Three Days and Two Nights, Part 2

The rural night was much more quiet than in the city! However, I did not have any idea what a horrible noise donkeys make (and why hasn't someone taken the time to train Haitian animals, that when the sun goes down, it's time to BE QUIET?!). Oh my goodness, you'd think someone was killing them!

But awake we were, with a cheerful chorus of roosters and children's sleepy voices at 5:30. Days start and end so early, but it feels natural. The body feels rested and ready to get going again with the sun. We chatted about crazy dreams, and noises we heard in the night, and whether or not we should make a quick trek to the toilet. We did, and our little friend was sitting on his chair, just like yesterday, like a doorman. We commented on the morning air, how we were relishing the early morning cool, knowing it would heat up fast.

Coming back, Yrma was already making breakfast for the masses. What a woman she is. In over 23 years of helping her brother as head caregiver to the children at Val Children's, she has never had a day off. The only time she gets away from the kids is when she is at the market buying food for them! I promptly told Pastor Val that I wanted to have her come and stay with me in the States for a week just to have a little vacation!

She rustled up some spaghetti and spam for us adults and brought it into the dining room. Pastor Val joined us after a while, and she brought coffee, too. We enjoyed the strong and very sweet brew, then started in on the crazy breakfast items. I'm not even hungry until 10 or so each day, so it was all I could do to honor her efforts and try to eat the massive amounts of food she gave us.

While Abby wandered with her camera, I pulled out my "To Do" list and had a meeting with Pastor Val. We talked through all the questions I had about child sponsorship, the possibility of adoptions, rebuilding the orphanage, the new truck. I showed him the drawings from the architect for the living quarters, to give him an idea of what it might look like. He lit up and said he liked it very much. I explained to him about getting things ready in Haiti for the building: the septic placement (do they even have septic systems?), the possibility of electrical service sans a generator, the pouring of a concrete slab foundation. The term, "anti-seismic" came up a lot - Pastor Val wants to be sure of the building's safety in the event of another serious quake. Everybody's jittery about that these days, understandably.


As we finished, the children's breakfast was ready. I provided a meager amount of assistance by setting the table and trying to scrounge up enough spoons and forks so that everyone had their own utensil. Miraculous piles of food filled each child's plate, and they eagerly sat down and ate it all, even the two-year olds.

My next task was to try and get down everyone's name, age and interests. I snapped a photo of their face, then quickly asked for names, trying to keep it in order so I could figure out who was who when I got home. Of course, even though I didn't collect all 50 kids at once, there was pandemonium as we started this process. When you ask a child his name, he gives you the whole name, front and back, and it's very difficult to understand. So I tried just asking for their "prenom" thinking that was their first name. Sometimes that worked, but often with all the other kids shouting what they thought I wanted, I got both names or the wrong name. So I started to let the older ones write theirs. Dismal failure. It just got more and more chaotic.

(It reminded me of the photo Abby took of Jon when they were there trying to do the same thing three years ago - he's sitting in a chair, elbows on his knees, with his hands over his ears. A solitary child, holding a name card is posing nearby looking forlorn. I just wanted to sit down and put my hands over my ears, too! And I'm a mom! I can't imagine the frustration a twenty-year-old college boy must have felt!)

So eventually this happened:


He obviously has them eating out of his hand, and they mind him and do what he asks of them. They all call him "Pappi." So sweet. But we got our names (of course when I got home, my memory card was corrupted, and they were all out of order!). And I learned some things along the way: Alada wants to be a nurse, Suzena is very responsible for a 13 year old, Stanley, at 12 is a gifted drummer, and sometimes children you think are boys are really girls. :)

Dinah (pronounced "Dee-nah") is one such girl. She is four years old, and has very short hair, unlike the other girls with braids and colorful bows. She had on a pair of boy's overalls, unsnapped at the bottom (probably b/c they were made for a one-year-old) to look like a dress, but I didn't catch on. I was thrown off by the hair. She was so quiet that other kids had to tell me her name, and even then I didn't get it that Dinah was a girl. I was trying all my tricks to get her to talk to me, and let me discern her gender. Eventually, I just asked the other kids, "femme ou garcon?" They all shouted "femme! femme!" I hope I didn't hurt her feelings, but through all that, I was really drawn to Dinah, and made sure I gave her my attention whenever I was around her. I drew her up on my lap and read a book to her. I think it might have been her first time. She kept looking at my face, and not so much at the book. Her mouth was always slightly open, but never smiling. She rarely interacted with other kids; she stayed to the sidelines and watched. I don't know her story - maybe she is just very shy; or maybe she had just arrived at the orphanage, and has had some awful emotional trauma. Nonetheless, I pray for her almost daily now.

Of course, there are the kids that are just so much fun, and always make friends with you: Woosvely and Litteley are a brother-sister dynamic duo, actually Yrma's grandchildren; always-smiling Kenly, who has so much hope in his eyes, like at any minute he's going to tell you he knows some world-changing secret; and chubby-cheeked two-year old Kenzli (who fell asleep in my lap later that night). Many others, too... beautiful sisters Doudley and Rebecca, too-cool-for-school Robinson, and that really flirty 13 year old boy, oh, what's his name? "I love you, you are beautiful." In English. So much confidence.

Abby and I decided for some crazy reason we wanted to take a walk (at noon!) up into the hills. So we told Pastor Val that we only wanted to take a few kids with us, and maybe an adult. So we hiked off with Eloud, 27, and Woosvely and Littleley. It was SO hot, but we thought, "if we're going to be sweaty, we might as well get sweaty doing something fun." Although the sun was intense, there were breezes and it wasn't so bad. We ended up under a mango tree for shade, and Eloud had the bright idea to knock some down for a snack. There were no fences, and no clear de-markation of property lines. I know that tree had to belong to someone, but there were so many mangoes! We each ate one, and quickly realized how sticky we were. Eloud wandered off and came back with a small cup of water for washing off.

In a few minutes, the most beautiful man I have ever seen walked up to us with his arms full of mangoes. He was about 80 years old, only wearing a straw hat and a tattered pair of long shorts, and had a lean and chiseled dark brown body. He looked like an exquisite mahogany carving. He was so generous with his fruit. He gladly gave us about 10 mangoes even though we had just stolen 5 from his tree! He sat down nearby. I asked if I could take his photo, and he willingly agreed. Here he is, Sereme Dubraes:


When we returned from our walk, we spent the rest of the day playing with the children, resting from the heat, and just being generally unproductive. As the afternoon wore on, we ate another meal, and then escaped alone up into the hills for a quiet walk, while the kids ate their dinner. But we were discovered, and before we knew it, we had 40 companions. All but the smallest children were up on that mountain before you could say, "Hey you!" (which by the way, is what every child and teenager says to you if you're white!) We lied and told them we were walking to Jacmel, and they took us seriously. Then it was a chore to convince them otherwise and that it was getting dark and we had to go home. The sudden realization that we were responsible for forty 5-14 year olds was a little scary!

It was almost dark when we got back, and this is usually the signal to go to the tents for bedtime. But we got to singing with a lantern around the picnic tables, and it went on and on. There is a popular song in Haiti right now, that is actually like a public service announcement about going to school. The words in English are something along the lines of, "My little school, my beautiful school, I like it a lot, a lot. Don't sit at home! Go to school!" But the loud line is the don't-sit-at-home line, and they shout it while wagging their hand, "Pa chita la kay! Pa chita la kay!" So I bet we sang that song for thirty straight minutes! I think we were singing in the dark with my little camping lantern till 9:30, which is way past normal bedtime of seven or so! That's when Kenzli fell asleep on my lap.

I was in Heaven.