You too now begin to be a magician
On my way into the office this morning, my daughter Bella insisted on opening the door for me; I love you so much, comes her reply as I walk down the stairs and she shuts the door, and then further away I could hear her holler at the top of her lungs “I’ll miss you in minutes”…
Where did she come up with that? How cute!!
On a couple of our plane trips down and back from Haiti the captain’s let Donovan sit in the cockpit and play with the flight controls… I’m like “Don’t touch anything” and they’re like “Everything is turned off, he is fine, take the stick”… One of the times, the captain is like, “Look, the plane can talk to me”, and he ran a pre-flight certification diagnostic, and the plane came back and said something like “Error, not all systems are certified for flight” and the captain said “Uh, oh, that’s not good”. I assume they had it fixed, there were no flight tragedies that day.
Speaking of flight tragedy, I am getting slightly better on a Plane, although I still sit there and imagine what it’s going to be like to die in a plane crash – I can’t help it. And somehow, both trips we have taken have been surrounded by tragedies.
The last time we went there was the NJ crash that killed everyone on board, this time, a couple days after we got back there was the Air France tragedy that killed everyone on board.
Just as I was starting to get used to the idea of flying, I’m reminded how unsafe it really is… and the worst part, due to the fickle nature of politics and governmental paperwork, I am probably going to have to fly back down to Haiti later this year to submit my I 600 in person. =\
This past week we were blessed and reminded of the scarcity and sanctity of life.
As I previously mentioned our daughter was diagnosed with a Heart arrhythmia, but they had no idea how severe or mild it was. But knowing how worried we were Chris & Junior did an amazing job squeezing us into the Cardiologist before we flew out on Monday morning (despite the torrential downpours and the 2-3 feet of rivers blasting through the streets).
So, I can tell you that doctors in Haiti work much differently than in the U.S. The doctors there keep open hours, even with 3 million some odd people – you don’t make an appointment, you just show up.
We showed up, and waited about 5 minutes, the doctors brought us in, got a little bit of the background story, talked to Christella in French (I didn’t know she knew French too) – and then placed her up on the table.
He at first said “Oh, yes, I can hear it, it’s very distinguished”, then as tears welled up in my eyes he stated “There is nothing congenital, she has a slight murmur probably do to her severe malnutrition or anemia”. He video taped it, wrote a report and handed it to us all in 20 minutes, costing $75 U.S. The tears of joy that even now fall thinking how blessed we and she are that there was nothing seriously wrong.
And that very weekend, at home, my father had a stroke, which we didn’t find out until we returned home. He seems to be doing ok, a lot of weakness, some confusion, but otherwise, nothing to serious (we think). They’ve done MRIs, brain scans, chest xRays, echo Cardiograms, taking hours at a time, and days to get in, costing thousands and thousands of dollars… but we really haven’t heard the results of everything yet.
Apart from the reflection of the differences in the medicine (even though it is scarce) in Haiti, with the U.S. – it all just reminds me of how little holds us within the embrace of life from the clutches of death.
One thing that I LOVE about going to Haiti is through the vast array of business, the University, Leadership development, house chores, work; it really forces you to come back and realize that as short as life really is on this earth, everything should funnel to a point. Everything I do, everything, should be to support and love and care for mankind rising up to an ultimate love and responsibility to my family, and all I do for my family should be to God’s glory.
If at any time, I find that the all the support mechanisms I have for that triad (People, Family, God) are getting in the way, I need to step back and take a breather. In the end, it doesn’t matter how smart I become, how many degrees I have, how much money I can make, or how much respect in my field I can earn: People: that is where the true investment is.
Senyè a bay! Senyè a pran! Lwanj pou Senyè a!
So we drove into Portland last night, from Miami, and Haiti the day before (around 95 degrees and 90% humidity). We were in shorts and t-Shirts, and we jumped out of the car to get a bite to eat.
As we were sitting in the restaurant Donovan said to me: “Papa, when we came back to Maine, there was a sign that said ‘Maine, the way life should be’; but let me tell you, Life shouldn’t be like this, unless you live in Antarctica!”.
Amanda and I couldn’t stop laughing….!
This is the actual dish that I was served at Wahoo Bay in Haiti. And yes, those are razor sharp teeth the fish have…
It was scary – but I didn’t die after eating it – so it must have been safe to eat! 😉
We went to church today – and it was so amazing to be praising the God on the other side of the world with the Haitian people.
Bondye se Bon!
Yesterday I had a very interesting conversation with Mary, Ralph’s mother. She said that this year was the first year that Ralph was in the compassion program, and his older brother has never been in the compassion program, that their need is very recent.
Mary’s husband has the skills of a mechanic and a mason, but there is no work in Haiti. He was working in the Bahamas as an illegal so he could send money back to them so they could live. They caught him and sent him back to Haiti. She works sometimes as a cook, but it doesn’t bring in very much money at all, and her husband cannot find any work now.
I asked why they didn’t apply for a Visa; she said that it used to be that Visa’s were much easier to come by, if you had money – around 1,000$ US (which is a years worth of rent) – but now, you can’t even get them that way anymore. They give out so few Visa’s that it’s near impossible to get them, and there is probably no possibility of ever getting a visa after being caught illegally in another country.
Apparently the economics of Visa’s goes something like this: very few Visa’s are given to people wanting to go to countries that are economically better than their own country – they are afraid the people will skip town and not come back. Additionally, for every one migrant worker there is a worker that is displaced, replaced from that country.
And yet, these migrant workers will do the jobs that a lot of people don’t want to do in the country they are going to – mostly because they are hard, tireless and difficult, and sometimes even dangerous. Most of the time these migrant workers work VERY hard, because they are supporting so many people that they can’t afford to be displaced, and the very little they get paid is like a fortune in the country they come from.
Towards the end of the day Mary described her situation and told me that their greatest need right now is financial; they pay about $80 US a month for their rent… I found out that the average Haitian income sometimes ranges a little higher than I previously thought – between $30-80 a month, but with a rent of $80 a month, that doesn’t leave anything for food.
Now that I’ve seen the impacts first hand from the immigrant workers perspective, with my own eyes, I may very well be in the process of changing my views… Odd how experiences can do that to you….
Today we started out with a standard typical Friday in Haiti – we were not going anywhere, we were just sitting around the Hotel, we swam a little, ate a little, etc.
Then this afternoon, we all decided to take a crazy trip. I took my family out the guarded gate (big shot guns standing by the gates), down the street, around the main road, and way up the hill to a ‘fast-food’ restaurant. Apart from the smells of sweat and rotten trash, and the murky water flowing by on the streets, and the crazy cars that would speed by and honk their horns to let you know that if you get hit, it’s your fault for not paying attention (that’s the way it works in Haiti, as long as a driver honks, it’s the pedestrians fault for getting hit), apart from all that, we made it safe out and back an hour or so later.
We had a lot of stares, ALOT of stares, some smiles, and a few requests for ‘dollar’. One lady it was very hard to say no too; she was very, very skinny and was carrying a baby, on the way up, she said she was hungry, “Mwen grangou, Mwen dwè fè manje, Mwen grangou”, but we knew there was no way that we could hand her money; if we pulled out money and handed it to her, we ran the big risk of being overwhelmed with people, perhaps creating a pretty scary incident; and I had my wife and three little children to watch out for on the way there (on the way back, we had about 10 women, twice as many children, and one other guy besides myself).
On the way back out; she was still there, and she pulled out medical papers showing what looked to be a prescription and asking for money; I have no idea if the prescription was real, but I’m sure she could have used some money for her and her baby, but there was just no way I could risk handing her some.
We also got to spend some time with Ralph, one of the little boys we sponsor through Compassion. He came with his mother and two compassion representatives. He was so excited to meet us; and he had a blast playing fotbôul with Donovan and loved playing in the pool, although I asked him “Ralph, Ou nage byen?”, Ralph reponn, “Wi, mwen nage byen” he then proceeded to slip and fall into the pool and go under, we had to scramble to get him, he was down there for a good 15-20 seconds. That’s the third child that has fallen into the pool so far this week, my daughter was the first… funny though, these children clear out their nostrils and climb right back in… they’re not scared at all.
Speaking of which, it’s also funny how the Haitian children are cold in 90 degree weather when they go swimming, they actually shiver… Christella has been warming up to me over the last two days, today she wanted me to hold her, she wanted me to cuddle her, she wanted me to play with her, she talked with me a little too. I’m so happy. I miss my children at home, but I also have a growing sadness welling up as I look to our trip home next week, once again leaving my beautiful children behind for who knows how long.
Anyway, we took so many pictures and printed out a whole bunch for Ralph and his mother. I’ve decided to post some pictures tonight.
Donnie LOVES his little brother
Ralph and his mother Mary
Our baby girl Christella – she is Christella Bèl La!
Ralph loved the bubbles!
Donnie decided today that he could like football.
Baby goats and tons of fruit trees out near the hotel.
Ralph and his Mother
Our family that is in Haiti right now
Donnie and Ralph the Football players!
Me and Ralph together
Christella would not let me put her down tonight
Christella and Manman Christella
This was us stuck in the monkey cage during the down pour in the mountains at the Baptist Mission.
Pictures of our little man!
Donnie & Christella
Amanda and Ralph in the pool
So, I had to pay another 50$ today (I got a little bit of a discount) to drive the three miles to the Embassy. The drive took almost 2 hours. We took a little different road than yesterday too, because we had to cut down a lot of side roads to circumvent the stand still traffic. The car wouldn’t stay started either, so we had to keep popping the clutch, and even had to be pushed once to get it started again.
And even after the 110$ price and a full day of embassy travel (between yesterday and today) and waiting we cannot file our I600a this time. Christella’s parent’s are both dead, and DHS told Chris to have her Uncle make out her name with his last name instead of her father’s last name. But the Embassy said that just won’t work. So now we have to redo a bunch of Christella’s paperwork over, and we also have to get an amendment to our Homestudy stating that we can adopt a child with a disability (Heart Arrhythmia is considered a disability). So we’re not close to being done – and I will probably have to find the money to come back down to Haiti to file sometime very soon in the future. I guess, on the upside, we now know these things before we get our papers into the legal system; it should help us in the long run.
Anyone who is reading this blog, please pray for our little girl that the Arrhythmia isn’t very bad, or perhaps not even there. She is going for an echo cardiogram next week, and will see a cardiologist in June.
David is one amazing little boy, he is so full of laughs and talks he doesn’t complain at all except when he is hungry or he wants to be held – otherwise, he is content with everything! Not like an American children we’re used to spending time with, they have almost no complaints at all, most of them are just happy to have a belly full and a place to sleep…
Christella seems to be coming out of her shell, just as we’re getting ready to leave (in 3 days) – today she kept asking to hold my hand, she wanted to sit with me; we even had a couple short conversations. This morning she even laughed when I tickled her, although she hid her smiles, she didn’t want me to see it.
And yet, her happiness is clouded with tears. At least once a day she breaks down into full shoulder-shaking sobs. We don’t know why, she won’t tell us. She has gotten used to us now, so we wonder if she is remembering her parents. Christella lost her mom at 2.5 years old, and lost her father a year later at 3.5 years old, and she came to the orphanage starving, at 4.5 years old and 24 pounds. She has had a unbelievably rough life. I hope the time for healing has begun, I hope she can come home as soon as humanly possible, and pray that God will reach down and have mercy on her and bring her into our family rapide.
On another note, Haiti continues to amaze me in the things I learn. As we were driving down the road today I saw two firsts… first first was a traffic light – in fact there are a couple of them in Port-Au-Prince. While the driving is still crazy (someone hit us today on their motorcycle) there are actually traffic lights once in a while.
Second first was a trash truck. Yesterday while driving through the town I saw trash ‘cans’ that were at one time full of trash, but all the trash had been pulled out and strewn all over the ground, and there were people with plastic bags picking through the trash and filling up their plastic bags – I can only assume that is where they got their meals from, and we’re not talking about a few people; there were so many people picking through the trash. And all around them where people with small blankets spread on the ground with corn and onions and mangos trying to sell them.
We went to the Baptist mission today, Donnie was quite perturbed at the street vendors that were down the road that we went to visit. They were so pushy, they wanted us to buy from them, they asked, and basically begged, they wanted nothing more to sell something. We bought quite a few carvings (Have I mentioned how AMAZING the Haitian people are in their crafts and arts); but we only had so much money to spend, and there were so many people that we didn’t buy from, but they continued to follow us back into the compound, asking over and over for us to buy from them.
I had to explain to Donnie that they have families to feed, and this is the only way they have to do it. On the way back down he saw people climbing up the mountain with huge baskets on their head full of artisan products to sell, for what little money they make, they do this day in and day out… not a very simple life, but they do what they have to do.
While at the mission it started a torrential down pouring, and we ended up getting stuck inside of an unused monkey cage for almost 30 minutes. I drove back in the trunk of the jeep – the trunk leaked… What a day.
Tomorrow we should be spending a little time with one of the compassion boys we sponsor. I’m also looking forward to staying put for a day.
While here I fixed one desktop, donated one laptop that I brought with me, and picked up two laptops to bring back to the states to try and fix. I guess even my skills can be useful to help in Haiti.
Another day, another 30 minutes past. I miss my Brae Brae and Bella, but I’m starting to to feel the sadness that is going to be overwhelming having to leave my two beautiful and wonderful Haitian children, and having no idea when we will be back again, and how they will fare in our absence.
Signing off once again from the town of Pètion-Ville. Bondye Beni Ou, Bondye Beni la Haitians.