A RECENT HAITI EXPERIENCE

By Jack Williams

18 March 2010

As soon as I saw this five year old Haitian girl and took her hand in mine, I knew I was in the right place doing the right thing. This is something I’ve noticed over the years; that there are some people in this world (adults and children) with whom I am immediately drawn to and feel like I know from the moment I see them. This girl was one of those people. She only had to take my hand and I knew her and knew that for some reason she had captured my heart. I had been invited to Haiti and would stay there for a month on invitation from Rebecca Maesato, principal and founder of the Foundation for Children in Need (http://www.childreninneed.us ), to assist in rebuilding an orphanage that had been ravaged by the January 12 Haiti earthquake.

This child was one of many orphans and displaced children I had seen that morning. There are about fifty children in the facility called Infants of Jesus Orphanage located near the center of the earthquake ravaged city of Port Au Prince, Haiti. Most of the children are orphans, but some of them are children who had been deposited there by one or more parents who were not able to take care of them for one reason or another. Many of the children crowded around me as I approached them, as they did the others who were with me on this expedition. Only two other children connected with me like this little child who came and took my hand. I would learn later that her name was Sufferance (quite an appropriate, but strange name for this helpless child). I never learned her last name or much of anything else about her except that she was very shy, and that she had no parents. Another girl named Chantiel later connected with me much in the same way as Sufferance and as I got to know here I learned that she wanted to go to school and wondered if there was any way I could help her. She was nine years old, and had no parents either.

It was striking to me over the next month as I visited and revisited the orphanage day after day how I learned to love these children and the orphanage staff. Every time I came there I could be sure those two would seek me out, and that if that didn’t happen in the first few minutes of my visit I would be looking for them. But in one way or another, on every visit, they and I connected.

Neither Sufferance nor Chantiel spoke English, nor did I speak any of their languages (they spoke French and Creole), but we were still able to communicate. If I was sitting down I could be sure that one or the other would be sitting on my lap sooner or later jabbering to me while I talked to her. It didn’t matter at all that neither of us understood each other, we were still communicating and getting to know each other. It was only through an interpreter that I learned their ages and the things they told me about their families, being lonely and wanting to be able to go to school. After I had been there a few days a little 3 year old boy joined forces with me and continually sought me out when I was in the orphanage. His connection with me was not as strong as it was with the girls, but I enjoyed his company and his need for me just as much. As the construction project was finishing, I took time to show some of the older boys how to use scrap wire to make wire toys like I had seen in Africa. On one occasion, some of these same boys taught me how to make the simple kites they make in Haiti, while I showed them how to build a U.S. type diamond-shaped kite and a box kite. As we had a good March wind that day I flew the kites with the boys and enjoyed being a kid again.

There’s a strong and luxuriant power in what I had with these children in the same way that I have had in similar situations with other people over the years. I have heard descriptions of such phenomena like “aura,” “soul mate,” and such, and I am sure at some level they are accurate, but to me it is more than those simple descriptions. It goes further than that. It is like I am feeling full; that there is some unearthly power that is being manifest that is pulling us together and bringing this connection about. I see no value, however, in attempting to analyze this special feeling. It’s alright with me that it exists and that the gift is mine to enjoy. For me it is something tangible that I can believe in, hold on to, and feel within myself. I know too, that in this receiving like the connection I felt with these three children, there is an element of giving, as I could see the happiness in their actions and in their eyes.

All this was possible because of a dear friend of mine, Leah Hullinger, whom I had come to know in 2004 in Ethiopia. We worked together for four months on a humanitarian project as Fellows for the NGO Ascend Alliance. On about February 3rd of this year, I received a Face Book message from Leah which I quote: “I know this is very short notice, but would you be able to travel to Haiti with my mom for a week, leaving this [next] Monday?” That Monday was only four days away. After reading a little more of the details of this message I knew it was something I had to do and wanted to do as well. I didn’t leave exactly on that Monday, but I was on my way to Haiti the following week on the 15^th. On this trip to Haiti, which lasted almost exactly one month instead of the initial proposed one week, I traveled with Leah’s mom, Rebecca Maesato, with whom I would also be working. Among other things the major focus on the project was to rebuild a wall that had fallen down that surrounded the orphanage.

As most people know by now, Port Au Prince Haiti was hit by a massive earthquake on January 12, which killed over 200,000 people and left the city in ruins, uprooting hundreds of thousands of people who now live in tent cities and hovels made from tin, tarpaulins and any other materials they can find to make shelters. My first week in the city involved getting acquainted with the project at hand, calculating the equipment and supply needs, and beginning the purchase of some of the critical supplies we would need to start the project. That week was a nightmare of movement about the city, attempting to find vendors who could supply and deliver the materials and supplies and finding ways to haul those supplies to the orphanage. We had to have the materials on site by the next Saturday, only four days from when I got there, so that the masons and general contractors who were coming from the U.S. would be able to start without delay.

As I had expected, getting quality concrete block, washed sand and graded clean gravel was an extreme problem.Most construction throughout the city, I found to my chagrin, was done with inferior materials and incidentally, in my opinion, was a major factor in the destruction of many of the buildings and walls in the city. Everywhere I looked I could see from the rubble that lay on the ground from commercial and residential properties that low quality materials were used in the construction. After many tries, however, I was able to get most of the material I wanted in the quality standard I had hoped for. One glaring example that I was never able to resolve, was the fact that I could not find any quicklime, or calcium oxide that could be mixed with the cement and sand to make proper lime mortar for the blocks. So the masons we had come from the States were continually frustrated because the mortar mix they were able to make would not stick to the bricks. As a result, the entire wall was made with a modified method of laying the blocks with no mortar in the vertical joint. They did partially mitigate that problem by laying vertical and horizontal rebar in the block courses to strengthen the wall.

There were still things to buy and to be delivered when the 10 masons and general contractors arrived. Much of the block had been purchased but not delivered—same with sand and gravel. Not all the cement we needed was on site and the first day we still did not have a concrete mixer. We found a neighbor who had one, however, and hired the unit he had along with an operator that was required by him. On the second day the men were on board, one of them went to the Caterpillar dealer in the city and rented a backhoe so that the debris from the wall and fallen buildings could be gathered up and moved to a giant pile. The orphanage director wanted to keep the debris so that it could be used for fill in a low spot in the 2-acre plot that on which the orphanage was built.

The men worked hard throughout the week enlisting the help of some local masons and laborers. By a chance while we were buying some materials at one of the hardware stores we ran into a contingent of U.S. Army people. After talking to them briefly, we learned that they were not very busy and would like to come to the orphanage to work with our people if that were possible. We set up a meeting on site with them for the following Wednesday. They came and brought their commanding officer who approved the Army’s participation and the group came back in force with about 20 people two days later. They loved being there, worked hard on the cleanup and building project and spent a lot of time with the children.

I must mention that our U.S. masons and general contractors spent all of their spare time holding and playing with the children in the orphanage. Many cried when they had to leave when their work was done. In that short week that they were on site they did an amazing lot of work, but they also developed some very special bonds with the children. The Army people came back two more times, each time spending time with the children, handing out food and clothing and other supplies and giving the children the hugs and love they so desperately needed.

During that second week we were surprised to see other NGO groups come to the orphanage handing out food and other supplies to the orphans. On one of the days a small contingent of Navy people and Embassy officers from Brazil came to the site with a truck load of food and ten large tents that they set up for the children. That was an awfully nice gesture on their part as one of the critical needs of the orphanage, since several of their sleeping quarters had been destroyed in the quake, was to have some place where the children would not have to sleep on the ground in the open or under tarpaulins. The Brazilians also brought several dozen foam mattresses that could be used in the new tents.

My third and forth weeks in the city entailed working with Becky to get the guest house that she had rented ready for an oncoming expedition of 10 women and one man. They arrived the day after the men from U.S. left, so we were very busy getting the basics done like purchasing food, chairs and foam cushions for the visitors. We got most of what we needed, but there were several things around the big house that needed to be done. Namely there were tables that needed to be built and shelves attached to walls. Outside we had to buy more batteries for the inverter system and purchase a good generator. For the kitchen there was a stove, refrigerator and freezer that Becky purchased the first day that the group arrived. I was mostly involved in the building operations with new tools that the women brought from the States, so I didn’t spend much time with them. But as it had been the first two weeks, transportation around the city was the most nagging issue and purchasing what we needed for the house and feeding the volunteers was about second on the list.

There are many more things I could say about the logistics of my trip to Haiti, but what I came back with was to me more important. While there I had a good look at that power of these small children we saw in three of the orphanages we visited. Every time I went to one of these places I got the strangest feeling that I was among god-like people who almost glowed with some strange force that touched me inside. It was more than hearing their sad stories and the reasons they were in the orphanage. It was more than giving them the hugs and love that they so badly needed. It seemed to me that when I was in their presence I was with them inside in a place that gave me strength and nurtured my soul. I was touched by these children of many ages, including the three twenty-some year old boys that were part of the contingent that Becky had brought off the streets many years ago who accompanied us on all of our work and travels throughout the city. I came away from Haiti on the 15^th of March 2010 a different person than what I was when I arrived. I don’t suppose that I will ever understand the full nature of that experience, and I don’t really care. It was enough just recognizing it.