A Glimpse in Haiti - Part 5

As usual, the day (day 4) began early. Joan saw a cockroach in our bathroom and a lizard on the wall. I slept well, probably due to utter fatigue. It was dark when we begin breakfast, which was a very spicy spaghetti. I think it had some meat in it, but Tessa didn't complain, as she's not a complainer at all. Like me, Rhonda has been bitten by some insect. And horribly, we ran out of Coffeemate, and had to borrow some skim milk powder for one of our Dallas friends.

This morning, instead of going to the jobsite, we walked down to the river, guided by a young Haitian woman whose name is Teeteet. She showed us where to pickax and apparently our job today is to pile sandy gravel.The garbage here is incredible, worst than in Bolivia.   

It was hard work, and we were little disorganized at first. I tossed a rock from the pile to another pile and I hit Joan's leg. Then someone hit me. We eventually found a rhythm. Then one of those motorcycles turned into a small pickup showed up with some water. In this dry riverbed, we have a good view of both the ocean and the mountains, and at the mouth of the river.

Shortly after, we walked toward the beach. The beat-up truck came and we loaded sand from another pile to be taken to yet another jobsite. It's starting to look like we won't get back today to where we were working before, and I'm a little disappointed at that.

The second time the truck came back, I went with it, and saw some finished rubble homes. A man named Pastor did the driving and we met his grandfather, as well as passed Grand Goave's town hall. As we drove down Rue Constitution, we saw the group coming back. We picked up Sharon and Rhonda, while Jackie and Joan and I walked with Junior, all the while snapping a few pics.

Lunch was rice with bean paste, and the fish brought yesterday in an onion and butter sauce. It was very tasty. I wish we had more food, but we still have tortillas and peanut butter and cold pop. After, everyone scattered for naps while I was off to put my feet up.

After we returned to the riverbed. We loaded up the truck, which I've discovered is a quarter ton Mitsubishi 4 x 4, with a couple of loads of sand. Naturally, children gravitated toward us. Two little girls in just underwear and one little naked boy played nearby. For their dignity's sake, I didn't take a close up picture.

They said that they were hungry and wanted me to look in the knapsacks for food. I felt bad because I had nothing to give them. We're all bothered by the children we see. The very skinny and some their bellies and belly buttons stick way out. They say all the time that they're thirsty. At the end when we were leaving, Junior told me to dump out the water and one boy drank some before I did. 

A short distance away, there was a single tomato plant growing in the middle of the riverbed, and it had some green fruit on it. An odd bit of life in the middle of stones. On the way to the next rubble home, we saw a crazy guy dressed in heavy black clothes, screaming at everyone. We passed Seeds of Hope, a Canadian mission, and they'd even brought in an ambulance from the Peterborough EMS.

Jackie was kind enough to purchase two small cans of evaporated milk for one American dollar. I think that's expensive and I am sure they don't charge that to the locals. We only did two runs of sand this afternoon before returning to the compound. It gets incredibly hot, and our shirts are soaked and even stained with salt, so we all piled into that motorcycle-come-pickup for the drive home.

Tessa and Amanda are having cornrows done, and with Sharon's phone, I texted my kids. Right then Faucher brought me, Sharon, Jackie and Joan into the kitchen. He showed us supper, which is vegetable rice. The veggies are beets, carrots, cabbage, watercress, bok choy, and cans of peas. Bob has a cold, and Faucher suggested taking some watercress and garlic chopping it up fine and adding a bit of vinegar and taking it in the morning. Last night he gave Bob hibiscus flower tea for his cold, and he actually sounds better today. With the dappled sunshine and the gravel and picnic tables and the smell of charcoal cooking.It's like we're camping.

A very skinny cat has come for a visit. I put my feet up on the bench and he crawled over and lay on me until he heard some birds and decided to investigate. The rest of our crew is playing a new card game called Phase 10. They're all talking about the women that we saw bathing in the water where the river met the ocean, and of course the men swear they didn't see anything inappropriate. Of course, they didn't. 

I spoke to one of the Haitians named Alex on the phone. He said he was in Port-au-Prince, getting the mesh wire wouldn't be back until tomorrow. I realized then we would probably not be going back to our house that we're building again.

It's after supper now. Sharon felt that I took too much rice. I was very hungry, and there are never any leftovers. We all need a little extra in the way of peanut butter tortillas and crackers. Thankfully, Sharon brought out some smoked cheese and cookies. All of my Nutribars have disappeared, so I'm not the only one who's hungry. I had put them out by the kitchen, and I think some people needed the extra calories, too. This is certainly a test for me. I'm a big eater used to as much food as I want. Now I must force myself to eat less. Rhonda also needs to snack periodically. Jackie went to the small store across the street, but she said there wasn't anything in the way of cookies there. This island has good fruit and vegetables, but no place to grow grains, so there's little flour and very little bread.

But to complain about our meals makes me feel guilty. Those children don't have very much to eat, but we're told not to feed them. So I feel a tension back and forth within me. I can't help these poor children, and oddly, the young boy we saw today had a bag of raspberry candy. Someone had the money to buy that for him and yet, he looked like he was starving.

There are so many relief organizations here, each specializing in something, but does this aid the expectation of handouts? Our driver today said this a drug problem here, and they all need hope. I brought this up at our devotional.  Junior said that when the children say they're hungry, they're only practicing their English and Jackie said that they're just saying words. Ricardo said in Mexico, children are taught to beg. Sharon hugged me and apologized for what she'd said. It's disconcerting to sort out all my feelings about the poor. I've asked God to make me more compassionate, and now it hurts.

We could smell marijuana tonight. Some people disagreed on it was, as it wasn't strong, but it sure smelled like that to me.

Some of us are frustrated by what appears to be the lack of progress in our house because Alex is having trouble getting the wire in Port-au-Prince. Joan reminded us that on Saturday, she asked who brought our house's rubble and sand to our worksite, so it must've been a previous group delivering it when they couldn't work on their house. Our pastor had reminded us before we left that the work is ongoing and we're just going to be part of the process.

Many of us are tired tonight, although Bob and Tessa went for smoothies with the Dallas group, and I wonder if they're still hungry after supper. The young boy, Chris, said he was missing his family and friends back home. Some of our group are playing Phase 10, but I'm going to bed.

If we ever come back here, I'm going to bring more dessert-like foods, more Coffeemate, and my Samsung tablet, though I don't miss the Internet, but I'd love to connect with my kids.

I did another devotional but it's hard to see because of the energy efficient lights, which wink off often, so it's off to sleep now. It's been a hard day.

A glimpse into Haiti Part 4

Today is day three. Breakfast was squash and vegetable soup with coffee. We added tortillas and peanut butter to the menu for protein. We're off to church this morning, and it's just around the corner. Made of cement, it's new and has no paint. There are very few people in here and they're sitting on hard, homemade benches. One of our group leaned back on the edge of the pew behind us and broke the back. Oops! The church is decorated with balloons and hats and ribbons all left over from their dedication service last week. Above the altar is a carved sign quoting Psalm 119:105.

My French is too poor to completely understand the service. A few dogs have wandered in, a female, followed by a male. A very well-dressed lady led them out. We had decided beforehand we would give $100 US for an offering, taken from our fundraising money. Wes told us to give modestly, $5-$10 each, so as not to appear ostentatious. We put it into a hastily made envelope before putting it in the plate. Several men were checking off the ladies' cards and Wes says it's like that in his church. They take attendance and check to see if you have read your Bible each day and they have cards to check off. hat certainly explains a reference I heard once on the Big Bang Theory, which talks about east Texas churches taking attendance. It's all quite alien to us.

Junior has slipped in and brought Wes and me up to greet everyone. Off-the-cuff, Wes did better. The church was very conscious of the fact they had English-speaking visitors. The nicely dressed lady who let the dogs away sang a lovely song, and by the way, the dog has returned and I suspect it's her dog, and heard her voice. All of the children up front are well behaved, though two are listening to an iPod sharing the earbuds. I'm not tired, but my ankles are swelling because we're not moving. I should be like the man across the way, who is really getting into the singing with wild gyrations. Overall of this, I can hear a goat braying loudly.

As we were leaving the church, a woman was walking by with a large steel bowl on her head and huge barracuda like fish called a Tchara draped over its edges. I realize now why the women have such wonderful posture. They carry everything on their heads. We followed this woman to our compound. I know what our supper will be! Perhaps not today, but tomorrow. Lunch today was rice with bean gravy and spicy vegetables.

We went to a market behind the church after lunch, but there were only three vendors. I purchased a small stone statue, but saw nothing for my son and my son-in-law. Oddly, the men selling their wares change the prices, upward, and I don't know if it's just because they don't understand English, or they're actually trying to pull the wool over our eyes. When we returned to the compound, Faucher gave Joan and me a glass of coconut water. It was lovely and cold. He told us that when he was looking around for his hens and their eggs, for the chickens run free through the compound, he found the eggs on one of the bunks Allan and Bob had used the first night. We got ready for the beach and as we approached the beach, we noticed some UN soldiers having a picnic there. They're from Sri Lanka and we talked to two officers. Allan gave one of them a UN ball cap he got from his time in Eritrea. Several of our group ordered barbecued lobster. I purchased the painting that was on sale there, and again, the vendor was changing his prices, no, not going down, but actually going up! That's two for two!

The water was lovely and warm, though the beach wasn't the best that I had been on, it did have some fabulous conch shells.

The lobster came served with what they call picklies, a type of coleslaw made with shredded hot peppers added. Naturally, the dogs were all hanging around. They are incredibly skinny, shorthaired and even mangy. Rhonda warned us not to give fish bones to the dogs. Then one of the Haitians said no and dropped the entire fish skeleton to one dog with mange. So much for careful feeding, but you can't help but feel sorry for them. 

All around are mango and almond trees. I was bit by some tiny crawling insect that made my leg swell up.

The ride home was very relaxing, with Faucher stopping to talk to everyone and getting some ripe mangoes for us. Supper was sweet porridge and bread, flavored with cinnamon. We went onto the roof, and I gave the devotional about the beauty of our work. Even though the house we will be building will not be aesthetically pleasing, it's going to be beautiful because we are God's hands and feet in this project. We're all looking forward to completing it.

We taught our Texan friends a couple of card games, but I was absolutely exhausted. So tired that I brushed my teeth with anti-itch cream. 

Note to self: Read the labels because all white tubes look the same without glasses.

A glimpse into Haiti - Part 3

It's morning and I have discovered there are banana palms in the eating area! Love it!

We all slept well, but our mattresses were so thin, I took another one to pad it. Actually, I moved two thin mattresses to my bunk, and then slipped the pillow under the hip part to cushion me even further. Jackie and Sharon called me a princess and I said I would put a pea under my mattress. Tessa had not heard that story. We were cool last night because the air-conditioning. After breakfast we walked down to the job site. 

The area looks very similar to Cochabamba, but much more rubble and dust. It took us about 30 min. to reach a man's hut that was beside the small garden of Swiss chard, okra, corn, melons, and other vegetables. The man's home was tarpaulins and woven leaves under tin roof. 

He had a few chickens in the pen, plus a few chicks loose and a rooster whose leg was tied to a small rope. Immediately we began to break up a square of about 12 X 12 with pickaxes and created a trench around the outside. 

Like in Bolivia, cement and small stones were poured into the trench. I marveled at how well our two groups worked together, especially with the bucket brigade moving small boulders. Cliff Temple's minister of missions, Wes, is a natural leader.

As we were digging out the center area, we unearthed two small tarantulas. I even touched one. With gloves on, of course. But even  a fear of  spiders won't stop me from the desire to build a home. I'm so proud of the way we're working.

We mixed cement and stuffed small rocks and such into our footings. Naturally, the locals were curious and stopped and watched us, with various children slipping into the area. 

One cute little boy with just a shirt on, (and nothing else!) stuck around. His red shirt was ripped and had been resewn. He kept grabbing things, especially Tessa's earrings and her dreadlocks. When we had nearly completed the footings, we left for home for lunch, walking back a different route. Surprisingly, the weather is cooler than I expected and cloudy this morning, but after lunch it really got hot.

Lunch was chicken, rice and beans and vegetables. I've discovered that Tessa is a vegetarian, but we had brought flatbread and peanut butter, and we found some jam and washed it all down with Coke or 7-Up.

After lunch, it was naptime, but before that, we gave away T-shirts with our group logo to the compound staff and sewing kits to the ladies in the kitchen. The man who runs the compound, Jean-Faucher, took the little girl dresses that some of the ladies of the church made, and brought in to our dormitory about half a dozen little girls. So we got to present them to them. And of course pictures were taken.

We walked back to our worksite past some vendors, and I asked Junior, a young man who was in charge of us, to ask how much a dress I saw cost.

We finished the footings early. On the way back, Junior asked the store lady how much the dress cost . She said $20 US. I said no, but Junior said bartering wasn't appropriate. She lowered the price to $15 US and since Rhonda had a 20 US dollar bill, I borrowed it and she got some Haitian gourdes back. The dress was a pretty blue-and-white one with smocking at the top. 

We walked down to the river where the town was installing a mesh embankment. 

We got back to the compound, I took a shower and wash my socks as they were filthy. The other group invited us to the rooftop for devotional, and we have agreed to do two of the nights. Wes says he's interested to learn 'Canadian doctrine'.

We have a mango tree here in the compound and Allan says he'll get some to eat. Our supper was a macaroni casserole with big glasses of water. Which was good thing, since the food is very spicy. We ate crackers and flatbread. After we went upstairs onto the rooftop for a nice devotional. 

When that was done, we all went around the corner to a smoothie shop, where the lady takes evaporated milk, fruit, sugar, and ice and blends it altogether. However, she only has three flavors, papaya, potato and breadfruit. Yes, you read right, a potato smoothie. Tessa had that one. They were all rich and sweet. We had a good long day, a productive one, and I'm bushed and off to bed.

Haiti - glimpse into the real country - Part 2

Today is day one. Tonight we'll be in Grand Goave in Haiti, ready to build a rubble home for an earthquake-displaced family.

Image from news.bbc.co.uk

 

Me, (Barbara), with my husband, Allan, with Bob, Joan, Rhonda, Tessa, Jackie and Sharon are in-flight. We managed to clear customs, although I wonder what they thought of us traveling with steel pipe, saw blades, screws and other building tools. I've discovered that Miami airport is a gazillion miles long. And naturally, our flight landed at one end and we had to journey to the other end. We took a Skytrain to reach our gate, only to backtrack looking for a restaurant. But TGIFriday's was worth the trek.

The Port-au-Prince airport is a non-delightful version of some 1970s airport in the middle of someplace hot and dusty. And every single person on the flight tried to squeeze out the single door, all at the same time. Beyond were vendors, drivers, families and friends all pressing in on us. We are going to be working with Conscience International, and had been told our trip to Grand Goave will be in the back of a pickup truck. 

But fortunately, a bus, not unlike our old church bus (which we retired due to its poor condition), awaited us. Unfortunately, the bus smelled like burning brake pads. Or a burning transmission. I'm not sure. Thankfully, the driver kept a gallon of water on hand to pour on the brakes should they heat up.

We've met the other group with whom we will be working this week. Seven men, one woman, all from Cliff Temple Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. 

Two of the men had been on this type of mission trip to Haiti before and marveled at the improvement they saw in Port-au-Prince, while I was struck by the level of despair. There were still small cities of tents, uninhabitable buildings, piles of rubble, and so many cars and people. It reminded me of Bolivia, but without the stop signs and traffic lights. Traffic pressed all around us, especially the small pickups with tin walls and roofs colorfully painted, called Tap-taps, because you tap on the roofs when you want the driver to stop. They were brilliantly painted, often with religious symbols and icons. Jackie later noted that these icons seem to be more as talismans than any religious fervor.

It was a long, bumpy ride and the bus filled with dust and the smell of burning brakes. Some of the other team put on dust masks. I'd forgotten how quickly it gets dark in countries close to the equator. We finally arrived, but it was too dark to see much. Our compound seems to be a mishmash of buildings covered areas and tropical trees. The ladies were shown to the house at the front of the property whose main room was turned into a dormitory.

The doors are intricately carved and there are two bathrooms.

We were warned that there was no hot water and only cold showers, but I've discovered that the word cold is relative. In Canada our cold water comes from the ground and at this time of year, it hovers just above freezing. There, the water is stored in a cistern on the roof and exposed to the sun all day, and is more lukewarm than cold.

We were given a meal of rice, spicy brown sauce with veggies, and another sauce made from beans, and small grilled drumsticks. Each of us were given a large glass bottle of Coke, though there were few 7-Up mixed in. 

We had a quick orientation by a tall Haitian named Alex, who claims he loves to laugh. We put our passports and money in the safe and Tessa and I sent quick e-mails, me to my daughter and Tessa to her mother, saying we arrived safely. Just as we hit 'send', the circuit breaker clicked off, and we had to navigate from the office in the dark, through a forest of trees and picnic tables, one filled with people from Cliff Temple who had brought iPads and iPhones and were checking in with their loved ones through the now-unavailable wi-fi. I now have several bruises from hitting the picnic table.

The streets are filled with potholes and rocks and they're incredibly dusty. Many people still live in tin shacks or anything that can provide cover. 

 

We'd crossed over a river on our way here, and it was filled with garbage and various livestock that foraged there. When the rains come later this year this junk will be washed out to sea. 

We are all exhausted, so several of us are already in bed. Such is day one. Tomorrow starts with breakfast at 630 and work at eight.