Why didn’t I stay home? I miss my washing machine, my perfumed body lotion, and lounging around my house, I thought as I walked down the steep, stony hill away from our hotel, dodging huge holes, cars, and mounds of garbage, allelements that inhabited the street at the same time.
I was in the middle of Haiti, a third world country, for crying out loud. It was my Winter Recess, my time that I could be using to rest and do absolutely nothing before classes began again.
But it was a time that I, along with four other students from Fairfield, used to partake in a weeklong Global Outreach program sponsored by Campus Ministry. Accustomed to the same time zone as my family, friends and everyday life, my reality for that week was drastically different from anything I have known.
The small portable alarm clock had woken me up at 6 that morning, before the sun had completely risen, but after the city lights and electricity of Cap Haitian had already been turned off to conserve energy during the day. Groggily I had put my muddy clothes back on, which were still damp from the rain and the sweat the day before, and I began to ready myself for a full day.
We headed in the direction of the Asile, a hospital shelter established by the Brothers of the Poor to care for the disabled, the very elderly, the mentally handicapped—anyone who regular society refused to accept. There, while the beds were being washed and linens changed, the elderly people would sit on the porch and recite along with the overhead speaker the morning prayer, would mingle with each other, and open their hands for us to shake as we approached.
While the boys in my Outreach group were selected to wash the older patients, I was allowed to play with the children of the Asile. An exciting thing for me, as a female who is sensitive to the struggles of my gender, was that there were girls at the Asile, both as patients and workers. The other two programs where we split our time during our trip only accepted boys, because of the social conditions in Haiti.
Girls in Haiti are generally sold to other families as “restaveks,” (meaning “to stay with”) to essentially act as house slaves. While a life on the streets is not desirable by any means, this is at least an option to males and offers them a bit of freedom and independence, while girls are virtually enslaved by other families. In this respect, it was nice to see these little girls at the Asile in general, but to also see them working at an established place that wouldn’t exploit them.
Like the older patients, all the children here were so excited to see our group, and were fascinated by anything we brought with us, even something as minute as a watch. They grabbed the sunglasses off my head, the watch from my wrist, if only to investigate them and then parade around the grounds with it, as a token of being cool. The children loved being picked up, spun around, and given piggy-back rides like any child, and they surrounded us, arms outstretched waiting for their turn.
One boy, who the children nicknamed Tet (meaning “Head” in French), simply sat in a white wooden chair, head downcast and arms falling over the side. His head was significantly larger than the other children due to a disease he had. He looked so lonely that I went over to him, and knowing that the children received a thrill out of my sunglasses, I bent my head down for him to grab them.
He wasn’t sure what to do, so another boy came over and grabbed them for Tet. He had such a contagious giggle, I laughed along with him. Each time he peeped, I was filled with such a powerful sense of accomplishment and happiness that I could transform a downcast little boy into a giggling child.
After our work at the Asile, we walked down the streets of Cap Haitian, and were met with cold stares from the passing villagers. The air was filled with the sound of small exclamations of “Blanc! Blanc!” (“White! White!”), as the passing children would point and smile and laugh at us. Some children didn’t know what to do with our presence and would stare wide-eyed at us passing, but would giggle and sheepishly smile when we waved at them.
Later that day we attended 13th Street, a program run by Andy Schulteis and Doug Perlitz, who is a Fairfield graduate and has been working in Haiti for the last six years. It offers an opportunity for street boys to shower, eat, and attend an afternoon school, because they do not have the money for the uniforms and books necessary to attend regular school. About 30 boys whose ages range from 8 to 20 years old attend the 13th Street program.
While we knew no Creole and our French was limited, we were able to help the boys in their classes with math and drawing and whatever else we could communicate.
These boys are called “sanguine” by the local people, which translates into “ones without a soul”. These boys that would run up to us and hug us, that would bring us into their world, that would share virtually all that they had with us, these boys were considered less than human only because of their economic and social standing. They were stared at, harassed, one boy’s head was even smacked up against a passing pick up truck as we walked them down the street.
We walked with at least one boy at each side, their arms around us. In the face of opposition, these children would grasp our hands a little tighter, but would hold their heads a little higher when walking with us. We gave them confidence because we showed them that we believed in them, and they gave us confidence because we could feel the love they had for us.
At the end of the week as I was returning home to JFK airport, where the lights in that one port outnumber those in all of Cap Haitian, the question that had plagued me at the beginning of my trip and my story was surely answered. Nothing that I could have done in that week at home would have filled me with the same sense of awareness, accomplishment, and ultimate love that the week in Haiti had. The question that was now being asked in my head was why didn’t I do this sooner?
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