from June 18

Dear everybody,
Hi from the GVN compound, where the boys jury-rigged the broken generator so we could have power and running water again!

I didn’t write a journal entry yesterday. Frankly, by the end of the day, I was so physically and emotionally exhausted that I wasn’t in a place to step back and write about my experiences. Even now, I’ll describe them briefly at best, since I’m not sure any time or distance will make it less heartbreaking, you know?

Yesterday morning, I went with four other volunteers to the Good Samaritan orphanage. It was about an hour and a half’s drive, mostly over very rough terrain, in a small town close to the coast. It was a stunning and heartbreaking drive – the intense blue of the ocean on one side, and fields of tarpflower tents dotted blue over the hills on the other. The orphanage is run by a man named Pastor Yves, and our driver was a member of his congregation who was volunteering his time and pickup truck to transport us. (We gave him a thousand gourds toward his gas.)

We stopped at Pastor Yves’ church and met him before continuing on to the orphanage. He was very welcoming and kind, and is clearly doing the best work he can with the limited resources at hand. That said, walking into the orphanage was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to see. There were about forty children – maybe more, since many were too timid to come out from the skeleton buildings. They ranged in age from infants to about ten years old. We’d brought some clothes, which went immediately on to the kids who didn’t have complete sets or whose clothing was so tattered they might as well have been naked. We also brought sandwiches, which they fell on like wee hungry wolves.

We spent about three hours with them – as much as we could spare, given the length of time taken up in transportation. I never could have guessed that I could carry four kids at once – but I don’t think I could have said no when they reached their little arms out. There were a few points where my emotions totally got the better of me – I spent a lot of time with one tiny little girl in a torn yellow dress, maybe six months old. She was fussing, and I was walking her around the yard trying to soothe her. I’m not naturally a kid person, and I racked my brain trying to think of what you say to little ones to calm them down. I asked myself what I say to Landon when he cries. I tell him I love him – what else can you say? So I told her I loved her, and she just looked up at me with these intense, sad, beautiful little eyes.

That’s all they want – that was the difference between Good Samaritan and Dr. Roberts’ orphanage. At Dr. Roberts’, the kids want to play and interact. At Good Samaritan, they want to be loved. They want contact. They just clutch you and stare at you with their heartbreaking unbroken gazes.

I think we were more or less the first GVN group to really go to Good Samaritan – at least, no one who is currently here as a long-term volunteer seems to have been there before. Everyone who went yesterday lobbied for GVN to go more than once a week, and to bring more supplies than we had on hand. Had we known what to expect, we might have been better prepared, and we will be next week. Many of the kids are ill, and we’ll bring what we can for medicine and hopefully also our volunteer with a nursing background. Otherwise, we managed food, multivitamins, some kitchen stores and some toys. But you can just never do enough. You can never bring enough.

So we all had a long cry when we left. I’m so grateful to be here with a group that is really committed to supporting one another. Walking away from that orphanage, disentangling myself from crying children who were calling “mama”...is the most unbearably difficult thing I’ve had to do. But it’s still nothing beside actually living in those conditions. Fuck me, it was a hard day.

Our driver was very sweet and patient, and since we were driving back along the ocean, he took us to a little beach so we could debrief a bit and go for a quick swim. It was so picturesque looking out to sea, with the ocean just so fucking blue it seemed impossible, unreal, and the sky so clear, and huge, rusted out ships anchored in the bay. Turn around to look inland, and you’d see a squalid shantytown, but that didn’t wipe the grins off the faces of the troop of little Haitian boys who came swimming with us and started an impromptu water fight. And we met MacKenzie, a boy from the nearest village who spoke a little English and was amused and curious about the six white girls who suddenly appeared to go swimming on the broken-glass beach. He was very sweet, told me he’d pray for God to keep me safe until I was back home, and to help me to remember him all the way from Canada.

When everyone reconvened back at Ecole Shalom, I think we were all exhausted. Other groups had been to Dr. Roberts’ orphanage and various construction projects in the vicinity. After dinner, we decided to walk to a nearby bar (Bar Optimum) to enjoy a cold Prestige and watch the Lakers v. Celtics game. Not that I know anything about basketball, but it was fun to get out and unwind. The bar was hilarious and amazing, and most of what went down you need never know about. It was dim, with pounding music, a crackling television set and murals on the walls – on the second storey of a dilapidated building about ten minutes away from Shalom.

It was great to have a few cold beers and just laugh. And dance. I am proud to say I showed everyone – we were expecting rain, so I went to the bar in skirts and gumboots, and everyone said I wouldn’t be able to dance in my gumboots. Well, you know what? I can. Every once in awhile, the power would black out, and they’d fire up an old generator to keep us going until it came back on. We were all on the dance floor in the middle of a great song when the power cut out – but we didn’t even fucking notice, because for the thirty seconds that the song cut out, we were all singing so loud that we just kept dancing in the dark. It was a blast.

This morning, I returned to Dr. Roberts’ orphanage with a group to teach the nursing students’ English class with Bonnie again. We’ll be teaching them Monday/Wednesday/Friday next week, and then the following Monday – then the new rotation will have to take over. Class went really well! We were joined by a group of older kids from the orphanage, and ended up with a class of about forty. They really wanted to build their vocabulary, so we covered about fifty objects and how you use them in conversation. Next Monday, we’re hoping to do conversational English and some more vocabulary-building, continue with the same for part of Wednesday, review in the second half of Wednesday’s class, and give them an informal test on Friday. They are very keen to do things as diligently as possible – I’ve never met a North American student that would ask for a test.

Dr. Roberts joined our class again, and I have to say I feel privileged to spend any amount of time with the man. In spite of all the obstacles in front of him, the smile never leaves his face. He told us today that he never thought he’d find such good teachers – he totally melts my heart. And he’s right – Bonnie is doing an incredible job with the teaching, and I am so pleased to be able to work with her.
After our class finished, we were able to join the other volunteers for awhile and play with the kiddies. Then we returned to the compound, where I totally passed out from sheer exhaustion. The heat today has been incredible. This evening, we had a low key time at Ecole Shalom, with a cold beer and a delicious dinner and a long visit by candelight while the boys fixed the broken generator. I had a quick coldwater shower to cool off and peel away a layer or two of grime, and I am very ready to get some sleep.

Tomorrow is Saturday, and we are going to get some R&R. We’re heading into Port au Prince to have a look around, take a bit of a tour. Then we’re planning to have lunch at one of the hotels in the city and just chill out for a bit. Initially, I thought I couldn’t conscionably take breaks for the weekends while I was here...but I’ve realized there is no sense in burning myself out. I’m no good to anyone if I’m sick with exhaustion and emotionally broken up – and the same goes for everyone else. We’ll have a good break tomorrow, head to the beach on Sunday after we go to church with Baby, our translator, and then it’ll be back to work on Monday.

Thinking of everyone, and sending so very much love. If nothing else, the last few days have taught me how profoundly lucky I am to have so many loved ones, and such a strong family, and such kind, sweet, wonderful friends. Someone hug my little sugarbeet Landon George for me, and give the twins a kiss, and tell them I love them. I’ve been saying that a lot lately. I mean it every time. I can’t wait to squeeze them tight and tell them they mean the world to me.

Love,
Jess