Haiti, Day Four: Guibert and the "Tent City Church"

6/11/13 - Tuesday

The third day of our Haiti trip, we traveled first to Guibert to officially tour the build site where we'd be working the next couple of days. We also saw a bunch of houses that had already been build through the 100 Homes Project.

Here's a video about the first home (the background music is a little loud, so you might have to really listen to understand the spoken audio):

Kenscoff Interview from Help One Now on Vimeo.

As we were walking past the soccer fields, not for the first time, I heard singing.

After we saw a few of the houses, we went over to see the new guest house near Pastor Jean Alix's church. While we were there, some of the little kids were apparently on recess. The kids ran out of the building, spotted us, and started yelling, "Blanc! Blanc!" These kids had apparently zero boundaries, as they darted toward us, jumped into our arms, pulled at our skin, opened our mouths and pushed their fingers in to separate our teeth, attempted to get up under or go down our shirts to see whether there was any part of us that wasn't white, tried to pick-pocket phones to play with, took hats, and shared with each other, "Blanc est gross!" The mole beside my belly button was of particular interest to them, despite my protests, and James was soon on the ground with children climbing all over him, pulling on his hair, and trying to dismantle his Camelback.

After the kids went back in, we visited with Richard Cadet, a local artist who also had a home built through the 100 Homes Project. If you look here, you can see at the time of this blog that he was in the process of adding on to the original structure (you'll also see a picture of him with his work). It's finished now, and is his studio.

From Haiti 2013

(If you click on that picture, go back a few frames to see some of his work and the interior of his studio.) You can purchase some of his work and read his story here. Richard Cadet has won Haitian art prizes and been featured in magazines. He teaches local kids how to paint, as well.

For lunch, we headed to the Tea Terrace at the Baptist Mission, which has been in Kenscoff for a long time and I know they do great work, but, bless them, it's hopelessly American and there were more white people there (many with new Haitian babies) than anywhere else except for the airport. One upshot of a distinctively USA place? They had Diet Coke! My sole diet soda of the week! While we waited for all of our orders to be correctly filled, James had kibby, something Dario could only describe as, "Sort of a meat thing. You should try it." It was actually pretty yummy. Also, the dining area is totally open to the mountains, and we had a gorgeous view of the rain storm that hit while we were in there.

We spent the afternoon and evening in Petionville, visiting with Pastor St. Cyr, who has ministered to the Haitians in the biggest tent city for the past three years. He has a church, in which he also lived, before the earthquake and was home when the earthquake hit. After the tremors ended, he attempted to take an injured person into town to the hospital, but the roads were just jammed with people in confusion. By the time he reached the main road, he had seven injured people with him, and then he ran out of gas. People had to push his truck back to his home, where he and his wife tried to tend to the injuries as best they could.

Three days later, fuel was finally available. He showed up at the gas station at 4:30 AM and by 3:30 PM was finally able to get fuel, which he used to power his generator and hold a worship service. He felt that the people needed this, and he held services nightly, continuously, for months. Many people have come to work with him (including famous people, there long enough for photo ops), and he has always welcomed any help, but with one caveat: Anyone who wanted to speak to his church had to agree never to tell the people to whom he ministers that the earthquake was God's judgement on them. He said that his people had suffered enough, and the message that they needed to hear was that God loved them and that God was with them in their struggles.

Pastor St. Cyr also hosts a school at the same site as the church/home that was damaged in the earthquake. The school is presently outside, but thanks to donations and Pastor St. Cyr's drive, he has just completed building a new, safe church building with a school downstairs, which will open in September. Additionally, there is a corner of the building reserved for a walk-in clinic; the pastor only needs volunteers and supplies. 

The pastor's son, Jean, just moved back to Haiti from the United States three months ago. He spent time in Haiti when he was 10-15, but then went back to go to school and to work. His father has asked him numerous times to return, but it has only been recently that he felt the call to take this request seriously. He does have fond memories of his childhood in Haiti, though at first he was a bit put off by the fact that they didn't have consistent electricity for his video games. He said that he learned to entertain himself, and recalls sitting around with friends telling riddles to pass the time. As we walked with him to see the rental where his family is currently staying (a safe place, as opposed to the damaged home), he pointed out a tall pink structure and said, "That used to be a parking lot. I learned how to fly a kite there. I never flew a kite in the States. I never needed to."

We were able to attend mid-week services at the Compassion of God Baptist Church. Afterward, James and I were standing outside on a porch when a couple of girls below on the street noticed my camera hanging on my arm. They had an old, taped-up, non-functioning film camera with which they mimicked taking my picture. After I posed for them, I asked if they wanted me to take their picture. They did. I walked down the stairs to show them the result, and they giggled. I went back upstairs, they got my attention again, and the older girl asked for another picture. This time, she brought on the full model action. When I went down to show her, she was even more tickled. She tried to get the little boy who was with them to pose, but he didn't understand what was going on. Then both of the girls posed for one more picture, and it was time to go. As we were leaving, I saw the older girl with her mom, explaining that I was the one who'd taken a picture of her. I feel like we're all friends now, and we didn't exchange much at all by way of language. 

From Haiti 2013

That night, we had a late dinner and skipped our evening meeting. The next day was to be a work day, and we needed our rest.