Last night, Tami found out what our task for today was. She wouldn’t share. Why? Probably because she knew we would all opt to stay back and help pour cement instead of going. A task we would rather not know about, you know?
Picking up trash. Like convicts. How lovely.
To be fair though, Haiti needs this. Haiti needs brigades of
people to just pick up trash daily. You see, they don’t have a garbage system.
When you’re done with your trash, you toss it aside and leave it anywhere and
everywhere. So as you can imagine, there is trash bursting out of the seams of
this country. It’s on the streets, in the ditches, in huge mounds in open areas
between houses. It’s disgusting.
Regardless, it was our job to try to lighten Source Matelas
of some of its trash. We broke into small groups of about five and went to
different areas with a translator for our first go at it. My group (Emi, Abby,
Anna and Haley) somehow got stuck on the side of the road. All I can really
remember about this particular area was the unbelievable heat and the ants. It
was only around nine in the morning, but the heat was making us all drip with
sweat. It was absolutely horrid. Then there were these terrible ants crawling
everywhere. You’d move a rock or a piece of trash and a splash of them would
come freaking out all over the place. You know me, the bug-a-phobe… I was
having a hard time. But my sister Emily, was not having it. She was pacing
around complaining about how she couldn’t handle the bugs rather than actually
helping. It was both annoying and entertaining all at the same time.
The funniest part, though, was when I noticed a bunch of
Haitian men looking over towards our group. They actually called our translator
over, and when Eden came back, he asked Anna what her name was. “Anna!” he
called back to the group. We all looked at each other and burst into laughter.
Abby was the first to coin it for her: “Anna, the Haitian Hottie!” That was
definitely a joke that lasted throughout the rest of the week.
When we were cleaning, we had two paint buckets and a
garbage bag. We ripped a hole in the bag, so we ended up just having to fill
the buckets and keep dumping them into this GIANT white trash bag around the
corner. It was insane. It was taller than me and maybe five Katies wide. Pretty
intense if you ask me. We basically filled up one every hour between all of the
groups.
Thankfully, the second time was not nearly as difficult.
There were less bugs and more kids. We all got distracted by them at one point
or another. I was probably one of the first to get caught in their trap. I
mean, we’re missionaries right? Building relationships with the children seems
much more important than the trash, am I right?
Don’t get me wrong, we definitely got a lot of work done
before this happened. A group of us were walking through a giant pile of trash
and picking stuff up, commenting a lot along the way. There were plastic water
bags, olive oil containers, broken plates, silverware, and best of all, some
homework! Everyone knows the excuse “the dog ate my homework,” but what about “the
missionary threw away my homework?” New classic anybody?
But in all honesty, there was definitely a lot of playing
after this. Some people found a large jaw bone that was a fascination for both
us and the little boys. Abby got her headband stolen by a Haitian teen (and I
honestly don’t know if she ever got it back). I found a little girl who I just
couldn’t put down. She actually spoke some English too! She knew most of her
ABCs and all the numbers up to about 20. I decided to continue her schooling
and teach her more English. She had a fetish for my sunglasses, so we started
there. I pointed, spoke, and she repeated. Then we moved on to facial features.
Abby actually got a video. She was a brilliant student. But she couldn’t get “ears”
under her belt, as Haitians have a terrible time with the ‘r’ sound. It’s kind
of hysterical. Just before we left for lunch, I taught her how to say “King of
the Roads.” It was awesome, but it was heartbreaking to leave her.
By the time lunch finally came around, we were all
completely exhausted. Bending over and rifling through trash and then
physically running around and playing with children practically put us all into
a coma. We ate and then headed up to the other building to take naps on the
roof. It was wonderful- until it ended. Sadly. Painfully. Distressingly. But we
had a job to do!
Back to the village for more clean up! We basically hit the mother lode of all trash piles and quickly filled up the giant bag. It was amazing. A truck full of us went to dump another bag while many of us stayed to continue. I heard they actually sent some of Chip’s firecrackers into the fire which was pretty exciting.
So back to the trash pile. I was standing around with a
little girl clinging to my neck when all of the sudden, Anna’s scream pierced
the air and many more followed immediately. I looked up to see the girls in a
gazelle-paced sprint, speeding away from the trash. In this same moment, all of
the male Haitians ran towards what they were running away from. I could tell, I
didn’t want to know.
Anna had moved a piece of trash and out crawled a tarantula.
Tune in tomorrow to find out what those boys did with the tarantula!
-Katie Coming to You from Haiti
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