Mission Trip: Haiti

Mon, June 2
I make it to the gym first thing in the morning and finish my last episode of Lost Season 2 before finalizing my final Haiti preparations. I’m ready a little early and decide to leave the house rather than loiter in hopes that I can reduce Pastor Dave’s stress level a little. He’s a conservative traveler and wants at least 2 hours at the airport before the flight. I’m on the extremely liberal side and am happy to arrive to the announcement of final boarding. I know it’s tough with big groups, and I think I manage to reduce the stress level slightly when the group sees me sneaking into DCA’s check in counter just after they’d finished up.

Team complete, we take some quick photos, say final goodbyes, and head to the security line. Looking back, I see some nearly sobbing parents praying that their children return alive, worried that Haiti will gobble them up and spit them out, when in actuality, they should be more concerned with my influence over them. I’ve got seven days in Haiti, and there’s some type of Christian worship planed for every day. Will I make it through the whole seven days, or will I be kidnapped by some voodoo worshipers that teach me their ways? Not my concern as of yet.

Monday’s first worship begins at the airport. Devotion it’s called… Essentially, someone reads a bit of the bible then the group discusses what it means and tries to associate it with the trip. Pastor Dave takes the first stab at it, and it doesn’t seem too bad. I don’t think I offend anyone yet, so I consider it an accomplishment. Don’t get too excited for your heroine just yet though; the week’s early. Devotion only takes about 10 minutes, so we’ve got another 1 hour and 50 minutes to go… Many thanks to the person that sent the dozen of Krispy Kremes with the Bowie Team and to the Bowie Team for not eating all of them before I got a couple. They complemented my Dunkin Donuts coffee amazingly well, and thanks to Mark for that!

What started all of this, you ask? My Uncle, David Graves, is the pastor at Bowie United Methodist Church. He’d participated in mission trips in the past, but this is the first he’s organized on his own. The Institute of Grace found him through one of his followers and it seems that the match was made in heaven. In about 60 days, he whipped up a group of seven and raised money needed to help build a hospital that the Institute is building in Merger, Haiti. The team consists of yours truly, Pastor Dave, Mark, Gisele, Rick, Tiffany and Cathleen. We’ve got seven carry-ons and 14 checked bags between us. It’s kind of funny to me that we’re checking rice and beans, but we’ve got the space and the weight, so why not use it?

We transfer through Miami and Nikki finds us there. She’s the missionary on the trip and has been to Haiti a number of times. She gives us a low down on where we’re going, but as with most things, you need to experience them to really understand. We arrive in Port au Prince, Haiti to a very civilized airport. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was very pleased. Immigration is well organized, and they actually required baggage claim receipts to collect bags. I can’t even think of the last time I had to fish one of those out. As soon as we leave the building though, all heck breaks loose (edited for obvious reasons). Haitians offer to help carry bags. They confuse us for another mission trip (we’re all white after all), and immediately, our group is split into two, following bags in both directions. We manage to reconnect and meet our first hosts: Jacques (driver), Ernest (helper), and Com (translator). We knew we had transportation for seven worked out, but we weren’t sure what that entailed. Somehow we manage to load 21 bags, the 8 of us, and 4 Haitians into and on top of Jacques’ Toyota pick up truck with a steel bed frame that rises toward the heavens, where we’re praying that we make it safely.

About 20 minutes later and a little cramped up from the sardine pack in, we arrive at the Institute of Grace. There’s no question that Haiti is a third world country, and along with that comes, dirt roads, animals running freely, questionable plumbing, trash in the streets, etc., but the Institute of Grace is a really nice place with electricity (supplied by car batteries and a gasoline generator) and plumbing the way we know it. Nearly every floor has a steel grate-like door with deadbolts. We’re all the way up on the 4th and 5th floors, so we’re terribly secure in our castle. It’s a cinderblock building (great for the weather) with windows in every room and nicely tiled floors. We have 8 beds, 3 sinks, 3 toilets, and 2 showers. I don’t think we could ask for anything more. Even better, a breeze, either from the water or from the mountains, blows through the building at nearly all hours, keeping us nice and cool.

After getting settled, we meet more of our hosts: George (Director of the seminary school), Guimi (Director of the general school), Margarite (chef), and her helper. Shortly after our arrival, dinner is served consisting of pinto beans, rice, fried goat, fried bananas, and two types of juice – banana/citrus and lime. It’s certainly different from what we’re used to, but it’s all good, and trying new things is one of the best parts about traveling. The generator is on from 6:30 to 8:30, but I think we’re all exhausted from travel and overwhelmed by Haiti, so we retire early for our 5:30 dedication.

Tue, June 3
We all realize that “morning” is relative when it starts getting light just after 4:00 and the sun starts rising around 5:00. Common sense spells it all out, but I certainly didn’t take the time to stop and think about it in advance. Haiti is farther east on the globe than Virginia and Maryland, and they don’t have daylight savings time. So, their day is about 2 hours earlier than ours. I’m a happy camper, because I’m an early to bed, early to rise type, but I can’t say that the rest of the team is as thrilled as I.

At 5:30, I’m initiated to the full definition of a dedication. I was lucky yesterday, having done it in a public place, there was no song and dance. OK, there’s still no dance, but there’s song after song after song to warm us up for the bible reading and discussion. I left my singing voice in the car back home, so I read along to avoid punishing the others this early in the morning. Mark brought along his trusty guitar and pulls the whole choir together.

At 7:00, we load into Jacques’ truck and head through the streets of Port au Prince toward Merger. This morning we see real poverty for the first time in Haiti. In town, we were surrounded by tons of cinderblock boxes, built one on top of the other. Some have concrete roofs, some have tin roofs, other don’t have any, because they’re waiting for funds to be completed. But on the outskirts of the city, we see shanty towns built of nothing more than what we’d call trash – a partial wooden frame with burlap bags or cardboard tied or folded in between to provide some privacy between neighbors. There’s no flooring, no security, no beds, no water, no power, no protection from the weather, no refrigeration, no storage, no nothing. These people more or less live with their personal belongings on their backs. There’s so much to take in. It’s simply overwhelming.

An hour and a half later, after driving about 20 miles over concrete, rocks, flooded streets, etc., we arrive in Merger and unload the truck. It’s a rural area with rolling hills. It’s a lot greener than I expected, as I’d done some research to find that their soil is more or less non-existent. Yet, somehow green manages to grow between the rocks to feed the cows and goats and pigs and chickens that roam the land. The hills are covered with structures. There are seemingly no property lines, yet I know they exist somehow. There’s no grid like we’re used to, and it seems that there are homes wherever someone decided to build. The homes range from a cinderblock box with holes for windows and doors to a painted stucco structure that reminds us of something a little closer to home.

The hospital is being built into the slope of one of the hills with an incredible view of Haiti’s bay. It’s 3 floors on the west side and one on the east. There are about 16 rooms built at varying levels of completeness. The most complete have finished yet unpainted concrete walls and tiled floors with boxes in the walls waiting for light fixtures, power outlets and switches. Others are only cinderblock and rebar boxes built around dirt and rock piles.

The team’s excited to get started, but there’s no clear direction from the construction team. They thought we were there to install the electrics, so they ask the electrician to come. When Joel arrives, we still get no clear instruction, so we wander around the site aimlessly for several hours. Dave and Rick begin installing some outlets once Joel pulls some of the wires. Mark begins shoveling stones and dirt off the unfinished floors, and I pitch in to offer relief. The crew either doesn’t like the way I shovel or doesn’t think it’s a girl’s job, so they take the shovel from me. A storm’s coming; we need to leave immediately to make it down the dirt road before it washes out. I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we left feeling discouraged that we weren’t able to help. I felt as though the construction crew expected us to simply be there, either to simply make a formal appearance or to watch over them to make sure that our money was being spent wisely. I felt like I was applying for a job with requirements that I couldn’t meet, and I didn’t realize that shoveling had requirements. Meanwhile, the crew installed a couple of toilets, poured a concrete floor, and finished several walls. I would have liked to help there, but I felt I’d be in the way and slow them down.

The long trip back was a wet one. Even with the rain, someone was able to get a caterpillar out to dig out the dirt, rocks and trash that caused the flood earlier and cleared the path back. We clean up and dry off at the Institute before heading down to the major street in search of screws. It’s amazing how we take little things like that for granted. We must have gone to 4 different construction stores before finding one with varying screw sizes that met the need of mounting a door to its hinges. I’d say it was an interesting walk, but it all kind of blurred together. I stopped at an ice cream hut, hoping for ice cream, but they don’t sell it. I don’t know what they sell, but it looks illegal by our standards. Gisele, Tiffany and Cathleen were pretty happy to find some relatively cold Cokes, so the trip was a success. Dinner consisted of a bowl of porridge. Nikki said it was some type of corn, but it tasted more like bananas to me. I can’t say it was a crowd pleaser, but I liked it. Some stayed up playing cards, but I went to bed around 8:00. There’s so much to take it that the mental exhaustion requires extra sleep for the old and decrepit.

Wed, June 4
More song and devotion at 5:30. There’s nothing like a hearty breakfast to start a good solid day of work, and we started ours with mango juice, boiled bananas and yucca, and chicken livers. I could live on their juice alone, but they add way too much sugar for me. It’s almost syrup when it’s done, and I have to water it down significantly.

Pastor Dave and George had spoken the night before about the lack of tasks available for us at the worksite. George seemed to understand that we were there to get dirty, so I hoped that today would be a whole new day at the worksite.

It’s our third trip through town, and I start to notice the people a little more. Something I love about third world countries is the level of happiness I see in people’s faces from the simple things like having enough food to eat, but here in Haiti, I see very little happiness. I smile, but I see none in return. I wave and get none back. I say, “bon jour” but hear only truck horns in the streets. I wonder if these Haitians have seen white people before. Maybe they’re so mystified by us that they end up being deer caught in headlights. Maybe we represent the French from 200 years earlier that they fought against for independence. Maybe we’re seen as the enemy because we seem to have money. No matter their reasoning, I’m making it my personal mission to break down a few walls during my week in Haiti.

We arrive in Merger, and I immediately start working on clearing the floor from the previous day. We’d met a local 8 year old boy named Shnyda on Monday. He warmed up to me and came back today. He immediately started shoveling dirt and rocks with me. This kid is fierce! He’s seriously shoveling the same amount as I. I take him under my wing and share my bread and water with him before he’s called off to lunch by his mom. During the shoveling, I unearthed three tarantulas. They freaked me out at first, but since they’re furry, they seem to fall into the animal category rather than the arachnophobia one for me. Besides, I had gloves on, so I felt invincible. One ran away, I carried another out of the building on a shovel, and Com picked one up by the body and threw it out after playing with its legs. That was a little too much for me.

The electrical crew was busy yesterday afternoon, because they’d pulled all kinds of wires. Everyone was busy installing outlets and switches until our scheduled 2:00 departure. Today was definitely a productive and successful day. We had a little rain on the way home, but it didn’t’ do much other than increase the humidity a little. Overall, we’ve been terribly lucky with the weather. Back at the Institute, we cleaned up and had an early dinner before church. Tonight’s food was my favorite. We had rice with a pea soup to pour over it. We had the fried goat as well as a saucy and slightly spicy version. We had a green bean and carrot slaw that was out of this world and our favorite lime juice.

Church was a little wild for the Bowie team. We walked in toward the middle of the service, but I don’t really think of it as a service. It’s kind of like an infomercial; you can walk in at any point and pick up all of the pieces, then you stay even after you know you’re not interested. Maybe it would help if I knew some Creole… Seriously, there seemed to be a little structure, but I can’t place it. We walked in during some testimonials that moved to songs and dance. It was a little evangelical and kind of fun from my point of view, but I wouldn’t call it worship by our standards. Pastor Dave gives a sermon, and every word is translated into Creole. That makes for a really long sermon, and I don’t know that they knew what to do with that. At one point, Pastor Dave started singing some old hymns. Surprisingly, the whole room started singing along in Creole. For a flash, I saw a little Evangelism coming out of Pastor Dave, but I don’t think he’d ever admit it. One thing is for sure, the size of the smile on his face showed his level of pleasure at that point.

We leave church at 7:30. It’s pitch black outside, and the streets are flooded with people leaving various churches. I’m a little worried that we’ll be split up, but I think I’ve been watching too many movies. We all manage to make it back, and somehow I dragged along a man name John that wanted to be my friend. Thankfully, he understood my English well enough to get the idea that I wasn’t interested.

We’d run out of gas for the generator and seemingly the batteries were dead, so we hung out for a little while with candlelight in Tiffany and Cathleen’s room telling stories and being girls.

Thurs, June 5
The broken record repeats - devotion & breakfast. This morning we take a new route to merger. This time we pass the port of Port au Prince. At night we can see it lit up incredibly well from our balcony. With the amount of electricity that it uses, I expected it to be quite a view up close, but instead it looked like the central market where everyone brings their animals, vegetables, etc. to sell. Everything is spread out on the streets under terribly dirty conditions with swarms of bugs, cars and trucks blowing exhaust everywhere, sewage making its way down the slight incline to the bay, etc. I was pretty happy to be eating a Balance bar for lunch today.

Another full day of work at Merger consisted of pulling wires and installing more outlets and switches. Some of Shnyda’s friends came today and played “rocks” and kicked a plastic bottle around with Tiffany and Cathleen. It was bright and hot today, and we were all happy to be working inside.

Once back in Port au Prince, Jacques took us to Delimart, the “American Store.” It was more or less a midwest market with little more than packaged food, but it was nice to see some familiar items like Pringles, grape jelly, and ice cream; the rum raisin was outstanding! Seemingly the store is located in an area where expats spend some money, so the vibe was a little different. The people didn’t seem so shocked by us, and they were much more willing (even aggressive) about asking and begging for things. In fact, a couple of kids jumped onto our moving truck to say “give me” while pointing to things at our feet inside the truck bed.

Back at the ranch we had fish, rice and beans, and cucumbers with grenadine juice. Don’t think the red stuff here; it’s some type of melon with which I’m not familiar. Some stayed up to play cards, but as usual, I went to bed.

Fri, June 6
We had bananas and pineapple and an egg frittata thing for breakfast after devotion, and I absolutely loved it all. We stopped a couple of times on the way to Merger today. First we had to pick up the “carpenters.” These are the masonry guys we’d been taking with us every day. I think something got lost in translation there, because I haven’t seen anything beyond a wooden door in any of these buildings. The second stop was to pick up the light fixtures. Apparently they’d run out of money when buying supplies before we arrived, but Pastor Dave picked up the tab with the remaining donation money.
While waiting for the fixture purchase, we’d parked on the side of the road next to a private home with a security wall around it. These walls are about six feet tall, made of concrete, and the top is generally lined with broken glass bottles. It seems that there are a couple of families that live behind the wall, and I counted at least 8 kids ranging from maybe 2 years old to 12 years old. They were dressed to varying degrees but overall seemed happy – the type of happy I’d described earlier and was hoping to see in Haiti. Since these people actually have a home and a yard (albeit made of dirt), I figure they’re on the upper end of middle class. The kids crushed nuts and shared among themselves in between looking at us, smiling, being embarrassed, running away, coming back, and smiling for photos. We shared some of our snacks with them before heading to the worksite.

We spent the first couple of hours marking off a piece of land near the hospital that the Institute of Grace is planning to purchase to build. They plan to build a guest house there for visiting missionaries and doctors. While the hospital will take a while to get up and running, Nikki and George plan to use the facility for a school in the near term. It seems that the Institute of Grace has a number of items on their wish list, and the more land the buy now, the better.

Dave, Mark, Rick and I spent the day installing wall and ceiling light fixtures while the girls played games with the local kids. The last day was productive, but I think we were all a little relieved when we ran out of screws to install the light fixtures. This was one week of hard work!

Since I’d made it my mission to get these people to warm up a little, I’d been saying bon jour, smiling and/or waving to nearly everyone I made eye contact with, and it worked. By the end of the week, the folks in merger on the dirt road up to the hospital were responding in like. That felt great. Even though I’ll likely never see these people again, I hope they remember me as the freaking American that runs around harassing their livestock, smiling, waving and saying bon jour.

We were supposed to go to a church session on Friday night at 7:00, but we were wiped out and had to politely decline the invitation. Instead, we ate crab, pates, vegetables, beans and rice and played a Haitian card game called Kazio by flashlight before going to bed. I understand that the session goes until the wee hours of the morning, and even getting out early would be close to 11:00. I couldn’t handle staying up that late, so I was very happy to get some shut eye instead.

Sat, June 7
Today’s a day of rest for the Bowie team, and that means a day at the beach. Even though we got off to a late start, we managed to drop Nikki off at the orphanage and get to the beach by 9:00 am. We were the second group there. Unfortunately, there was no pool, no lawn chairs, and no sand. Instead, it was a rocky area of the bay’s coast with concrete benches and tables under palm trees. While the team swam, I stayed back to read my book and watch over things. More people came and suddenly there were dueling bands and partying people everywhere. We ordered lunch at about 10:45, asking that it be delivered at 11:30, but the food came out closer to noon. I ordered fried bananas, because I love them, but the biggest surprise to me was the coleslaw looking stuff in the middle. I thought it was shredded cabbage with carrots, but instead of carrots, it was hot pepper. The slaw was hot enough to make my nose run, so you know I was a happy camper. The girls got hamburgers and French fries with Pepsi and 7Up, and I think they were happy to have a little slice of home. Pastor Dave ordered the conch, and I could barely even stomach looking at it. Then again, I’m not the seafood fan. I followed lunch up by drinking coconut milk from the nut then scraping out the meat. I thought I’d done this in the past, but now that I’ve done it, I can’t say that I remember doing it before or hope to do it again. It wasn’t all that, but it was a lot of fun.

So far on the trip, other than at the airport, I’d only seen a handful of white people passing us by car. Here at the beach though, there were three white guys that ventured out into the water. Some of our team had a chance to talk to them to find that they’re Polish reporters writing about the poverty in Haiti. I think aside from the fact that they were white, the team really enjoyed talking to some new people in English. Thank goodness those dang Europeans learn multiple languages.

We left the beach a little early hoping for a tour of the orphanage, but Nikki was already down the hill when we arrived and was ready to leave. We headed back to the Institute and were met by a real pizza! I was expecting it to be strange in some way, but this was the real thing, and really good at that! Maybe all those Haitians in NYC are learning to make pizza and bringing back the trade secrets… Cards before bed has become the ritual.

Sun, June 8
We were rudely awoken by our own roosters at about 3:00. I say we, but I managed to sleep through it until my usual 4:30. They mysteriously showed up Saturday while we were at the beach and were told that they were lunch on Sunday. I don’t know that anyone wanted to wait until lunch to kill them once we were up.

Church begins at 6:00, but we get to arrive at 7:00, after Sunday school finishes. Again, we’re moved to the front of the church, where we stand out even more. No worries though, we’re singing today for the 700 in attendance, so it makes the trip to the stage a little shorter. It’s International Kids Day, and about 100 kids are piled into the front of the church. They’re dressed impeccably; I’d guess they have one church outfit, and this is it.

Again, we hear lots of song and praise, but our week in Haiti hasn’t been long enough to learn Haitian, so we’re at a loss. I do understand Merci Savior now and scream it when called on, to set a good example for the kids watching us. When it was time to sing, we all walked up on stage. I’d gotten pretty comfortable with the songs but didn’t care too much if I missed a word or two. Who’s going to hear it, and if they did, would they even know I missed it? I think not, so I sang, punishing the whole lot of them. Thankfully, I was surrounded by much better singers and Mark’s guitar to provide camouflage.

Again, Pastor Dave preached with translation. This is a different church, but again, I don’t think they were used to that type of format. There was no singing along this time – bummer.

The kids are a blast to smile at and wave to. They’re shy, but they warm up a lot faster than the adults I’d been working on all week. Most of the kids smile back after a third eye contact. The first is a quick turn away, like they’re embarrassed that they got caught staring. The second shows an effort, but fear wins over, and by the third time, the smile comes through. After that, you can’t stop them! By the end of the nearly 3 hour session, some of the little girls and boys came up to us and kissed us on the cheek and gave us big hugs. The innocence of babes, is it? Too bad we can’t all stay that way.

Lunch was at 10:30, a little early, but to eat those roosters was high on our list of things to do. We ate them with dirty rice and potato salad. It was all outstanding, but we were still a little full from breakfast. Unfortunately, I think Americans have rightfully earned the reputation of being big eaters. Just as unfortunate is that I couldn’t appreciate the food all day long and graze as I normally do. I wish we could break these big meals into smaller ones for snacking, but that would require a refrigerator, a true luxury in Haiti.

At 2:30, we go back to church for round 2 with the kids. My favorite little girl (Estephan?) is there and runs up to me. She sits with me as long as she can. There are a number of chaperones that round up the stray kids and take them back to where they’re supposed to be every 30 minutes or so. Somehow she snuck out repeatedly to sit with me. At one point, she held my hand, looking at my fingers for a long time. She said something to me in Creole, but I had to ask Katia to translate for me. She’d said that our skin was almost the same color; I nodded my head and almost cried.

We left at 5:00 before a movie started, saying goodbye to Guimi and Katia with their little boy and to George with his little girl and little boy. We have a rice pudding dish waiting for us when we return for dinner. Rick had the brilliant idea of adding sliced bananas to cool it off, and it was outstanding! If it’d been cold, I’d have eaten my weight of it.

We’re all getting a little sad as our week comes to a close. I hadn’t seen the moon all week, but Mark pointed it out to me this day. While it lit the sky, we all went out to the balcony and sang for the city as a way of saying thank you and good night.

Mon, June 9
We have our last spaghetti breakfast and start saying our goodbyes. A couple get a little teary, and for good reason. We’ve just spent the last 158 hours of our lives with these people, and we may never see them again. Thankfully we have e-mail and photos in today’s day and age. We pack into Jacques’ truck with fewer bags than we brought and head to the airport. Final goodbyes and we enter the airport. We fall for the bag trick a second time, but I’m confident they’ll all make it to the US.

Once we’re done with our duty free shopping, I give the devotional. You read correctly, I GIVE THE DEVOTIONAL. In some ways, I suppose it’s hypocritical of me, but it seems that the major message in all of them have been to do the right thing. I try to do the right thing, share goodness, improve someone’s outlook on life, reinforce someone’s will to do something they believe in, etc., so why not give the devotional? Surprisingly, no lightening bolts fell from the sky, and the power outage was before I did it, I swear!

Our flight from Haiti to Miami was 2 hours late, cutting our connection ridiculously close. Pastor Dave decided to send Gisele, Tiffany, and Cathleen to the gate after Immigration while the rest waited for luggage to go through Customs. We could have all made it with a moment to spare, but I don’t think there was enough energy in the group to make the mad dash. Instead, Pastor Dave, Mark, Rick and I were fortunate enough to make the standby flight to DCA only an hour later. This gave me enough time to grab a couple of empanadas at Café Versailles, which made me super happy.

We arrived to Reagan to find that the rest of the team made it safely and waited for us, or at least for their luggage. Unfortunately, only 6 of the 9 checked bags made our flight. I didn’t have any, but I’d stashed my duty free booze in Gisele’s bag. Thankfully, that was one that did make the flight. The others were promised to be delivered the following morning.
I left the group, taking the metro home, just to get caught in a derailed train incident that extended my trip by 1.5 hours. I would have been upset about it, but it was nice to walk home the last bit while looking up in the sky and seeing the same moon I’d seen previously from Haiti. It truly is one world, yet so far away. Unfortunately, opening my e-mail to reveal the 100 new e-mails, reminded me that I was home and brought the trip to a sudden end. Isn’t it strange how such an eventful week can change from reality to dream so quickly?

I kept the following tally. Note: eight of us were there for seven nights. (It turned out to be less than interesting.)
stayed positive: 100%
kept the faith: 100%
avoided sickness: 75%
sleepless nights/person: 1.9
injuries/person: 1.5
bug bites/person: 3.3