Haiti Trip Report: Part 2

Friday, February 19

- I pretty much spent the day playing with the kids, which was fantastic. Mallery and Ali came by for awhile in the morning. . . Later, some US soldiers came by. Several of them are army chaplains, and a week or so ago they had contacted my dad about helping Gertrude. So they came by with some snacks for the kids and to talk to Gertrude. I talked to a few of them. It was kind of funny because I was sitting there playing with the kids when the soldiers came, and then several of them came up and started taking pictures. Felt kind of funny to be the one photographed; usually I’m the one taking pictures like that!

- That afternoon, Kery and I also helped Gertrude start to give out some of the clothes from the storage room to the kids. Gertrude wanted to make sure that each child had at least 3 good weekday outfits and one good Sunday outfit. She and one of the nannies went through each child’s clothes to determine what needed replaced, and then she sent the nanny up to me and Kery with a slip of paper saying what clothes were needed.

- This was the day that I discovered Christina, a little girl with hydrocephalus. She’s apparently been at Notre Maison for awhile, but somehow I hadn’t noticed her before— I guess because in the past I’ve only had a few hours at a time with the kids. Anyway, I noticed that Christina looked pretty lethargic and had basically just been laying on a mat or sitting in her stroller all day, so after Kery and I finished in the depot, I went down and held Christina for a long time. She was still fairly lethargic at that point and didn’t seem to be feeling very well, but I just held her and sang to her in Creole. A few times I got a little smile out of her. She’s such a sweet little girl.

Saturday, February 20

- In the morning, Gertrude took us to visit some former Notre Maison kids who are now living at an orphanage for special needs kids run by Food for the Poor. Darlyne, who is one of my favorite Notre Maison “kids” and whom I’ve known since my first trip to Haiti in 1998, is living at this orphanage. It was really fun to see her again; she was so excited to see us. Though Darlyne can’t really say more than a few words, she fully understands when we talk to her and responds in her own way. We asked her several questions and told her about how some of the other kids are doing whom she’d known when she lived at Notre Maison; it was obvious she was thrilled with all of this. We also got to see several other kids who were at Notre Maison until a few years ago—Ashley, Manouschka, Betsy, Glannys, Vanessa, Gwo David, and Ti David.

- After we visited the orphanage, Germaine (Gertrude’s brother) drove us downtown. Again, it was surreal seeing the damage from the earthquake and especially seeing life going on alongside all the destruction. There are tents set up right across from the National Palace, and people still have shops set up all around. It’s strange, and yet somehow it seems normal. Sad as it is, the Haitian people are used to life being a struggle. I think, though, that this is helping them to be able to rise above their horrifying circumstances and to go on. Life has rarely, if ever, been easy for them, and even though the suffering that has resulted from this tragedy is in many ways beyond anything they’ve ever experienced, in other ways, it’s not that different from what the Haitian people have faced for generations. And, as in the past, it seems like many are choosing to move forward as best they can rather than dwelling on the suffering that surrounds them; this is amazing to see.

- After we saw the downtown area, we started heading back to Delmas to go to Epi D’Or for lunch. However, something broke on the truck, so we pulled over and Germaine tried to fix it. While he was working, Kery and I walked up the street a ways to buy drinks. . . We ended up having to take the truck to a garage, and Germaine waited there while Gertrude, Kery, and I taptapped to Epi D’Or. Epi D’Or was pretty crowded—missionaries, American and Canadian soldiers, relief workers, Haitians. We went ahead and had lunch and ice cream, and then Germaine came back with the truck a little while later.

- While we were at Epi D’Or, Gertrude got a call from a woman who is working with the various relief groups that are staying at Quisqueya right now. Miquette told her that a German group (Humedica?) had gotten a donation of several pallets of baby food to give to orphanages, and so if Gertrude wanted, we could come by and get some for Notre Maison. So we drove over there and ended up spending some time talking with the guy from Humedica who was giving us the food. He wanted to know about Notre Maison and the kids so that he could report back to the donors about where the food was going. He was very nice . . . We loaded up all of the baby food, along with a box of clothes and some first aid kits that they also gave us, and we headed back down to the orphanage.