Waldy

These are thoughts I have debated about sharing.

This was the scene in my house this weekend. Roselie and her son Waldy.
I could only imagine as a mother the feelings that must have been going on in her heart.

Waldy lives with Roselies sisters and their children about 4 hours from here.

Roselie has lived around here for quite a while since Port au Prince is where the work is. 

Waldy's dad was killed in the earthquake, so she must provide for them.

She visits about once a month to give her sisters money for Waldy to go to school and eat. 

But, here is the thing. Waldy is a few months older than TJ, six years old, he weighs 35 lbs. For a comparison our 6 year old (whom in all fairness is our most solid kid) weighs 52lbs. Our 3 year olds weigh about 30 lbs. 

This child is skin and bones. He is chronically malnourished and acutely very ill. 

His labs are awful, to look at him is appalling.

But, what to me is the most appealing is that we are here wanting to help and trying to help and right here under our nose is perhaps the sickest most poorly treated kid of them all. 

We tried to talk Roselie into letting him live with all of us when we first got here, but she said he was at school and could not leave.

So, here is the thing. When I started asking her today if he was being treated well, she said she did not think so. Yet, she is hoping to come home with us. 

She wants to come home with us, we want her to come home with us. He would never get a Visa, it is very questionable if she will even. 

I asked her if he would be okay if she was not in the country. She said she did not know. 

I told her we could help her if she stayed here and lived with him

she said that while she did not know if he would be okay here, she did know that without the opportunities the US has to offer her she knows they will never have a future here. 

The sad thing is that she is right. 

Today I do not like this country, I do not like the lack of opportunity for good people like Roselie and Johnny. I do not like that they really do have to "get out" in order to survive here. 

And I do not like that this mother that I have come to love like a sister sat in her room with her baby on her lap all day crying about the choices she has to make. 

But, choices have to be made and so after two days of in home treatment with antibiotics for one thing, antiparasitic for another thing, Malaria treatment and IV's it was decided that one sister would take him back home to the other sister whom he has know as "Mom" since he was 5 months old. 

(On a side note, IS and Justin helped me put the IV's in and did awesome, I was so proud!)

The Apparent Project

Some of the most inspiring people we have met here are the Clays. Shelly came to Haiti to adopt and in her own words, saw a large problem with her spending 20K to adopt from Haiti a child whose mother had to give them up because they did not have money to feed them. So she started the Apparent Project. 

Their mission-

Through our artisans' program, educational programs, and relief work we are dedicated to:

Helping parents rise out of extreme poverty in order to keep their children

Responding to Haiti's orphan crisis and the needs of parentless children

Making the needs of Haiti apparent to potential helpers through media & the arts

Inspiring adoration of our loving Father God with hope that one day he will be apparent to all.

I hardly know this woman and yet I could not agree more with her or her mission.

 

Since beginning her journey she now sells to Donna Karen, she her latest catalog in the picture below. She has visits from people like Bill Clinton and Oprah . People come to visit Haiti and write Articles about her. 

She is such a testament to me that with Faith, and a Vision God makes miracles happen.

The merchandise. Jewelry galore. 

Burlap bags.

One of the work rooms. The artisans can bring their children with them to work. The women in the background are sewing. 

More artisans.

Where it all starts. Cardboard boxes, etc. When I get home I will start collecting your empty cereal boxes to ship, or better yet hand deliver myself, so if you live near us. Please start collecting!

The process. They cut the cereal boxes into long triangle shapes.

They then roll each triangle to create a "bead" which are glued and dried on skewers.

A whole bunch of beautiful beads drying on skewers.

Women sitting putting the jewelery together. 

Some of the finished product. This is the slew that I bought. My goal would be to come home and sell it to raise money for our feeding clinic and also to give some back to Apparent Project, because I think their mission is truly inspiring. 

So let me know if you see something interesting that you would love to buy!

Respire Haiti

Respire Haiti. I have been wanting to write about this organization since we first met them back in March. I have had this post sitting in my draft box because I knew I just could not do it justice.
The woman/girl (she is 24) who started it, Megan Boudreaux, is amazing beyond words. Of any of the things I would suggest you read her blog is top on the list. She has amazing insight and puts beautiful words to a lot of the feelings we have had here in Haiti.
Long story short, she is a 24 year old girl who has moved to Haiti indefinently, built and started a school and kindergarten, a feeding program, a clinic and has MANY other things they are working on. She is AMAZING and inspiring beyond words.
The school they build;

The Kindergarten currently, they are in the process of building one that is like the grade school they already build

The inside of one of the classrooms, complete with desks, chalk board and decorations. By far the nicest schoolrooms we have seen here.Some of the kids checking out the "Timoun Blan" (white children). Wherever we go the kids have a beehive effect with a bunch of Haitian children following them around. And apparently white 2-3 years olds should not be walking as they are constantly being carried.
The boys at the feeding clinic hanging out with some of the kids.
One of their two feeding clinics, they help to support. What I love is that while they do supply the food and pay the cooks the local people run the clinic and preach the message and everything. This one is done on the hill by their school.
At this particular clinic they are still working on building the kitchen so the food is cooked off site and then served from the back of a tap tap.

GLA

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

We have had the opportunity to meet so many amazing people while in Haiti. I have talked about some of the Haitians and I really need to write about some of the expats here. I have been struggling with how to tell other peoples stories, so I decided to just tell you my interaction with them and you can link to their websites to learn more if you so desire. Most of the people I want to tell you about have relocated their whole lives to Haiti and are now here serving with and working with the people of Haiti to help make their lives better. 

The first organization I wanted to talk about is God's Littlest Angels. It is an orphanage up in the mountains above our home and it is amazing. I have known it was amazing every since I first set foot in there, but this week I was able to go with Adrah and do a PT eval at the toddler house. 

I think it is one thing to do babies well, it is a whole other thing to do school age children and the terrible twos and threes well. And they are doing VERY well. They have a school on site, a huge playground, computer lab etc. This is one well run organization.  

IS with one of the little girls who probably should have been napping

They have clean, well painted, cute rooms with nice beds and their own stuff

A few days ago another local orphanage was shut down due to the conditions. GLA took 23 of the kids in. Two of the children were so covered in rat bites that they had to be hospitalized right away. Here are the children having their afternoon nap. They are in the process of trying to figure out what to do with them permanently but in the mean time they are doing a beautiful job with what they were given. 

They have a great US style NICU. I mean a real isolette and CPAP and everything. Adrah got a picture I will post later. 

Tent City Nursing

Saturday Rachel and I were able to go out to the city of Kanaan again and do a medical clinic. It is always a humbling experience to "play a  doctor on TV". Luckily the patients are pre-screened and most people are there with colds or allergies (imagine living in a dust filled tent). On Saturday we saw 33 people. It was a busy day. Awaken Haiti tries to run the clinic when they have teams in. Most of the teams help with the building and the rest help in the clinic. One time there was even another medical person there that was great. 

This is the view from the "clinic" (they are going to begin construction on a real clinic in June.  Until then, we use one of their houses they are currently constructing). The house pictured is one of the nicer houses as it has a tin roof. That is really great as we are not in rainy season. You can not believe some of the houses in these tent cities. 

This is the inside of one of the nicest houses. As you can see, it is big enough for a queen size bed and a table and chairs. There is a story behind this picture which I have debated about telling for sometime. But in the spirit of telling about Haiti, I feel that I need to share. 

This is the home of Suzette. Suzette is dying of ovarian cancer. There is nothing to be done here which is the most frustrating part of doing medicine here. There is no money to pay for the care that is needed and even if there was, there are not the services that are so needed. (As I write this President Martally is in a Miami hospital.  Now if there is not even a place that the president can go for good medical care within his country, the country has a problem).

Anyway Suzette, Deb (one of the founders of Awaken Haiti) wanted to introduce me to her. So we walked to her house. All the kids were with us as we were on our way to the beach so we brought them. Suzette talked about how God spoke to her in her dreams. She talked about how he had guided her on how to work with her pain. The things God has told her to do were text book medicine. 

She also told us how she had dreamed we would visit. She knew she would be seeing "ti moun blan" (white children) in her home. I imagine this would stand out in a dream. It was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life to hear this woman talk about how God talks to her in her dreams. It reminded me of Joseph in the Old Testament. 

As we were getting ready to leave, I was the last one out the door with BJ in hand. As those of you who know BJ know he is about as friendly as a Komodo Dragon. But I felt really prompted that I should tell BJ to give Suzette a hug. This was a little like asking a horse to fly, but he willingly ran over and hugged her. She very kindly said to me "I knew he would do that, I saw it in my dream." I am not sure it gets anymore powerful than that. 

Again, you go into these situations and think you are going to be the one serving and end up with these kinds of experiences for you and your family. 

The Orphanage

Today we went back to the orphanage again. We were not able to go at all last week as our children had snotty noses and I did not want to share. Although I suspect we got them from the orphanage in the first place. The kids all feel better and so off we were.
Today we pulled out some crayons and coloring books. The children all seemed to really enjoy them.

This one is for you Amy! These two sweet babies are going to be adopted by the same wonderful family. I will write more about them in the near future. They are very lucky little people.

Rachel's first time here. Getting some loves that we all so enjoy.

BJ and a little guy coloring.

This is a mother and father who dropped their little boy (sitting on his Mothers lap) off last week. They were back today after going to the court to relinquish their rights. The little girl on his lap is his niece. The orphanage director was telling us that a lot of times families will bring their children to the orphanage, things will go well for them and soon other family members will be bringing their children too.

Today one of the little girls' that we have come to love was sick. It was great to put on my nurse hat and check her out. We will be praying for her quick recovery and ask that you do too. Her name is Giselle.

The Feeding Program

We were finally able to go back to the feeding clinic today. It is such an amazing place. The more time I spend there, the more stories I hear of amazing faith which makes me want to be there more. Again this is a program who feeds the local kids, mostly from tent cities, 3 times a week.
All of the children have a "badge" like this that tells their name and I think what table they are supposed to sit at. I am not sure what the date is. It is a great way to make sure about who they are feeding and who is missing. It makes me feel more safe there with the kids that the people who are participating are screened.
Here are some of the little people we met today.

This sweet little girl was hanging on my pant leg until I got the camera out. Then she wanted me to take a picture of her new shoes. Whenever you take a picture they want to see it right away. Imagine a bunch of little children grabbing the camera out of your hands.

This little one had blonde hair. It is not something you see very often and usually is not a good sign. One of the later signs of malnutrition and anemia is red hair. I have to assume this blonde hair is a later stage and really not a good thing. Her skin was really red, if you compare it to the child below here, you can see what I mean. But as IS pointed out when I was trying to tell them that this child was sick, she said "No Mom, she looks to happy to be sick."

This little guy was clapping along to the preacher's message. He was wearing only a womens shirt backwards. It had a deep V that showed most of his backside and fit him like a dress. Something about this little girl who couldn't have have been any older than my own babies really struck me. She was there with what I assume may have been an older sister. However, there were other babies there who appeared to be alone. No parents there. It made me wonder how desperate life must be to send your baby away to get food.
Another beautiful, shoeless child. I think less than 1/2 of the children had shoes and the ones who did were mostly Crocs. I swear those things live forever!


When this little girl saw the camera she wanted me to take a picture of her. It is funny to see these kids in clothes that were probably worn by an American for some special event one time and now they may be one of this child's only possessions. Anyway what struck me in this picture was the picture of Christ behind her. He is so real here. People testify of him freely and have such faith in him. I can feel his presence in a way I only hope to bring back to the States with me. Sometime I will share some of the amazing stories I hear.

Us serving, perhaps this is what helps to make the Spirit so strong here.

People

This picture is the perfect example of why I would like to write stories about specific people. Why it is so important to seek out "the one". Why we should not look at the whole picture and make a vast generalization, something I am so guilty of. How on the surface and at first glance things can look okay. It is only upon further inspection that we find what peoples' real stories are and who people truly are. What they love, what they struggle with, what is right in their lives, and what is not, and where the greatest of friendships are made.

So now look at this picture. Not a scene too uncommon in Haiti. A narrow street, full of people. Big trucks unloading stuff. People selling stuff on the side of the road, etc.

Something about this picture made me blow it up to look at specifics. And I found this man. He is like a lot of people here, thin to the point of unhealthy looking, but look at what he is carrying. I have no idea what it was only that is must have been very heavy by the way he was hunched over. I know it must have hurt his back by the way he is holding his back with his free hand. It made me wonder. Who is he? What is he carrying? How far does he have to walk with it? Is he going to sell what ever is inside of it for money? Is this his job? Does he have a family? Can he feed his family? Where does he live?

There are situations like this daily that make me ask these questions. I am sure there were situations like this in the States too. Was I just too busy to see them? Would it have mattered? Would I have done anything anyway? Is there even anything to be done?

Still trying to figure a lot of things out.

The Beach

Saturday we went to the beach for the first time. It was wonderful.

We took the route that looked like it had the least turns in getting there so we would not get lost. We ended up driving right through a not so great area and it took almost 2.5 hours to get there. But we got there none the less and it was great.

There are really no "public" beaches like you would see in Hawaii or Mexico. You have to go to a resort and pay to use the beach. Often included in the fee is a buffet lunch. You also have access to all their facilities and pools. We chose a really small beach that was perfect for our family. We even brought Tally who is a really sorry swimmer for a Lab.

After playing on the beach most of the day we went to the pool where CT was trying to teach some Haitians to swim. It seemed odd to me that one would grow up on an island and not know how to swim. Kind of like growing up in CO and never going to the mountains. But I guess when the beach is a real treat you may not do those things as often. Travel, another thing to add to my list of things I take for granted.

We took so many pictures on the way there that the camera died and we only took a few at the beach.

Some of the interesting things we saw along our way;

This was a motorcycle tap-tap. I wish we could have taken a better picture, but we were not in a great area and just a few min earlier someone had spit in their hand then rubbed it over the car windows where the kids were sitting. Nice huh? Anyway, this motorcycle had a little buggy attached to the back and it was carrying 6 people.

This is a two lane road made into a 4 lane and sometimes even 5 lane road. People drive on the sidewalks, pedestrians walk in the street, and if the traffic going the other way is moving faster than you then you just go ahead and drive in that lane...into oncoming traffic.

There are cemeteries all over. Some have these elaborate shrines built over the graves. I think the earthquake must have really taken a toll on some of them as most look like this now, all crumbled down.

Banana, not to be confused with bananas. We call them plantains ( if you have never had one, they taste a little like a potato). People sell these everywhere. You will see men walking with 2-3 of these giant bushels to sell. We have a few trees growing in our yard with them also.

A USAID hospital we passed along the way. I would guess this was probably set up post-earthquake and still seemed to be working. It was nothing more than a metal roof with tarp walls and a dirt floor. A little different than the hospitals I am used to working in.

We drove though an area that was completely different than Port-Au-Prince. Justin has a Haitian friend at work who is from a small coastal town. He tells Justin that PAP is not "the real Haiti".

It was great in these "smaller" towns. More rural, more friendly, it felt "safer".

Still the same hard working people, only in the country. They had animals to help them.

The hillside. I hesitate to even post this picture as it doesn't do justice to the real life image. There are these rolling hills with little tiny shacks everywhere. Little shacks that I am sure were there pre-earthquake. Full of happy looking people. People who work really hard.

Here are two women on a Motorcycle so full of stuff I am not sure how they still kept the thing upright.