Requiem
The funeral mass was to be in Kreyol, that much was certain. She wouldn’t have any of that pretension that came with speaking mangled French in Haiti. Kreyol pale; Kreyol konprann. Creole speaks; Creole understands. When she would go to government offices or fancy stores in the tony Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville, the clerks would greet her in their finest French and she would respond in her finest backwoods Kreyol. Whereas French in Haiti is the language of the educated, the elite, those who aspire to separate themselves from the teeming masses living in poverty out in the bush; she would only speak to them in Kreyol, the other official language, the one spoken by the other 90% of the country that didn’t go to school or drive cars or own land. Tout moun se moun. All people are people, and that was what Sr. Althea’s funeral was going to be about- the Haitian people.
Fourteen years ago, Sr. Althea Jonis and Sr. Martha Ann Abshire left their work in Louisiana to begin a new mission in Haiti. Their Order, the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady, agreed to let them go and see what needed to be done. When they first arrived the Haitian doctor who said he would help them start a mission didn’t show up to greet them. They waited for hours at the chaotic Port-au-Prince airport before he finally arrived and drove them over the horrendously bumpy Route National to Aquin, in the south of Haiti. Once they reached the town, he dropped them off on the side of the road and drove off. They didn’t speak the language, and they didn’t know anyone.
While they spent their first few months learning the language and the culture, they decided that they would start a medical mission to meet the overwhelming need for basic medical care in the area. They fed the proper paperwork to the bureaucratic machinery in Port and waited for their authorization. But the people in the area didn’t have time to wait for the government to say it was okay to treat them. When the sisters went up into the mountains to hold a planning meeting, the Haitians brought out their sick and dying. Martha and Althea said that they could not legally work until the government in Port authorized them. The people responded that they would be dead long before the government sent them a piece of paper. The sisters opened up their first aid kit and treated the sick with what they had. After that they went and bought medical supplies with the $230 that they had left. When that was exhausted they returned to Port to check their mail and tell their Provincial Superior what had passed. Upon opening their mail they found a check for $238 from a parish in Louisiana who had taken up a second collection and wanted a place to send it. The writing was not only on the wall, it was on the check, and the sisters knew they had found their mission.
Since that time their work and their community has grown and prospered. Sr. Marie Claire Revelard, a French sister and a veteran missionary with time spent in Madagascar and Ethiopia, joined the two Americans that first year. The sisters went up into the rugged mountains on the backs of mules to provide medical care where no vehicles could ever pass. In town, they held regular clinics at the abandoned customs house by the port, as well as provided late-night care at their kitchen table. Before they had a car of their own they would ride to Port once a week on tap-taps, leaving the house at 3:30 in the morning to flag down the colorful bus by the side of the road. They added school scholarships and micro-loans to their mission, and they become a part of daily life in Aquin.
When the coup to overthrew President Aristide broke out in 1991, the community chose to stay in the country when others fled. They were threatened by thugs, had to sleep on the floor for fear of bullets flying through the windows, and administered to the victims of torture and beatings. When they felt the American government was wrong in their dealings with Haiti, they stood vigil outside the American Embassy, and with other religious still in country, publicly admonished the US government. This was a dangerous act in a country teetering on the edge of anarchy.
After calm returned to the country, the sisters continued their work, pursuing plans for a permanent building to house a medical clinic, as well as a school and a chapel. In the community of Saint Helene, a small town five miles from Aquin, a walk-in medical clinic was established. The school and chapel followed, and after that a center for malnourished children. Later, a reforestation project was added to the mission, planting trees and protecting the soil on the denuded hills above Aquin.
And so the funeral mass was in Kreyol. Ten priests co-celebrated with the Vicar of the Archdiocese of Les Cayes, and said the mass in the language of the poor, common people. And who was present at the mass? Sure, the usual, important gwo moun one would expect to show up- lawyers and doctors and the mayor and rich businessman were there, dressed in their finest suits. But they weren’t the ones who filled the church beyond standing-room-only, the ones who crammed into the bell tower and the ones who stood on rocks outside to peer in the high windows, the ones who put on threadbare shirts and colorful dresses patched one-too-many times, the ones who spread in front of the church and spilled out into the streets of the town, the ones who brought kids who had been healed in the clinic, the ones who came on crutches given to them and the ones who walked three hours from back in the hills wearing their Sunday best. It was these—the poor, the common, the forgotten, the uneducated, the homeless, the hungry, the lonely, the dirty, the drunks and the gamblers and the prostitutes—these were the ones for whom the mass was said in Kreyol, for these were the ones for whom Sr. Althea worked and to whom she devoted the last fifteen years of her life.
For one of the eulogies, the head nurse of the nutrition clinic stood up to testify to the fact that there were literally hundreds of children alive today in southern Haiti who would not be living had it not been for the efforts of Althea. She testified that Althea worked tirelessly for “her” kids, that she would drive them to the hospital over an hour away without a second thought, and that she would often arrive at the clinic at four in the morning to check on them before leaving to Port au Prince.
After the final blessing over the casket, the entire assemblage processed outside. Led by a brass band from the Salvation Army, the hearse slowly made its way through the town, towards the national highway. Because the day had been declared a holiday, all the students for the town’s schools showed up, in uniform, to march in the procession. It seemed the entire town emptied out and started on the mile-and-a-half walk to Mon Sejou, the section of town where the sisters had built there house and where Althea was to be interred. The police stopped traffic on the national highway, the only thoroughfare connecting the south to the capital city, as the procession slowly made its way to the dirt path to Mon Sejou.
Upon arriving at the foot of the hill of the convent, the men of the town hoisted the casket on their shoulders and carried it up the steep, slippery, rocky path that led to the back garden. There, on the highest point on the property, with a view of the Caribbean Sea that she loved so much, Althea was laid to rest.
Althea was buried in a Haitian crypt, dug by local farmers and built by neighbors who are stonemasons. It is a simple, concrete vault, with a view of the sea below and the rugged mountains to the side. It is painted white and green. On top of it are stacks of flowers that still blow in the morning breeze.
Althea Jonis came to Haiti to help the people of Haiti, to bear witness to their struggle, to live in solidarity with Haiti. She chose to stay in Haiti, to remain a part of the land and to be among the people she loved. She came here an American; she stays here as pep Ayisyen.
News from the House and Clinic
The work of the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady will continue. The clinic, the nutrition center, the school, the scholarships, the reforestation project, the micro-finance program—these are all vital programs to which our dedication will not flag.
There are six of us now: Sr. Marie Claire, Sr. Martha Anna, Sr. Uyen, Sr. Irlene, as well as the two of us.
Christy and Uyen are going to the nutrition center six days a week, ensuring the children continue to receive the medical attention they need. They are working with the nurses and the rest of the staff to see that there is no interruption in quality of care. Christy is using her spare time to read all the medical books she can find on malnutrition and tropical medicine. Tim is assisting with driving, inventory and logistics. Sr. Marie Claire has spoken with every member of the staff to reassure them that the clinic is not closing, and that now we must all work together.
Because there is a lot of work to be done, we have not had a chance to respond to all the wonderful e-mails of encouragement everyone sent. We thank you all together, and we will respond individually to everyone who sent us their prayers and support. We ask you to continue to pray for us and for the sisters.
We have some more unfortunate news. The older brother of Dieulareste, the little boy who came to Green Bay two years ago for eye surgery, passed away earlier this month. The boy, Jean Peter, was four years old. This bad news just compounds our sorrow. His father came to the house on Sunday to tell us, and because he lives back in the mountains, he had not heard of Sr. Althea’s passing. A somber day.
Samantha, the girl with the cleft palate due for surgery in the U.S., will go to Port au Prince with her mother in October to try for a medical visa. If the visa is granted, we will have three months to get them to the United States. Sr. Ellen Flynn of Hospice St. Joseph in Port is helping them. Pray that the visa process goes smoothly. And if you have any pull with the State Dept, give them a call on our behalf.
Please keep Celine, the girl with seizures, in your prayers. Rob Horkeimer, a PT and fellow Marquette grad, brought down a fantastic wheelchair when he and his brother visited earlier this month. We haven’t been able to get it to Celine yet, as she has been running a high fever and has had some complications. Later this week we will take her to the hospital in Les Cayes to get a chest X-ray to see if she has TB. (Her skin test came back positive, but that is common in Haiti where TB is endemic and almost everyone has been exposed to TB. A positive test doesn’t mean they have the disease, just that they have been around people who have had it.) If she does indeed have TB, we will take here to the TB clinic in Fond de Negres for treatment. We hope to get her in the snazzy wheelchair soon- pictures to follow!
We thank you for all your support, and we ask that you continue to keep the sisters, and the people of Haiti, in your prayers.
God bless-
Tim and Christy
Posted by Christy and Tim at 07:59 PM on September 29, 2003 :: Permanent link
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Recent entries
Vacation’s All I Ever WantedRequiem
Sr. Althea Jonis, Born to Eternal Life 9/9/03
That Old Time Religion
Dramatis Personae II: The Haitian Lane
Dramatis Personae
An American PT in Haiti
Seven-Week Itch
Praying in Haiti
Bells, Bells, Bells, Bells
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