Haiti: Life as an Intern

We have been working super hard for about the last two weeks building two brand new dry toilets at Doug's Village. We just finished them and are going to hold our toilet inauguration next Friday. I can't wait to see everyone at The Village again, I miss them!

Here are some pictures while building the toilets:

It was a jam packed day we had a schedule planned to go to three different locations. We started out at Doug’s Village then swung by Shada and ended in the village of Milot, just outside of Cap Haitien. We got all three done which seemed nearly impossible until you’re reminded that you’re in Haiti. It’s Haiti, anything is possible.

The first thing we tried to do after arriving in Milot was to get Rosemond to play a couple of songs at a huge soccer game that was going on. The field was so huge and there were so many people there that without having a speaker system for Rosemond to use there was no way he was going to be able to play that day. So, we decided to visit SOIL’s technology center up the road where Sasha had lived for two years. No electricity, no running water, sleeping with the fall and rise of the sun, and bathing with a bucket and a cup under the stars at night, this place felt instantly magical to me. Soon we were taken deep into Milot’s gardens to a famous tree. This tree has been around since the revolution of Haiti which was the first successful slave revolution in history. This is where people frequently come together, where many people came out to speak when in hiding during the politically unstable times in Haiti’s history, especially during their recent hardships while the Coup took over Haiti, it is also where Preval decided to run for president and who is currently serving as the President of Haiti.

The tree in Milot!

I'm getting ready to leave for Borgne, or what is commonly called O'Boy here in Haiti. I'm going with Kevin and Sarah the founders and Gabby, the other intern. We won't have power or running water so I'll be showering with a kivet (bucket) and a cup tonight I'll be writing about my experience there as soon as I get back. We did a lot of test Arboloos for the children at the beach communities there. An Arboloo is basically a hole in the ground with a base with a hole in it on top. It's a toilet for the young children so they can s while going to the bathroom. After the hole is filled the base is picked up and moved onto another newly dug hole, but, what happens to the old, filled hole? We plant a tree in it! And they grow bigger, better, and stronger than one would without all those nutrients to grow from.

We have been doing a lot of work for Shada lately, it was a goal we set back when I first got to Haiti. I was told that we were going to try and build a toilet there even though we had never done it in an urban poor area before. The cycle for the use of dry toilets is to one day be composted back into a material that you can use as super-fertilizer. However, if you are working in an urban area and not a rural area this last step in the cycle of a dry toilet is missed by that community.

We got in touch with an organization that is doing work specifically in Shada right now called Oxfam. They have been planning to put money into building a public toilet in Shada but were primarily interested in using latrines. We found out and immediately convinced them otherwise since latrines lack a full cycle process and never actually turn a waste into a resource, as we believe everything should be. We've had several meetings with Oxfam and the public health administrator planning the project. Tomorrow we visit Shada again scoping out our site and our recently promised land for composting waste from our toilets.

Here are some photos from my most recent visit in Shada. The first ones are from when we're playing on the bridge with the children. later we get in touch with Madam Bwa and are in her home delivering medical supplies. Of course the children were extremely curious to see what we were all up to. They are all so beautiful.

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This little boy never let go of my hand throughout the entire meeting in Madam Bwa's home. I asked him his name and it turns out that he is one of Madam Bwa's many great grandchildren

I'll be giving lots of updates with the work we do in Shada with our toilets!

This week I had the privilege to finally get to go to what is commonly called, "Doug's Village". This is where Doug, the founder, created a heaven for street boys in Cap Haitien, Haiti. The facility sits on about ten acres of land just outside a small village where children are always running around, bathing themselves, or washing clothes in the river as you drive by. Once you go through the doors of The Village there's a very calming feel in their atmosphere. Almost like getting a sense of relief once you're inside and the doors close. A lot of work has been done since Doug opened The Village years ago.

Many suffer from learning disabilities which harshly affected them when sent out to schools around Cap Haitien. In Haitian education systems, physical punishments are commonly practiced during the learning process. However, the prevalence of his boys being punished for their inability to give undivided attention or a quick answer was an unfair result for many of Doug's boys due to their learning disabilities. Since the start of The Village, Doug soon realized the immediate change that he needed to provide his boys. Once he better understood what was going on in school he decided to no longer send his boys out of The Village for classes. Instead he built a primary school on campus so that his boys would no longer be unfairly targeted for abuse day after day. The school has expanded and now includes grades up through sixth, an art and music class. In addition to the school there is a dinning area, dormitories, showers, gardens, trees, rabbit farming, a basketball court and a soccer field. A few cattle, chickens and large exotic lizards are running all around.

A lot of the boys coming into The Village have very serious psychological problems due to their past, it takes many years for them to recover from or work through in order to live healthily functioning lives. Once the boys get older and are starting high school they have several options which Doug makes available to them. He has rented out several houses in Cap Haitien in order to accommodate their indivisual needs. For those who are still dealing with psychological damage live in a home with several other boys from The Village and with a "Haitian Mom" and a "Haitian Dad". This is to continue giving structure and limits that they did not have when they were young since most grew up on the streets and with that support continue working through issues from their past. This enables them to enter their adult lives gaining strength from their past and building toward a successful and healthy future. Other boys who are more stable and capable of caring for themselves will go into a home without "Haitian Parents" and just other boys from The Village. This has already been very successful where the boys take full responsibility for themselves, doing all their own laundry(which means by hand), cooking, cleaning, etc.

I have been able to hear about where some of these boys came from and went through and they were extremely touching to me. I honestly could not believe that at such young ages they had experienced so much pain, struggle, starvation, aloneness. One boy, who is doing incredibly well now, was taken by thieves who had him crawl in through people's windows, through their homes, and then to open the front door so the thieves could get in. They held a gun to his head over and over again, telling him that if he told anyone what they were making him do they were going to shoot him. He was only nine years old when this was being done to him. He had no Father, no Mother, no family at all. He was living on the streets completely alone at that young age of just nine years old.

Another boy, Antwoin, who I instantly cared for dearly, was a drug addict before having come to Doug's Village. I asked Doug about him because he seemed to be in an especially harsh mood. Doug then told me his story before coming to The Village and my heart truly went entirely out to him. He's about 12 years old now even though his birth certificate says he's only about 9 or 10, we think it's wrong. He was a drug addict and lived on the streets. His older brother is an absolute drug addict; every time Doug has seen him he had been high and doesn't have any parents that can care for him. He came to Doug's Village just a small while ago and over the break when they all went back out to their homes for a few weeks, he started using again and had a very difficult relapse. No one knew where he was or what happened to him. In a panic to find out what happened to him, Doug had all the older boys from The Village start looking for him on the streets. Finally after about two weeks they found him, and, Doug came to him in his car. He said that he wasn't going to make him come with him but that the door was open and that he really wanted him to. Antwoin jumped immediately into the car, but was so high and was needing another fix so badly that he went to the back of the Doug's car and stuck his nose in the exhaust. Antwoin was so hungry and so thirsty that he would get high in order to subside the pain from being so hungry and so thirsty. When I first saw Antwoin he had only been back in The Village for about two weeks after that night. Doug said that when he came back he was a complete terror, that one second he would be fine and calm but then one thing could go wrong for him and he would jump back into a very violet state of mind. For example if someone stuck their fork in his beans he'd react with, I'll kill you! I'm going to slit your throat! It was gut wrenching to hear all this happened to such a young and beautiful boy, and all I wanted to do was hug him, hold his hand, smile at him, and try to do something to make him happier and feel love because all I felt was love for him.

I sat down near where the boys were playing for just about a minute until Gabby and I were invited to learn how to play their card game. It was wonderful being able to sit down and talk to them and get to know them. Even though I'm just learning the language I still felt like I was able to pick up on how dynamic and fun each of their personalities are. To me, I felt like it was very important for me to get to know the boys, spend quality time with them, and also have them get to know and feel comfortable with me. Since so many of them have incredibly painful pasts, traumatizing experiences, withstood the threat of death, and commonly drug addiction, I felt whatever I could do to uplift their spirits I would try to do it. They taught us how to play their card game through lots of translation and the use of at least four languages. I ended up playing cards with all of them for hours, we ate lunch together, and by the end I felt like a large group of them began to feel comfortable around me. By the time I was about to leave one of the youngest boys grabbed a hold my hands and started dancing with me as I was sitting on the stairs practically falling asleep at the end of the day. It was really cute I loved seeing him laughing and dancing. The youngest was sewing a shoe back together while I sat next to him as he was singing Rosemond's song when he held my hand. When I got up to leave and said my goodbyes, I already wanted to get back to The Village to hang out with my new little friends (Ti zanmi mwen).

Here are some pictures I took over the past couple visits I?ve had at The Village:

I took this right outside of Doug's office where you can commonly find boys hanging out, talking, and getting started for the day.

Doug was able to build a second well that pumps up drinkable water that was finished just the day before. Here are some of the boys testing out the well and pumping water up for fun.

Cattle resting on the outside of their newly made soccer field

One of our Maison's who is laying the cement bricks one-by-one on the basketball court, getting ready for when we were starting to build two dry toilets for them.

Laying down and singing in front of the school

The walkway to the dormitories

The dormitories

Everyone working together to build the cages and start their education and experimentation with rabbit farming. Miriam, a woman from Northern California, is out here right now teaching everyone everything she knows about rabbit farming, which is a ton. Our goal is to teach and educate so that they can take use this knowledge to support themselves and their families.

My favorite boys

Learning how to play cards, I'm losing.

The youngest one is on the right, sewing some shoes back together, so cute

We're currently building two dry toilets for The Village and I'll be updating regularly on our progress

Today we visited the community of Shada. It was a wonderful and spirt-lifting experience. Shada is one of the poorest communities in all of Cap Haitien and even Haiti entirely. They sit on a river-delta where around 20,000 people live. Between 3,000 and 4,000 children in Shada do not attend school because there are none in Shada and the closet one is not large enough for all the children to attend. I met one woman, Madam Bwa, who is an incredible woman who is the community health agent who has delivered the majority of babies in Shada. We were greeted just outside of Shada by Madam Bwa who took us into Shada from the street and into her home. There, like all homes we go into, were given chairs and all sat and talked. This time our conversation revolved around what the community of Shada needs. Unfortunately, there are close to no medical supplies available for anyone in Shada where worms, malnutrition, breast feeding and help while giving labor are unavailable. Just walking around the community you can see children and grown adults with belly buttons that were obviously not cut appropriately. I know that this community is hard to see through pictures but if you can image that I was walking around holding hands with children, hugging and kissing the members of the community just earlier today, then maybe you can image that this world really does exist for these people.

Here are the pictures I took while walking around Shada:
This picture is of one of Madam Bwa's great grandchildren who was sitting in the doorway of her home while we were discussing the medical needs of Shada.

The following several pictures are ones I took while walking through Shada

The woman in the green shirt in this picture is Madam Bwa! She's carrying a can of earth worms that we needed for our rooftop garden that we're starting. We asked the children around to find us some and immediately children were running around searching for worms to give us They are so amazing and ready to please

Sasha!!! I'm walking behind her through Shada She's amazing

Here the children wanted me to take a picture of them in the car that was broken down sitting in the middle of their living area.

The following several pictures are of Shada where people go to the bathroom because they currently don't have anywhere to go for such a large community. All of their waste goes into the river/delta that they live on.

Cute!!! Little boy watching us while we went to buy a bag of candy to give out to the children in Shada

I loved this, this beautiful girl had the greatest personality and is holding my hand in this picture

Extra group photos with the kids in Shada before we had to leave