I am Thankful for My Haitian Friends

Just now as I was preparing sweat potato pie for the oven I began to think about what I am thankful for.

I am so thankful for having met my Haitian friends three years ago. Meeting them has changed my life in so many ways. I now see the value of a dollar in a new way, understand how blessed I am to live in the United States, how to love with out boundaries. I am thankful that I have a wonderful Haitian family that accepts me as I am and loves to laugh and joke and cry with me. I am blessed and thankful to be learning from them the values that they hold and the skills that they have. I am ever so thankful to have heard Samuel say “my house is broken, but I have life” several days after the earth quake in January. I am thankful that none of my friends died in the earth quake and continue to be thankful that they haven’t been affected by the cholera.

I am thankful that Haitians in general are very resilient people who will over come all that is thrown at them; natural and man-made.

On this American Thanks Giving Day, my thoughts are on Haiti and how I would love to hug my friends and tell them how thankful I am for them!

Jazmean

 

Esaie on the bike of the Moto Herode is driving

 

Three Tent Woman of Bercy

When I was in Bercy spring of 2010, I was shocked to see the tent village that had popped up next to the soccer field.

These people had lost their homes in the earthquake and this was all they could do to have shelter. They are the reason I return to Haiti in May with 99 tarps.

During my trip in September, I was please to see only three tent homes remain by the soccer field. These tents are occupied by three women: Casadre Similien, Masulia Joseph, and Losume Louis. They have been unable to move out of these horrid tents.

 

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Haiti Cholera My Thoughts

Market along the road side

I have been refraining from writing about my opinion on the cholera in Haiti, partly because I have been worried that I might be off on my conclusions. The other reason for not wanting to write my concerns is because they make them all that more real to me. Well, I am going to step outside my comfort zone and am going to dive into it anyways, take from it what you will.

I believe that getting cholera under control in Haiti is going to be next to impossible. I have walked the rural market place, I have ridden through the rural towns, and I have lived with the rural families. In short I have experienced how the rural and not so rural Haitians live. Because of this experience I am highly concerned about the cholera lasting for years in Haiti and the death toll being extremely high. I fear everyday that a phone call will come that tells me one of my friends in Haiti has died.

My market experience has been in the market in Cabaret, though I am told it is a very typical market. The market place is filthy; you’re walking on all matter of filth: plastic products, feces, and old rotted food. The food items for sale are uncovered, un-refrigerated and laden with flies; meat, grains, and produce are all affected. All these items sitting out in 95 degree heat. This practice has been in place for hundreds of years. A person, my self included, purchases meat that is covered with flies, the seller handles the meat with bare hands and places it in a bag, you’re then handed the bag, you hand the seller the payment and wait for your change, which is handed to you with the same hands that handled the fly covered un-refrigerated meat. Hands are not washed, not even wiped off in this process. Another person will approach you in the market, they are selling books. These books have been handled hundreds of times a day. Who has touched these books? Were their hands clean? Did you wash your hands after handling those books? Chances are you didn’t. Your thirsty, you have been walking through the market place in 95 degree heat. So you buy some water to drink. More likely then not this water is in a sealed plastic bag, it may even say “bon dlo” (good water). You will put a corner of this bag in your mouth and bit of a piece, this piece of plastic you will spit on the ground. You then put about ½ inch of the bag in your mouth and suck and squeeze the water into your mouth. Who has handled that plastic bag that you just placed in your mouth. For sure their hands were not washed and that bag was certainly not wash before it went into your mouth. Keep in mind that during this water transaction, more filthy money is handed back and forth.

Running along a large amount of roads in Haiti are water channels. Either side of the channel are concrete of rock barriers. During the dry season you can see all the trash that has been washed into and thrown into them. This source of water is used for multiple uses right on the spot: laundry washing, body washing, and the washing of trucks and motorcycles just to name a few. This water is also used for freezing into blocks, which people then buy to put in coolers as refrigeration. Water is drawn from these channels and carried to homes to wash dishes with, cooking and yes, for drinking. The water in these channels comes from all over the place. Down the mountain sides, washed in from the road and from rain. This water is far from clean in appearance and who knows what germs it carries.

The typical Haitian family has done the same things for hundreds of years. Washing dishes with channel water and sand, buying the raw non-refrigerated meat and showering in the water. Those who can afford to purchase water for cooking, bathing, and drinking. In the village of Bercy, with the exception of the Habitat for Humanity Village and a few other families, water is a huge problem. When you can barely afford to feed your family the expense of water puts you over the edge. When you don’t even have a roof over your head due to the earth quake, the expense of water is to much, when you can’t afford to dress you child, much less wash the clothes, you can’t afford to by good drinking water. These people can’t even afford to buy bleach to add to the water that they do have, that is if you could get them to understand and change their habits so that they are using the bleach.

Haitians move around a lot. I don’t mean that they move from house to house, but that they go and visit. I know several families in Bercy that travel 2 hours on Sundays to attend church in the village they grew up in. People have to travel in to larger villages for supplies that can’t get at home. People converge on Cabaret on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday with their goods to sell and to purchase, only to converge on Archiea on Wednesday and Friday for the same reasons. These two large “cities” are both along Route 1 National and are about ½ an hour apart via car. People travel by foot, horse or donkey, motorcycle and tap tap to get their goods to market. The motorcycle could transfer some germs, but the tap tap is a germ swapping machine. Tap taps are a pickup truck with a curved metal rook over the back, with wooden benches running down both sides of the bed of the truck. People are practically on each others laps, peoples purchases in bags and the bags are covered with God only knows what. People swap germs in person to person contact, the germs are left on the wooden seats and metal sides only to be picked up by the next person. Through these tap taps germs are spread all over the country.

So how do you change all of these habits? How do you teach people, people who might be illiterate. The Haitian Health Ministry had started putting up flyers and banners when I was there the beginning on November. But, what good will these do if people do not have a choice in what there are doing in order to survive? Who is capable of cleaning up the market place? Who is going to provide the refrigeration, the rubber gloves, and the hand sanitizer? I think they would have police the market. If the vendors had to make these changes, they would have to charge the customers more, customers who can barely afford to buy now. Who is going to bleach the produce, plastic bag of water and the tap taps. Who is going to provide clean water to everyone so that people do not need to drink channel water? I can tell you who wont be doing it; the Haitian government and the poor citizens of Haiti. I also don’t see other countries doing it, first of all I am not sure it is their place to do so, but they have also not come through with the money they promised after the earth quake I wouldn’t depend on them for this.

I feel like I haven’t given more than the tip of the iceburg here, and that to me is scary! What to me is scarier is that I think that this dreadful killer will have to run its coarse.

In the 1770’s a small pox eradicates at least 30 percent of the native population on the Northwest coast of North America including numerous members of Puget Sound tribes. This apparent first smallpox epidemic on the northwest coast coincides with the first direct European contact, and is the most virulent of the deadly European diseases that swept over the region during the next 80 to 100 years. In his seminal work, The Coming of the Spirit of Pestilence, historian Robert Boyd estimates that the 1770s smallpox epidemic killed more than 11,000 Western Washington Indians, reducing the population from about 37,000 to 26,000. – http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=5100

European diseases spread plague after deadly plague across the land. In a period of 130 years, something like 95 percent of all Native Americans died of disease. That number is far greater than experts (until recently) had ever suspected. – http://www.youmeworks.com/why_native_americans.html

Market trash

 

Trash at the market

 

Market along the road side

 

Food in market

 

more food

 

Market

 

Tap taps loaded with goods and people

 

Home kitchen

 

home kitchen

 

Gathering with friends

Western Union with a Gun

After having said I would go to the market in Cabaret due to the cholera outbreak, I ended up going. Edens and I went to Western Union in Cabaret. Before entering the building a man put hand sanitizer on our hands. We entered an air conditioned room that was packed with people. There were two security guards, one carrying a hand held metal detector and the other a gun that resembled a sawed off shot gun! Some people were there for the bank others for the Western Union. There were two lines so to speak. The guards new who was going where and make sure that new people entering the building were put in the right line. Every few minutes you could here a bell go off and some one would come out of the Western Union room and a new person would go in. When a person would go in we would all have to move down a set, as directed by the security. Clearly not many, (if any) white people go to the Western Union, I was the recipient of many a surprised look. Equally shocking to people seemed to be my relationship with Edens. We had many things to discuss and were not about squander this time by not using it to discuss important items. Our clear intent on each other and the note book that we were passing back and forth seemed to catch people off guard. We sat, moving from seat to seat for a little over an hour! After the bell rings for Edens to go in, I stepped out side into the market place. People watching always keeps me entertained, especially watching peoples reactions to my being there. I have yet in all of my trips to Haiti seen another white person walking through the market place in Carbaret or else where, I have never seen another white person on the back of a motorcycle. This tells me something and I will blog about this later, so look for the blog titled “Behind the Fence”.

Market outside the Western Union

More Market

 

 

Home Away from Home

 

I am staying for the first time on my land. It is very different that my pervious trips. I am further away from things in general, on the opposite side of Bercy than before and things are so very quite. People are not around in the same way as the other locations, being out where I am the visitors are fewer and there are not children hanging all over me all the time. It was strange going to Haiti and not seeing Jazmean or her older sister at all. In some ways it is like starting over again, the people on the other side of Bercy had grown accustomed to me. I could walk anywhere and have people call my name and try and talk with me. People were not surprised to see the white woman walking around or driving by on the moto. On this side of Bercy I am being starred at, surprised looks on peoples faces when they see me walking by or riding on the moto. People stop or walk really slowly on the road outside of the property and watch me from a distance. People do not walk through my property to get to other places like they did at Herodes house, so when someone is on the property it is for a reason.

 

Lets Bake Bread Haitian Style

Running the bread through rolls. Two men are cranking the rolls, to make them go around.

 

Please excuse Samuel's fingers

Sales side of the bakery

Happy Birthday Judelin

Judlin is Jospeh’s daughter. I was so happy to be in Haiti for her first birthday! We played a phone game, where we talked on our hands like we were on the phone with each other. She is such a sweat heart.

Judlin

Club Ti Moun (Children’s Club)

6 November 2010

I visited Club Ti Mound last night. It is a children’s club located in Bercy at the habitat for humanity Village. About 15 children (Ti Moun) were seated out side of a house. They were being led by a woman in song and then in prayer. The children were dressed in their nicest clothes and were very attentive to the singing and prayer. After the prayer they sang me a song of welcome. The co-teacher told me that they meet 2-3 times a week, they sing, pray and talk about God. At the end the children are asked questions, the child who can answer the most correctly gets a surprise. I ask if they would all like a surprise tonight? They answered “WE”! So at this time Edens open a suitcase full of shirts from Camp Wicosutta. He explained about camp Wicosutta and what children do there. Every child was given a shirt as well as their parents. We then sang Amazing Grace together. The children were very surprised to hear me sing it in English. They sang a couple more songs, Edens explained how I am working on helping them to have a meeting place and then we prayed again.

 

 

Club Ti Moun

Handing out shirts

Association Being Creating In Haiti

 

 

 

 

The Committee

 

Bercy, Haiti & Beyond Association

Committee Meeting  Cabaret, Bercy, km 47

6 November 2010

Meeting took place at the home of Rigobert Gregoire and Madonne Laguerre located in Bercy, at the Habitat for Humanity Village.

In attendance were: Rebecca Bailey, Joseph Charles, Edens Monpoint, Rigobert Gregoire, Madonne Laguerre, John Gabin, Herode Delice, and Micheline Francois.

The name of the Association was discussed and all agreed to keep the name Bercy Haiti and beyond, but add the word Association to the end.

It was then explained by Edens Monpoint and Rebecca Bailey their feelings on the Associations use of their land. Explaining that the only part of the land that will be usable to the Association will be the building that is put on it for Association use. The remainder of the land will be for the soul use and discretion of Edens Monpoint and Rebecca Bailey. The members of the Association understood this and felt that this would not be a problem.

The group then discussed the positions that must be filled and who should fill them. It should be noted that the day before Joseph Charles and Edens Monpoint explained to Rebecca Bailey what these positions mean in a Haitian Association. The positions and the people filling them are as follows: Edens Monpoint President, Rebecca Bailey Vice President, Micheline Francois Secretary, Madonne Laguerre vice Secretary, Joseph Charles Treasurer, John Gabin Delegate. After much discussion and a secret ballot vote; Rigobert Gregoire became the second Delegate, Herode Delice an Advisor and Pastor Toto an Advisor. Note: Pastor Toto as of this meeting he has not been contacted yet regarding the association.

The committee discussed membership to others once the Association becomes official. That people who want to become members will have to fill out forms, have identification and be in good standing in the community.

Discussed next were the businesses the Association would be involved in starting. These businesses would employ people from Bercy and improve their quality of life. The very fist Association move will be to set up a woman from Bercy with a sewing business. Mary Clare is a young mother with a two month old son named Robins. The supplies for this business will arrive from the United States in January. The remainder of this discussion were the steps in the plan.

The steps are as follows:

1. Edens Monpoint will get paper work on he and Rebecca’s land done with the State of Haiti, this includes a survey.

2. Paper work will be done with the State of Haiti to officially for the Association.

3. A building will be built on the land owned by Edens Monpoint and Rebecca Bailey.

4. The first use of the building will be for a meeting place; specifically “Club Ti Moun” (children’s club) to start.

5. Internet Café

6. Photo processing

7. movie nights

8. School/Business Supply store

9. Restaurant/ Bar/ Club

10. laundry Mat

　

After a brief prayer the group adjourned the meeting, to a picture session, and the decision to meet again soon.

　

Position Explanations:

  

 

 

 

President & Vice President along with the Secretaries and Treasurer remain the same as in the United States.

The Delegate is a person/people who are assigned a “mission” by the President or Vice President. Such as delivering a letter to a potential sponsor, picking up materials and looking into other matters that the Association needs to have done. The Association pays for the travel of the Delegate and meals while on the errand.

The Advisor is as it sounds. Though the Association did discuss that we all must play the role of advisor and seek the advice of people out side of the Association when needed. But the Government of Haiti needs to have those two roles filled.

 

Meet the Association Committee Members:

 

 

 

 

Edens Monpoint: business man, gardener, and mason

Rebecca Bailey: United States representative, founder of Bercy Haiti and Beyond, fund raiser

 

Micheline Francois: Nurse for Samaritans Purse, foster mother for three children

Madonne Laguerre: Nurse for Hope Missions

Joseph Charles: Teacher

John Gabin: Translator and gardener

Herode Delice: Student and gardener

Rigobert Gregoire: soon to graduate from law school

Pastor Toto: Pastor of a church in Bercy

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Micheline and Madonne Talking

 

 

 

 

Joseph relaxing after the meeting

  

 

2 November 2010

Here I am at my second home. I arrived 2 days ago,  5 days ahead of my planned arrival. Hurricane Tomas is due to hit us indirectly tomorrow and Thursday. On Friday they say Tomas will turn and go directly over Haiti. It should be over us Friday, Saturday and possibly Sunday. I am scheduled to leave on Sunday; I have a feeling this will end up changing until further in the week.

The last two days we have worked almost exclusively on the “rest room.” They had planned on having this completed by my arrival, my change of plans has allowed me to be part of the building process.

The amount of sweat that has gone into this structure is amazing! The men’s shirts get soaked with sweat and then dry, only to become soaked again.Yesterday Edens, Joseph, Lenard and John worked almost non stop. Today the work has continued without Joseph. Before I arrived in Haiti, John and Lenard dug the 20 foot deep hole, it is about 3 feet square. This digging took them only 3 days! Yesterday we widened the outer edge of the hole, forming a “lip”. We then used all sorts of wood to cover the hole, except for a circle which is the hole for the toilet. We laid rebar and tied the rebar together.

I have been around a lot of concrete work in my life, but this was as back to basics as you can get. The water we needed to make the concrete came from a stream that we had to direct down irrigation channels to a pool area we made. Then we took a bucket at a time out and filled a 50 gallon barrel. The cement was mixed with two types of sand. Sand that was brought by the wheelbarrow load, from the other side of the property. All the cement mixing was done on the ground. There are no power tools for cutting rebar or wood, just a single hack saw. No perfectly cut lumber was used for the frame-work.

Today the toilet seat was made. We had to once again “bring in the water” and mix cement into concrete. Using a mold the concrete was poured into and allowed to harden for 4 hours. The mold was then removed and John started the process of smoothing the seat. Meanwhile Edens and Lenard started the process of hand making cinder blocks. They borrowed a cinder block mold and began the process of packing the mold with very coarse sand. The first bag of cement mix made 33 block and the second made 44.

Today I have been the cook. I started the day by preparing plantains for cooking. I have only witnessed this process once, but had retained enough information to get things going on my own. Mytha (pronounced Mita) stepped in toward the end and helped me finish the process. I also made a  side dish of beef jerky, onion, and carrot cooked in water and oil with a little hot sauce. All of this took several hours. Shortly after washing the lunch dishes, a long process since all the water is in buckets and it is used judiciously. I moved into sorting black beans for tonight’s meal of rice and beans. After putting the beans to soak I had the chance to go out on the moto (motorcycle) for the first time since my arrival. It was great to get out for a few minutes…