Haitian Christmas
Dear Friends and Family:
This is the second-to-last Haiti update we are going to be sending from Haiti. In January, we will have passed one year here in Haiti, and the time has arrived for us to return home. We will be leaving on January 1st, Haiti‚s 200th anniversary of independence. When we leave we will be accompanying Samantha David and her mother, Elmita, to Green Bay. Samantha is scheduled to undergo surgery on January 7 to repair a cleft palate and cleft lip at a hospital in Green Bay. We thank you for reading these updates and following our journey through the year.
It‚s Christmas Eve here, and in a few minutes, we will be hosting the staff and their families for a little Christmas fet. There will be presents, and music, and we have a movie in French to show, and maybe the boys and I will sneak out in the back and grab a few pulls of Kremas, the peculiar Haitian holiday liquor that resembles phlegm and tastes like coconut. It should be a good time. But even if it‚s not so fun, I think we would have had an excellent Christmas already, and it largely has to do with you.
Because you helped us with your support, we are able to have a real, fun, give-it-all away kind of Christmas. But first, a Christmas memory: I remember once when I was "volunteering" for Sacred Heart Community Service during the annual gift give-away. My friend Kenric Erickson and I were assigned to drive a car around, delivering gifts all over San Jose on Dec. 23rd. I complained about having to do it, of course, as my mom was the Executive Director and unwarranted complaining is the prerogative of non-profit orphans. So, Mack, as Kenric was called then, and I were driving around San Jose, lost and without a decent map. We were not happy. It was getting late, and I had a premonition that this year would turn out like the year before, wherein I had to sit atop a pile of frozen turkeys in our slowly dying Ford van as we inched along traffic on 280, trying to get back to Sacred Heart before it closed.
Mack and I managed to find all the houses, even though some of them were houses in name only- more like converted garages and tool sheds. We‚d drop the gifts off, wish the people inside a merry Christmas, and rush to find the next house so we could finish and go get some food. We got lost finding a house, and we were driving around the same black for the third time until it was there, right in front of us, and not marked. So, I was a bit crabby.
We pull the boxes out of the back of the truck, and walk up to the house, which is dark and shabby. We knock. No one answers. We knock again, louder. Nothing. We push the bell. We wait. We decide to give up when a young woman answers the door, cradling a baby and with a 7-year old boy hiding behind her legs. Merry Christmas, we say, these are from Sacred Heart and they‚re for you. The woman must not have known we were coming, because she is speechless and just looks at us. So we lift the gifts into the entryway for her, and wish her a merry Christmas again, and we turn to go and the door closes behind us.
When we get to the curb, we hear the door open again and the little 7-year old boy pokes his head out, and he is so happy that he can hardly talk. He yells at us, "Hey- you guys! Hey- thanks! Merry Christmas!" and he closes the door again, running back into the house. He did it. He melted me- made me feel it. Christmas. I wasn’t cranky anymore; I wasn’t wasting my time trying to make sense of San Jose’s street system. It was Christmas, and a little boy who had nothing was happy because some people gave gifts to him, and I got to be the lucky one to see the look on his face when he received them. And it felt good. Mack and I drove back to Sacred Heart and we were happy- jovial- it was Christmas.
And this week we got to recapture that feeling. With money you donated, we bought two turkeys. Big, ugly, delicious-looking turkeys. One of the turkeys will be used tomorrow for Christmas dinner at Timoun Kontan, the round-the-clock clinic for malnourished kids. This morning we went to the market and picked up carrots, beets, potatoes, lettuce, cabbage and all the fixings for a great feast. We also got some plaintains to make banann peze, a delicious fried banana dish. While the kids eat we get to set up the presents in the other room- little plastic things for the little kids who enjoy throwing them across the room, and balls for the bigger kids who enjoy throwing them at the little kids. For the moms we have nail polish and things-girls-put-in-their-hair, which are always a hit. We will set up the TV and VCR and watch Toy Story, and we’ll break out the Haitian Christmas music and do a little dancing until our diapers fall off. It’ll be fun- and we get to do it because of you.
And the other turkey? I’d like to say we gave the doomed guy a reprieve, but instead we thought we’d let someone else eat him. If you remember the Jacques family, they are the family whom Christy worked with their daughter, Celine. Born normal, at 4 years old she started having seizures, and by the time she was nine she had a grand mal seizure that left her totally incapacitated. Christy worked with Celine each week, as Celine was incredibly spastic and bed-ridden. Little by little, Celine would get better. She had TB, so we had to get her diagnosed and then on medication for that. In September, one of Christy’s PT confreres came down with a special wheelchair (thanks Rob!) and Celine was able to be rolled out into the tiny dirt yard and sit in the shade for the first time in years.
Celine’s mom, Mitha, sells charcoal in the market. The charcoal vendors are kind of the bottom of the marchann pecking order. They are habitually dirty, and they squat among the fetid water the flows out of the market and into the nasty bay of Aquin. She takes excellent care of Celine and her other children. They are very poor.
So we gave them the turkey, and a bag of good things- clothes, flashlights, hats, toys for the girls. They were overjoyed. The turkey will feed their extended family and their neighbors. (We’ll maintain the holiday cheer as I omit just how they will dispatch said turkey.) And we were able to give Mitha enough money to send her other children to school next year. She was very, very happy.
But that’s not all you did this Christmas season.
Jakeeno and Ti Zo are two young boys that hang around the clinic in Ste Helene. Everyone knows them. They are always, always dirty, and most of the time Ti Zo has a runny nose. Jakeeno is the butt of other kid’s jokes because he has cerebral palsy, so his legs are seriously malaligned and he walks with a very large limp. They don’t go to school. Instead, they sit by the clinic and ask people to give them food. They live with their grandmother, who is seriously handicapped, her back bent in an "L" and she lies on the floor of their dirt hut all day. The small shack they live in was falling apart, and rain blew in through the walls and water dripped through the thatch roof.
The idea to help them wasn’t ours. The staff at the clinic brought it up. Sure, giving them food and money once in a while helped them, and every day the staff brought over a hot meal from the kitchen. But the children slept on the dirt floor, they were naked most of the time for lack of clothes, and if they had clothes, they had nowhere to keep them. The staff suggested we provide them with two beds for the kids, and repair their house.
So- guess what you did? You paid for a man to repair the walls and roof, and another man to plaster the house and paint it white. You bought two sturdy beds and two mattresses, and sheets and blankets. You decked out the boys in clothes, and provided a sturdy, plastic case for their clothes. You cleaned their house and arranged everything in it. And, for the grandmother who lays on the ground all day, you provided her with a genuine physical-therapist approved back rest so she has something to sit against. Then, to top it all off, you gave them each a brand new soccer ball.
You should have seen Jakeeno and Ti Zo as they helped carry the mattresses you gave them. Everyone said Jakeeno couldn‚t carry them because he can‚t walk right, but he grabbed a corner and led the way, with Christy providing a little help. Jakeeno was proud that he was carrying his bed, and he was happy that you provided it for him.
So- there’s our Christmas. Thanks for giving it to us. They say it is in giving that we receive, and after this year, I know it to be true. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to give on behalf of you.
Have a wonderful Christmas-
Tim and Christy
Posted by Christy and Tim at 09:38 AM on December 24, 2003 :: Permanent link
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Orevwa, AkenHaitian Christmas
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