HAITIAN CAMPING
(May, 2010 - Part 2)
Today was finally the day we’d been waiting for! Pastor Val came and picked us up to take us to the orphanage. We knew there would be no place to sleep, so we packed up our tent and air mattresses and got on the road at the hottest and most crowded part of the day.
The orphanage is in Leogane Province, in a small village called Bongnotte. It is twenty miles from Port-au-Prince; it took us three long, hot, dusty hours to get there. The drive included stopping for 15 minutes at a time in traffic that wasn't moving, the hot sun pounding us through necessarily open windows, leaning in to avoid being splashed by nasty, nasty puddles, and passing the most hideous of "homes" made of rusty corrugated tin placed in the center of the road. Appalling.
When we were finally able to get beyond the chaos of the city, a whole new country opened up to us. Few signs of the earthquake presented themselves; life seemed relatively normal out there. The road had a few serious separations from the quake - asphalt ripped in half, that required the driver to go slowly through. It was green and lush, and though still hot as the blazes, it was refreshing.
We pulled off onto a small dirt road, stopped to buy some mangoes and candy and headed up into the hills. Such a lovely place. Are we still in Haiti?
We trekked up the dirt road the two or three miles to Val Children's. Of course, those few miles took 45 minutes, because Pastor Val stopped to chat with the locals. He said after a few of these visits, "I have to stop and talk to them because, you know, they are not like the city people; they would be offended if I didn't take some time." Yep. We got it. Just like North Carolina, y'all.
We got almost there, and Pastor Val stopped the truck outside a cluster of homes. Some were nicer than others, but one was completely concrete and totally intact. He called out to the woman of the house, explaining to us that one of his pastors lived there, and they had a toilet we could use. Thank the Lord. We entered the concrete house, and she led us to the back. There it was. Oh, heaven. And I thought we'd be without this all week! Granted it was a 200-yard walk down the road, and you had to dump water into the bowl to flush it, but it was clean, and we were welcome to use it. This visit just got a thousand times more tolerable. The funny thing about the house, though was it was totally empty. Not a door, not a stick of furniture, nothing on the walls, no people...just a shell (and a potty). We wondered why the family that showed us in didn't live in it; maybe they did before the quake and didn't feel safe anymore.
There was another odd thing: there was a baby boy, about a year old sitting on a chair in the yard when we got there. He was there when we went in, and there when we left. He was in that chair every time we visited the potty house. Just sitting. No toys. He wasn't fussing to get down. He just was sitting there or standing in it. While waiting for Abby, I put 5 little rocks on the chair next to him. I counted them out in Kreyol, passing them from one side of his bare legs to the other. Then back again. He watched me and seemed entertained. Then it was my turn to use the bathroom. When I came out again, he was throwing the rocks on the ground. A new game.
No one-year-old I've ever seen is content to sit in a chair all day. I wondered why he was happy to do that. I wondered if he couldn't walk yet, and it was just too painful to crawl, so his mamma put him in that chair when she couldn't hold him. I'd never thought about that before.
When we finally arrived at the gates of the orphanage grounds, the kids surrounded us and yelled, "Abby! Abby!" The next words out of their mouths were, "Jon? Jon? Kote Jon?" Where's Jon? The last time they had seen Abby was in Jan. 2008 when she was here with Jon for a week. Then he returned in July 2008 and spent another week with them. So they wondered why they didn't always travel together. They asked about Jon for at least an hour. Instead, they got me. :)
Pastor Val showed us where we could put up our tent. He had arranged a "bath" for us: some tarps spread over a metal pole structure that provided some privacy and certainly more space than a tent. So thoughtful. We were really touched. He told us to set our tent up with the door facing the bath. We promptly did, and then some of the bigger boys set about digging a trench around our tent, "in case it rained hard, the water will not go in your tent." Each night, one of the boys brought us a 5-gallon bucket of water for bathing. We also had a tub about 18 inches in diameter. Pastor Val’s exquisite care for us in the most challenging of circumstances was so beautiful - I could learn so much from him about hospitality.
We looked around, children clinging to our hands, and saw where the church and orphanage buildings had once stood. They had erected a temporary church, of some 4x4s and a tin roof. Pastor Val had been given a roll of heavy duty yellow vinyl that they wrapped around to make three "walls." There was a podium, some benches, and the well pump was right there by the open side. The well head is a social gathering place, so the church serves double-duty as a place to sit and rest and visit with the neighbors.
We settled into visiting in the chicken house which had now been converted into a dining/living room, which I don't think the children were allowed into very often. Pastor Val's sister and a few other ladies were finishing the meal preparations. The children took up every square inch of table space outside, where they had several long tables spread with the ubiquitous yellow vinyl. There were about 50 - 60 children eating there each day, and about 35 slept there. The women had this operation down to a science. The kids were so well-behaved and patient. We prayed together and ate heartily.
After the meal, we had Tuesday night church. The kids were already there, and Stanley, 12, was pounding out the worship songs on a drum set. We worshiped together. then Pastor Val's assistant pastor gave some announcements. Pastor Val began speaking then, and introduced us as his guests. He wanted us to speak, so we quickly planned to share how their church had become so meaningful to us. He translated, and after a while we got into a groove. We told the people about how our family came to know Pastor Val 25 years ago, and how we visited Bongnotte in 2007. Then how our son had an encounter with God literally minutes before he preached his first sermon right there in that church! Then I went on to tell about my earthquake experience with their pastor. And I shared with them what a fine testimony the Haitian Christians were giving the world of their faith in the midst of difficulty.
We worshiped some more and watched as Pastor Val danced with some of the children. We greeted everyone as they went home. We began our "bath-time" which was thoroughly entertaining, and went to bed feeling satisfied and full of joy.