A New Schoolhouse in Chacho

Fon Ibo is a small, agricultural suburb, if you will, of Gros Morne. It is there that the Religious of Jesus & Mary, a Catholic women religious order for which I volunteer,  has expanded a one room school into a 15 room one and has continued to support the grade school (pre-k through 6^th grade)  for many  years.  The school is operated by Haitians but, the RJMs provide most of the $75/mo. salary for the teachers as well as the bulk of the food for each day's freshly cooked lunches.

Across the river from Fon Ibo is an even smaller community called Chacho. Many children from Chacho attend the Fon Ibo school.  The problem (or one of them, anyway) is that the youngest children (ages 3-5) are too small to cross the river, at least when it is swollen after rains.  So, the sisters built a “school” for the little ones in Chacho.  Right now, this school is essentially a tent like structure with dirt floors, a tarp for a roof and intertwined coconut tree branches for the walls.  When it rains, the floor turns to mud and then there’s the matter of the chickens, etc., wandering into class.

Last month, Nick, recently retired from the construction business, visited us for a couple of weeks and designed and helped lay the foundation for a new one room school in Chacho.  Some weeks later, an American engineer came through town and he designed and helped obtain the supplies for a railing around the platform.  Our job, on Thanksgiving morning, was to take photos of the construction project.

So, on Thanksgiving which, of course, is just another day in Haiti, the three of us volunteers plus a visiting Mercy sister, drove over to Fon Ibo for the morning flag raising/prayer ceremony at the main school.  Everything was going fine and the Haitians working on the new school all loaded up in the vehicle to head for Chacho when, as things go in Haiti, we ran into a little snag.  The car wouldn’t start. It wouldn’t even turn over. There was just a clicking noise when I tried to start it.

But, not a problem, or so I thought.  The last time this happened I watched what Barak did to get the darn thing started and I even put a pair of pliers in the glove box to assist in the project.  So, we all piled out of the car, I popped the hood and started to unhook the battery cables in order to clean them.  Second problem; with only a pair of pliers, I didn’t have the strength to loosen the bolts.  Again, no problem;  the Haitian men took over, got the battery cables off, and cleaned them up a bit, even cleverly squeezing a bit of a lemon juice  on them to help the cleaning process.  Third problem; the darn thing still wouldn’t start. So, in defeat, we had to call Barak who came and got us going again. (We just hadn’t tightened the bolts on the battery cables enough).

I then managed to get us all across the river and back with Barak’s persistent command from the back seats: “plis gas, Laurie, plis gas” (more gas, Laurie, more gas).

The photos below are of our trip.  The first one shows the existing school, the next two are the kids in the school, the next one the platform for the new school and finally, a view from Chacho with our vehicle in the foreground and the river in the background.

Little Milenne Died

Milenne was the little 4 year old girl who was seen by Global Health Ministry in the village of Gassin almost 2 weeks ago now.  Most of her little body was very swollen and she became increasingly listless and non-responsive as the day progressed. 

Milenne was brought to the clinic by her “Aunt” because, she said, both parents were in Gonaives at the hospital. Mom was pregnant with twins and their arrival was apparently imminent.

The doctor wanted to immediately send her to the children’s hospital in St. Mark (about a 3 hour drive) but the Aunt had no car. Besides that, she said that with the 1000 gouds we were willing to give her to get the baby to the hospital, she could take care of the little girl at home.  That’s when she was told to leave the baby and go find transportation. The photo you see in my previous blog of a white woman holding a Haitian baby was taken of Milenne while transportation was being secured.

Eventually, a man showed up claiming to be the father (it was later determined he was the godfather) and took the baby and the 2000 gouds (about $50) GHM gave him and promised to take Milenne to the children’s hospital in St. Mark.

Well, of course, he took the baby to the hospital in Gonaives where the parents were.(about an 1 ½ hour drive). (It wasn't really realistic to think the baby could go to a hospital in St. Mark. You can't just drop an adult off at the hospital, much less a child. The family must provide food, buy the meds, etc. etc.) Milenne stayed in the hospital for well over a week.  Then the doctors sent her home, saying there was nothing they could do for her.  She died on the bus ride home.

We learned all this today when the dad stopped by our house. (There’s no telephone service in Gassin).  What can one say?  He’d just lost one daughter but had 2 new infants who were evidently healthy, plus additional children.  The only time he smiled during our visit was when I asked him about the twins.  We gave him some more money and sent him on his way.  What else could we do?

Would Milenne have survived if she were in the States?  Who knows?  So far as I know, nobody even knows what killer her. But I can’t help but think of my little 4 year old grandson, the same age as Milenne, and how much different his life is from hers and the hundreds of millions just like her.  What kind of a world is it that tolerates this gross disparity? 

What a Week!

Five days on the road, over 600 patients seen, thousands upon thousands of meds distributed , nearly 500 school kids taught basic hygiene, plus professional training at the local hospital.  Whew-what a week. 

A group called Global Health Ministry (GHM) was in Gros Morne last week, doing all of this and more.  There were 13 of them, including one MD, a couple of nurse practitioners, several nurses, a woman Episcopal priest, and several Haitian-Americans, all led by a Catholic sister. 

Wound Care

Patients

Sick baby sent to the hospital

Each day we’d load up the vehicles and drive to a different village, set up shop, usually in the church, and start seeing patients. It was incredibly well organized with a station for registration, triage, consultations and the pharmacy. In addition to the usual assortment of aches and pains, there were several cases of severe diabetics with wounds needing immediate treatment, lots of high blood pressure, a child with hydrocephalus, many children with hernias, one extremely sick little girl who was immediately sent off to the hospital.  Many people were referred to the local hospital and GHM left funds to pay for their treatment.  All in all, it was a pretty impressive operation and a very dedicated group of people. And the villagers were most appreciative.

Can't resist cute little kids

Patient, Nurse Practitioner, Haitian-American translator

This was a real adventure for me because I was one of the drivers and I’d never been to any of the villages before-and then there’s the matter of the terrible, often very muddy roads, river crossings, etc., etc.  But no passengers or car parts were lost so it was all good. I also helped out in the pharmacy.

The group stayed at our Guest House which is pretty much my responsibility. That means, among other things, I’m supposed to plan the menu. HA! Thank God for the Haitian-Americans in the group because they pretty much took over planning the meals and both the cook and I were more than happy to oblige.

The green board behind me in the pharmacy photo says: “Welcome Sisters.  We are happy to meet you.”

Yours truly in the pharmacy

Encounters with Poverty & Hunger

I guess the Sisters have a reputation for being a “soft touch” and I suppose to some degree they are.  The result is that most days there’s a stream of people at the gate wanting one thing or the other.  The requests are often for money: 1) for school fees & books; 2) for medicine and medical supplies 3) to bury a relative; 4) to buy food.

Sometimes when I open the front gate to leave, the scene takes my breath away. There’s a woman repeatedly saying “grangou” (hungry) while pulling up her shirt and rubbing her stomach.  She looks like she could use a good meal too.  There’s a shabbily dressed, elderly man, struggling up the hill on one leg and a pair of home made wooden crutches.  There’s an elderly woman sobbing because her child died and she doesn’t have the money to bury him. (A proper burial is very important here).

Another time I was in town sitting in the car in front of the bank, waiting for Sr. Pat.  A very thin woman approached, pulled up her shirt as high as it would go and starting rubbing and patting her stomach, saying “grangou.”  She was not really begging, though.  She stared long and hard into my eyes with a defiant, demanding look as if to say, I’m hungry and YOU need to do something about it. I tried to engage her with my extremely limited Creole but she would have nothing to do with it.  She was hungry and what was I going to do about it.  I did nothing. 

It’s raining and raining

We've been getting a little touch of Hurricane Sandy the last few days.  Despite that, Sr Pat and I, plus Tiden the driver, had to go to Port-au-Prince (PAP) yesterday. We took 5 passengers down; 4 humans and 1 chicken.  Can't explain the chicken.

It's not a fun drive on a good day (4 hours each way about 1 hour of which is on an unpaved road) and certainly not fun in the rain.  We had to go because our primary mission was to pick up food and supplies from Food for the Poor.  This is a US Catholic non-profit based in Miami.  The office in PAP is very nice, even air conditioned, not that we needed that yesterday. I attach a photo of the sculpture that greets you when you first walk into the lobby.  It may have a name but I call it the nameless, faceless beggar, meant, I suppose to suggest the poor that most of the world does not see. As in the photos, pretty much all you can see is a hand sticking out.  The hand has hole in it like a stab wound. 

Anyway, FFP provides mostly food but also all manner of other supplies (medical supplies, desks, tables, chairs and god know what else which probably explains why there are boxes and boxes of random things in the house like Cling-who has a dryer in Haiti?!) to probably hundreds of agencies in Haiti.  You get an assigned day to come down and collect your "stuff" and you pretty much need to show up, rain or shine.  We (mostly Sr. Pat) were collecting for 15 different groups in the Gros Morne area including schools, churches, hospitals and I don't know who all.  We had enough stuff to fill 2 large trucks but poor Pat was there all day dealing with bureaucracy, Haitian style. 

Meanwhile, Tiden and I were running other errands, including picking up Sr. Vivian, an RJM who lives in PAP.

PAP is not a nice place even on a good day and, in the rain, well it's a pretty darn depressing, miserable place.

After 6 hours at FFP, the two very large trucks were finally full and we headed back home with Sr. Vivian (and no chickens).  It's still raining and it's dark before we get home at about 8:30 PM.  We passed one fatal accident on the way so Sr. Vivian said a prayer but it was in Creole so I don't know exactly what was said.  Before we made it back, Tiden got a phone call that one truck got in an accident but at least nobody got hurt and they both showed up this morning.

Today, long before I got up, Sr. Pat was up and gone to where the unloading of the trucks was to occur.  This, of course, was done in the rain because it's still raining. I managed to miss that duty which is why I have the time to write this blog.

Oh, I left out the part about how one of the trucks didn't show in PAP so Tiden, after much yelling into the phone, had to find another truck and driver which, of course, delayed the whole truck loading process and did not make Sr. Pat very happy.

The upside to all the rain is that it keeps the animals quiet so it's not so noisy at night.  One of the many, many downsides and a very minor one at that, is that my laundry has been on the line since Tuesday and I'm getting low on clean undies!

Things in Gros Morne are nothing like they are in PAP.  But, you do have to learn to roll with the punches because nothing is going to go the way you would like and things are always a bit chaotic. 

I can do that.

Thought It Was Going to Get Ugly

Yesterday, Sr. Pat and I encountered a young man in the narrow space between our house and the “Artists’ Shop” next door.  He was shirtless, very skinny and had a very large machete in his hand-at least a foot long. Just as I’m thinking, “This could get ugly,” Sr. Pat starts interrogating him rather vigorously.  Finally, it was determined that he was just digging a hole for “toilet” purposes and, indeed, he had started the hole. It turns out that he is one of the artists who come to the shop and work on various handcrafted items. We  also have locally made baskets, embroidered napkins, bags, shirts and cards.  We then try to sell these items to visiting volunteers and anybody else who drops by.  We also send some to parishes etc. for distribution in the states.  So, if anybody is having a craft sale or other function where handcrafts might be sold, let me know.  I can send photos of the merchandise.

By the way, the reason we were in that area was because Sr. Pat thought she smelled smoke and was a bit panicked about a fire. So, we were wandering around looking for the source of the smoke. It seems they had a fire once in the area just outside our wall.  It took everybody in the house, plus a bunch of kids from the school next door to put it out with a bucket brigade.  It’s not like you can call the fire department. She said it was pretty scary and I don’t think there’s much that scares this woman!

For My Boys

Reid, my 4 year old grandson, told his preschool teacher that “Granny is in Haiti helping kids.” The teacher relayed this to Matt, my son.  Then, yesterday I Skyped with both of them and Adam, the seven year old, asked me how the kids are doing. I’m not sure exactly where they got the idea I’m helping children but I suppose it really doesn’t matter.  I’m inclined to think about all the things I can’t do yet.  But, it seems that just being here shines a light of sorts for two little boys who mean an awful lot to me.  I hope I can live up to their vision.

So, boys, here are some photos of how the kids are doing.

(Photos taken in Pendus, a village outside of Gros Morne, where the volunteers are sent for Creole "immersion.")