Today was something new and different. Some described it as
our “first real day here.” We got the option of spending time in the village or
staying on the compound to do some manual labor. Because it’s MANual labor, only
the guys stayed. They spent the day laying a foundation for the pastoral
college and bucketing water out of… something. They know. It was a hole. Or a
trench. It was in the ground, okay?
The rest of us ladies, as well as Geary and Dave, took our
first trip to Kensington’s ‘adopted’ village, Source Matelas (pronounced souse-mat-lah).
We somehow pulled into a church. There was no parking lot, so we kind of ended up in this ditch area on the side of the road. I’m not gunna lie, it all seemed
pretty sketchy. But we had our intern Paige leading the way, so we followed and
jumped off the back of King of the Roads.
Through a stone ‘fence’ we walked, following a pathway into
this shabby (but beautiful) concrete building. This turned out to be the church
where we met our translators (excuse me in advance for butchering the spelling
of their names): Eden, Danniton, Joseph and Jeffney. We also got introduced to
our Village Champions, Pappitas and Leon, who most just call Lee.
They told us their stories, how they came to Christ, a
little about themselves, and then we prayed and were back onto the King of the
Roads. So, we’re driving for a while and then the driver turns left onto this questionable-looking
dirt road. There are no houses, no buildings… just some prickly brush and rocks
everywhere. There’s also the occasional animal tied to a bush, but that is
literally it. As we’re driving over this road that can hardly be considered a
road, we roll into this dip.
So, on the back of King of the Roads are these metal steps.
Somehow, the driver had buried these steps into the dirt trying to get out of
the dip. All of our translators and champions hopped out of the back and tried
pushing. Nothing worked. We filed off the back. Still no luck. So how do the
Americans help? We take pictures of cows and try to untangle their ropes while
the Haitians worry about the truck.
About ten minutes later, the Haitians decide to put us to
the test. Can we walk up the mountain? For the record, I really don’t know how
the driver expected to get us up there in King of the Roads anyways… There is
no road. We were walking through gravel, patches of grass, avoiding cow pies…
But there was definitely not a road. There were even these bushes that had
thorns and just loved our long skirts. But we all kept our eyes to the ground
and kept truckin’.
When we got to the top, the entire journey was more than
worth it. I would’ve walked the side of that thing ten more times just to have
the same view again. Behind us were dark, majestic mountains. In front of us
was the ocean. A delightful breeze danced with our hair and long skirts and for
once everything just felt good. I think we were all taken aback. Across the
ocean you could even see Port-au-Prince. There were a lot of pictures taken
there, let me tell you!
After a good amount of time spent enjoying the view and the
fresh air, Lee led the way to the village. We basically walked across the top
of the hill and then had to go down the other side to get there. We walked past
a huge water hole where Lee snorted back at an overzealous pig. Cracked me up –
these Haitian guys are hilarious! I actually talked to Lee a lot on the way
down. I asked him about his childhood and what he did growing up.
In Haiti, the sense of community within the villages is
insane. Imagine giving your young child free reign over the entire city in
which you live. You see them in the morning and wonder where they are until dark.
But you’re content because you know basically everyone in the city, and you
know someone’s watching over your kid… somewhere. Well, that’s what it was like
growing up in Source Matelas. Lee had friends that lived way over on the other
side of the village and they would get together during the day to play football
(aka, soccer for you Americans). It’s just crazy! Unheard of in the US…
We ended up walking through a large soccer field not long
after my conversation with Lee. This was basically our first interaction with Source
Matelas.
When we had gotten to the top of the mountain mentioned
earlier, the translators had pointed out Cina. Cina is a cement company. And it’s
like, a legitimate company. Not too many things in Haiti seem legitimate based
on American standards, but this place would fit that bill. Anyway, this company
is very generous and has given back a lot to the community. One example of
their generosity is this park.
We walked through the village a bit to get there. We picked
up some smiling and interested kids along the way. We ended up spending a good
amount of time there, playing with the kids and getting to know our
translators. So everybody’s story is a little bit different. I ended up
standing with Shannon who was having a conversation with Danniton, one of our
translators. He told us about his wife, and showed us pictures of her. She is
very beautiful by the way. He has a brand new son, who was only 19 days old at
the time. Shannon talked about all of her kids – the two daughters on the trip
with us, Haven and Naomi, as well as her two adopted sons and another baby
girl.
After many good conversations there, we were led to what I would call a ‘watering hole.’ There is basically this cement hole in the ground and there’s water in it. People come from around the village to bathe, get drinking water, and do laundry here. Yes, all from the same water source. Not exactly the most sanitary thing, but hey, it works for them.
On the way there, we walked through more of the village, and
numerous kids saw us, waved, smiled, got super excited, and ended up following
us. One little boy came up to me quietly and tugged gently on my skirt. I
looked down and smiled at him and he pointed to the camera around my neck,
saying, “photo?” So I quickly snapped a picture of him, much to his delight. I
figured I’d let him try, so I got down on my knee as our line kept walking
around us. He put his hand around the camera and I moved his index finger to
the button. I pushed down over his finger and *click* the camera snapped a
picture. A huge smiled exploded across
his face. I’ve never seen a kid so happy about that noise in my life. I stood
back up, he took my hand, and we followed the line, both of us smiling.
Taking pictures became quite the new thing. All the little
boys were asking “photo?” and stealing our cameras. We were all a little
worried about it, but as many of us soon found out, when the kids are taking
pictures, their friends are much more likely to do fun poses and you ultimately
end up with the best pictures that way.
I think I speak for all of us when I say we had a great time
there that day. We played with the children, talked to the translators, and
some of the women actually tried to help the Haitian ladies with their laundry.
We ended up going back to main campus for lunch. Surprisingly enough, there was
this amazing soup with potatoes, carrots and mystery meat. Most of us thought
it was beef, but the secret was later revealed and hey, we ate goat…
After lunch we had time to go down the mountain to visit
Madame Cheap Cheap’s. There is a little woman on the MOH property who basically
has her own little flea market set up. And she’ll sell you anything from wooden
boxes, to jewelry, to paintings, to machetes for “cheap cheap.” But getting all
the way down there – and even worse: back UP – was HOT. Sweat was all over and
it was disgusting.
After our break at MOH, it was time to go back to the
village. This time we got to walk through the streets and call oo-vlay-juway… I
don’t know how that’s actually spelled. I tried to look it up online because I
thought we were saying come play with us, but I couldn’t get it to come up
right on Google Translate. But that’s what we were saying phonetically.
Regardless, we were rounding up the children so we could go hang out with them
all at the park.
As we were walking through the village, we came across the
house of a father of nine kids. He also had pigs, chickens and goats which a
lot of us were overly excited to take pictures with. Because, you know, getting
up close and personal with a pig who has been sitting in its own mess for who
knows how long is totally the thing to do. But there were also a lot of cute
kids there, so it was worth the stop. There was actually this tiny little baby
girl sitting against a wall who was eating a mango. She reminded me of the baby
monkey in Tarzan that Jane draws a picture of before it starts crying and all
the other monkeys attack her… Not that that has anything to do with anything,
but I’m just saying. Once again, all the little kids wanted to take pictures
too. They remembered…
Naomi also became a star in the village. She was a celebrity
for her hair. There were actually two groups of Haitian women that were jokingly
fighting over her for a chance to play with her blond hair. If you look at it
from their perspective though, our children are probably just as interesting to
them as theirs are to us. And I mean, I’m sure it’s not often that someone as
young as Naomi comes along, so it was definitely a special treat for these
ladies.
Then we finally got back to the park. I was playing with
some little girl. I was giving her a piggy back ride, complete with airplane sound
effects, when a woman approached me. She was plump in the face and exuded
happiness. She just walked up to me and said, “Hello!” It was a shock to me
that she spoke English. We talked for a little while and we got to know each
other. She was possibly the most friendly Haitian woman I met on the entire
trip. She even said that she loved me before she walked away. It was really
cute.
After the conversation with her and more playing with little
girls, I somehow ended up in a conversation with a Haitian guy who was 28 years
old. He spoke no English, but he spoke fluent Spanish, so we were able to communicate
with my limited high school Spanish. We talked for at least a half hour. He did
most of the talking and I just listened. In the end, I think I was too liberal
for him, not ‘simple’ enough. The fact that I had a double piercing in my ear
and friends that weren’t Christian made him incredulous. Different lifestyles…
Info on the rest of the day coming to you tomorrow.
-Katie Coming to You from Haiti
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