trouble getting some of the people to leave the tent cities because their life is better  living in a tent than it was before.  But, tent cities are a huge risk for cholera.

Orphanage school (K-2nd grade classroom)

lunch at the school...Ramen day!

Luke

Luke and Melinda

Playing soccer at recess.  The big sport in Haiti is soccer, not baseball like its neighbor.

Orphanage school (3rd grade-16 years old classroom)

dinner time

sweet baby

I love the following sequence of pictures.  :)

my bed for the week

She made me a bracelet like hers.  :)

walking from the girls house to the school

very few roads are paved, even in the capital

everyone loves to listen to a good book

story time

older students' classroom

peanut butter and jelly day

visiting the park

He was so tired he fell asleep on the swings!

Eli needs special care right now, so he stayed on our floor instead of the infant room.  We had lots of time together :)

Feeding 138 kids three meals a day takes a mega shopping trip every Thursday.  I tagged along to see more of the city and experience the shopping trip.

LOTS and LOTS of RICE

grocery store

We ate lunch out during the shopping trip.  I admit I was very apprehensive about eating Haitian street food, but I didn't really have a choice and it turned out to be delicious!  Lunch was a Haitian version of an empanada or Hot Pocket.  The fried dough is filled with meat and vegetables.

The next sequence of pictures shows how there was never less than five kids surrounding me when I was with the toddlers.  (And I love every minute of it.)  :)

I drastically improved my feeding-babies-rice techniques over the week.

playground time with the toddlers

I found the swings were my favorite playground activity because I could  hold one child in my arms and push four swings at the same time.  The slide and seesaw were not as easy to manage.  :) 

I was constantly on the lookout for cholera.

A local organization donated the use of a swimming pool to the orphanage to use on Good Friday.  I love swimming and despite years of lifeguarding experience under my belt I have to admit I was a little apprehensive about taking 75 orphans to a swimming pool when only FIVE of them could swim.  Needless to say I was on full alert, but I can thankfully say there were no drownings (although quite a few saves) and the kids LOVED it.  The orphanage gets to use the pool about twice a year.  One of the cutest moments was when a child that is new to the orphanage since the last pool trip saw the pool for the first time and observed from a safe distance (outside the fence).  Finally, he slipped off his shorts and began to inch closer to the pool.  Little did he know that it is generally not well accepted to swim in pools naked.  One of the staff explained to him about wearing the shorts in the water, and it was so interesting to watch him explore a swimming pool for the first time.  He warmed up the pool a little bit but remained cautious and close to the wall. 

sunset from the orphanage

oh just a normal day of riding a tricycle missing 2 wheels and all clothes :)

sink/dishwasher

Since I was there the week before Easter I had the chance to participate in fun Easter activities like putting together Easter bags from the donated goods and dying Easter eggs.  We died 140 eggs (one per child) that were to be hidden Easter Sunday and then eaten.   

donated supplies

Making an Easter bag for each child.  If you know me, you know that I wanted the Easter bags to be as  fair as possible.  So, yes, I counted out every single jelly bean. :)

before

after

Happy Easter!

so much laundry!

infant room

toddler room

Port-au-Prince street

Tap taps are a form of public transportation in Port-au-Prince.  These old trucks are always ornately decorated.

countryside

food on the bus

The kids love to sing.  They broke into this song while waiting for their turn to die Easter eggs.

Toddler snack time-Although it was very kind of the little girl to try to share her snack with me, I had to politely decline :)  Again, you can see how my lap was always full of as many kids as it could hold.