CRS Shelters

The run-off election between Martelly and Manigot was held this past weekend.  I didn’t hear anything about excessive violence or corruption and apart from some difficulties with the voting process it appears to have gone well.  The preliminary results will be released on March 31st and the final results on April 16th (my birthday!).  Hopefully things stay calm when the results are released but I’m doubtful they will.

CRS resumed building shelters yesterday and as of today they’ve constructed a total of and will continue to build four a day.  They’re building 200 to start and if things continue to progress well they are planning on building even more.  I’m not exactly sure on the plans, all the meetings have been in Creole, but I think they plan on building a 1000 more shelters and ten schools if they are able to continue.  The houses are only given to people living in the camp so this project is going to drastically reduce the camp’s size; the first 200 shelters will remove between 800-1000 people.  I’ve posted pictures of the camp from today and as the project progresses I’ll continue to post pictures; the camp should noticeably reduce in size if no new people move in.

The Project Coordinator Micheline (you’ll see her in one of the pictures) is the right person to be tackling a project of this magnitude in an area as difficult as Solino.  This entire project has been a fight for her and her love for the Haitian people really showed through on the first day of building.  She couldn’t contain her excitement as the first shipment of wood was brought into Solino; it was by far the happiest I’ve seen her.  I’m  happy to be playing the virtually non-existent role I’ve personally had in this project and hopefully as I learn more Creole I can be more involved.  It’s going to amazing to see the camp slowly decrease in size as people are moved out.

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Hope everyone back in the states is doing well!  Thanks for all of your comments and support, it’s great to hear from all of you.

Anpil Bagay (Many Things)

It’s been a busy week here in Port-au-Prince. My ESL course ended last week and a lot of my time has been spent preparing for the class beginning on March 30th. The problems in Carcasse set the first ESL course off to a late, disorganized start which caused problems throughout the entire course. This time around things are well-organized and everything is going smoothly. We learned from the mistakes we made in the first class and the next course is off to a good start.

Even though I’m not teaching I’ve been spending just as much time in the classroom. We created a placement test; testing 28 students who sporadically show up over the course of two weeks is time-consuming.  22 of these students are able to take the course.  Only six of these students are able to attend class in the morning so we moved both classes to the afternoon. Since the ESL class is primarily my responsibility I had to tell these students they would not be able to talk the course. This was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in Haiti.  I felt awful but neither Eric, who’s going to be teaching the other class, or I have time to teach two classes a day.

Remarkably, we easily split the remaining 22 students into two 11 person classes. The advanced class is composed entirely of men between the ages of 21-31. Eric is teaching this class because he doesn’t speak any Creole yet and he wont need to with that class. Five of his students (four of them my old students) can converse at a high level and can translate for students who are struggling. So this leaves me to teach the beginners class.  Teaching this class is definitely going to be an interesting experience. Only one student can converse at all; the rest know nothing more than a couple memorized phrases and some basic grammar.  This means I’ll have to explain thing in Creole on a regular basis.  I can hold simple conversations in Creole and follow a conversation but teaching is going to test my speaking.  My class has eight girls and three guys. Five of them are 21-24 years old, two girls and all three guys, and the other six girls are between the ages of 12-16. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to deal with this age gap but I’ll think of something.  I’m going to have to organize this class much differently than my first class.

In other news, CRS constructed their first four shelters on Wednesday. It was an exciting day; Micheline, the project coordinator, was beyond ecstatic. It was impossible not to get caught up in her emotion as she proudly shouted things in Creole from the back of a pick up truck driving down the market street as the supplies were delivered. She fought tooth and nail to get this project approved and it means the world to her that it finally has begun. I’ll post pictures and go into more detail about CRS tomorrow.

After I spent the morning with CRS on Wednesday, Sebastian, Shannon, Reginald, and I went next door to the Missionaries of Charity. The Missionaries of Charity are a group of religious sisters who’ve been in Solino for (I think) around 20 years. They have an entire building dedicated to housing the sick and we spent about an hour visiting the floor for girls and women. They have patients ranging from 5-75+ years old and most of them have Tuberculosis.  Apparently Wednesday is one of the days families are allowed to visit so I spent a majority of my time talking to patients with no visitors.

The female TB patients are primarily between the ages of 18-30. Seeing so many beautiful, sweet, young women suffering is a brutal reminder of the fragility of life even in our prime. Despite their pain many still had eyes filled with hope and a warm smile when I stopped to talk to them. They were patient as we talked in Creole and they laughed with me as I repeatedly confused my foreign languages and used Spanish words. The little girls, like all the children I’ve met in Haiti, had big smiles and laughed the entire time we played dominoes with them. The children too shy to talk always make me smile. They just stare at you with big eyes giggling uncontrollably never answering a question. A small number of these women have slipped into a state of despair, misery, and depression. There eyes are glossed and completely void of life.  Most of them didn’t respond when I talked to them; they just looked at me then went back to staring into space.  I can’t begin to describe the emotional affect the girls in this state had on me.

The Haitian people have secured a place in my heart and being able to converse with them makes my love for them continue to grow. I find myself enjoying Haiti more each day; the simplicity of life here is oddly comforting.  My perspective on life is constantly changing for the better here enabling me to look at the things I’ve learned throughout my life in a new light.  This has helped me to better understand subjects, ideas, and concepts that I stopped thinking about long ago.

One of the biggest changes I’ve noticed is how much my understanding of foreign languages has increased. I had an “Aha!” moment recently and all at once realized the best way for me to study and analyze languages. This realization pushed me past a plateau I was stuck on and I’ve been learning at an incredible rate since then.

Overall it’s been a good week. Sebastian, Shannon (two new members of the community) and I get along great and they make life here more a lot more fun. I’m not quite sure how, but we manage to have conversations despite the language barrier; Shannon speaks absolutely no Spanish, Sebastian speaks very little English, and I know nothing more than the basics of Spanish.  We manage to make it work. Sebastian and I are similar in a lot of ways and I badly want to have a normal conversation with him but the language situation makes a normal conversation impossible. As frustrating as this is it gives me extra motivation to study Spanish while I’m here.

The longer I stay in Haiti the less I want to leave. I have such a greater sense of purpose and belonging here than in the US. I’m planning on staying her for an extra three weeks; I’m learning so much each day I want to squeeze the maximum possible days out of this experience. I’ll have finished teaching by then and I’ll be able to converse comfortably in Creole. I’ll be able to accomplish a lot in these last few weeks.

Blaring music, barking dogs, the faint murmuring of voices.  Sitting here listening to these sounds of Solino I’ve grown to love I know I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.  If I could I’d stay here the entire summer.

 

A Walk Through Solino

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Monday-Thursday of this week I spent walking through Solino with CRS looking for crumbled houses.  I’ve mentioned the poverty and destruction of Solino a couple times and finally I have some pictures to show everyone; words just can’t accurately express Solino.

What I haven’t mentioned is the canal filled with trash you see in the pictures.  As I said before, most of Port-au-Prince doesn’t have trash removal, the canal is where most of the trash in Solino goes.  CRS cleaned the canal roughly a year ago but, as you can see, this didn’t stop the people from continuing to throw their trash in it.  Until the mentality about littering changes and there is a sanitation system in place cleaning the canal is futile.

Also, the pig in the canal is by far the biggest pig I have ever seen; it has plenty to eat that’s for sure.

Children of Solino

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For the past four days I have walked around Solino with CRS. My favorite part has been interacting with all the kids running around. They find foreigners incredibly fascinating and it takes nothing more than a smile and wave to get almost any kid to laugh; it makes there day when we talk and play with them. It continues to astound me how these kids can be so full of life in such terrible circumstances. They all have beautiful smiles that somehow manage to make you forget the circumstances they are living in, even if only for a moment.

I’d write more but my computer is going to die any minute and I don’t have access to a charger at this point. I’ll continue to post pictures from my walks with CRS over the next couple days.

Also, I’d like to thank the Saratogian (For those who don’t know it’s Saratoga Spring’s local newspaper) for posting my blog on their website.  Your support is greatly appreciated.  Hope everyone who finds my blog this way enjoys my posts!

While I’m at it I’d like to thank everyone else who has been reading my blog and all your positive comments.  It means a lot to know you’ve been enjoying my ramblings!

(Note: The picture that doesn’t have any kids in it was taken by a little girl I let take a picture with my camera.  The smiling women in the picture is her Mom.)

You Live in Solino…Why?

(Note I wrote this yesterday but my computer died before I could post it.  I’ll try and write a post about my experiences today with CRS soon.)

“You Live in Solino… Why?” This is the reaction of many people when told our community is located in Solino. Solino is considered the second most dangerous area of Port-au-Prince; only Citè Sole has more crime. We are one of the fist NGO’s to set up a community in Solino, other organizations have tried but most have left. At first it seemed odd that a small organization would take on such a huge responsibility but actually it is our size that makes it possible for us to be here. The people of Solino have high expectations for large NGO’s and when these expectations are not met the people often get violent. It also helps that we are a Catholic organization; Haitians have incredible respect for priests and other religious figures and this is part of the reason we have not had any problems.

This situation can be frustrating at times because we have limited interaction with the 6,500 person tent community literally right outside our door. We may be a small NGO but people still have a certain expectations of us. For example, yesterday Jared (a member of the Community from Kansas) and I did some work in the garden and after bought a soda from a shop in a tent right outside our gate. We stayed and talked to the shopkeeper for a while and during the conversation she said “Poukisa Pè Scott pa bay nou manje?” (Why does Father Scott not give us food?). I wanted to point out that her asking the question is the exact reason we can’t, but instead I shrugged my shoulders and pretended not to understand. Sadly, if we give her food then the 6,499 other people living in the tents would come demanding food. We are nowhere near large enough to deal with something like that.

We’ve been making progress and are beginning to work with the people of Solino. We are working with CRS who tomorrow will begin a housing project in Solino. I’m not exactly sure what our role in this project is going to be; right now our main contribution is allowing them to use our community as an office and safe place in Solino. It doesn’t seem like much but us being here is the only reason they are able to work in Solino. They attempted a project here 8 months ago but left after things became dangerous; this is their first time back. They’re locating crumbled buildings in Solino, hiring locals to clear the rubble, and then building houses in its place for people living in tents. These will not be permanent houses but they will help prevent tent cities from turning into slums and give jobs even if only for a short time.

Our collaboration with CRS finally has allowed us to go out and see Solino first hand. A week ago members from our community and workers from CRS were given a tour of Solino by local Haitians. There were probably fifteen of us in all; it must have been quite a site seeing twelve foreigners parading around the back streets of Solino. We walked around “Ti Cheri” and identified a number of crumbled buildings that could be replaced. The back streets of Haiti are like nothing I ever imagined; thin dark alleyways big enough for a single person, reeking of sewage, and people packed into buildings like sardines. Almost no sunlight reaches these houses because they are so close together, the paths are jagged and broken, and at some points the paths are so steep you have to side step down clutching the wall for support. It don’t understand how people can live in these conditions; it’s absolutely horrendous.

I’ve forced myself to stop focusing on the conditions these people live in and instead focus on the people themselves. Walking through these dark alleys its amazing how much life there still is among these people; especially the children. They laugh and play just like children anywhere else in the world and they think foreigners are incredibly fascinating. Walking by one of kids will shout “Blanc!” (meaning white but it’s used to refer to any foreigner) and a whole group of giggling kids will appear. They think its hilarious when we try to speak creole with them and its sure to make them smile when we speak poorly.

After my experience walking around tomorrow I’ll write another post about Ti Cheri.