Weekends at Kay Timoun

Weekends are great!  The kids at Kay Timoun have activities that are not much different from kids in the U.S.  They are up at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning and then off to exercise.  Stretching exercises, running, and then sit-ups and push-ups are all included in the program.  The kids return home invigorated and ready for a big breakfast.  After showers and breakfast the older kids have acolyte training.  There is no coaxing here to get kids off to extracurricular activities.  They value the opportunity and are excited about learning.  All the children have music class in the late morning.  They are now being taught music theory and will soon learn to play music on a simple instrument.

After lunch everybody chips in to tackle the mountain of laundry.  They scrub and wash by hand, and then dry on a clothes line.  The boys are responsible only for washing socks and underwear because they have other yard duties in the afternoon.

Weekends are also for relaxing and watching a favorite movie.  We show both Haitian and American movies on a laptop computer.  A favorite is “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” 

Sunday mornings are special for the kids at Kay Timoun.  They dress up in their finest, carry their bibles and prayer books and are off to church, usually the first to arrive.  They sit in the front seats, sing all the hymns and fully participate.  This Sunday I found it amazing that four year old Odiana, sitting in the front row, stayed focused on the entire service, which I might add is two hours long including announcements.

Sunday afternoons are for visiting family.  I walk Benjamy, Ange, Jean Marie and Odiana to their parents’ homes.  Wonel goes with Zachary and Sundreen.  The older kids are on their own.  They know that they are to return at 5:00 but most of the kids are here at 3:00 for the Sunday afternoon movie.

After chapel prayer and singing at 7:00, the kids prepare for bed, last minute touch ups to school uniforms, and another exciting week at Ste. Marie Madeleine School.

 

Home again, home again!

I’m back in Bondeau after being in Boca for two weeks.  It was great to have all of my "creature comforts", a big comfortable bed and air conditioning, but I’m delighted to be back with my kids at Kay Timoun.  Arriving in Port au Prince at 3:00PM put us right in the rush hour traffic and it took over three hours to travel the 65 miles to Bondeau.  On the way, we slowly passed by miles and miles of tent cities that have become tent slums.  Residents have added on to their tents to have some semblance of a home, but it’s still a tent and it’s still slum.  Banks of bright blue portable toilets stand out among all the earth colored tents.  Little children play ball on a small patch of concrete, no larger than six feet square, surrounded by tent homes.  Stagnant green water flowed along the curb of the street.  Abandoned trucks had been stripped of anything valuable or useful and remain on the side of the road…no towing service here!

Creeping along the route toward Leogane, I was able to see much that I don’t see while driving at a faster speed.  One thing that stood out on this drive was the number of canals and rivers running down from the mountains toward the ocean.  They were all filled with plastic trash!  Plastic bottles, plastic bags, plastic jars, Styrofoam containers, plastic, plastic, plastic clogging up the flow of water.  Plastic piled high on the river banks.  Plastic is a huge problem in Bondeau, as well, because there is no trash pick-up here, and no recycling program.  People simply have no place to dispose of their plastic bottles or plastic packaging, so most of it just gets tossed on the ground, an eye sore for visitors and for me, too.  Thankfully, most food is bought in large quantities in bags that can be reused, and Coke, Pepsi, and beer drinks are in glass bottles to be returned.  Bondeau does not have the resources to deal with plastic trash.

On Saturday I went to a food depot in Miragoane to purchase the large quantity of food consumed here at Kay Timoun.  Among other food items, I bought 110 lbs. of rice and 100 lbs. of pinto beans, 6 gallons of cooking oil, and 50 lbs. of corn meal.  The cost was much less than I had anticipated, thinking that it had gone up again in the two weeks I was gone.  But, actually, the rice was a little less, and the beans about $1.00 lb. US.

I have quickly returned to my everyday routine here at Kay Timoun.  The children were happy to see me.  I am thrilled to be back caring for them.  Every child was able to receive a new pair of shoes because of generous donations.  Also, new dresses , new shorts, shirts, and jeans.  We are able to make a distribution of clothing to the community, as well.  I am overwhelmed with the generosity of people and I give thanks every day.  You are all helping the poorest of the poor!  I hope to post more photos on Facebook.

Reflection on "Sandy"

I think of how hurricane Sandy came through Bondeau, Haiti...lots of rain lasting several days, on and off showers, not constant downpour.  Our house flooded, as it does in any heavy rain, due to poor construction.  The kids all chipped in to clear the house of water; some kids swept water out the doors, others mopped, and the little ones scooped water with their hands into small buckets.  We were rather safe despite the severeness of the storm.  People in the community were much worse off than we.  This would include parents of the children living at Kay Timoun.  Many people lost animals that they depend on for income; goats drowned, chickens were washed away.  Others lost crops that they had nurtured along in hopes of harvesting.  Corn and sugar cane plants were broken and bent over from the high winds.  Water washed through houses built of woven sticks.  Mud surrounded the houses when I visited two days after the storm.  Food is scarce and expensive, so many families had no food, waiting for the school to open so children would at least have rice and beans provided by the school feeding program.  And yet, there were no complaints.  People began to help one another, making repairs as needed, as soon as the storm was over.  Haitians are the most resiliant people in the world!  They deal with one disaster after another!

And I see on the news all the suffering in the northeast: people stranded without electricity in bitter cold temperatures, gas stations closed, no gasoline available, flooded streets.  Government relief isn't there to help the sick, the elderly, and simply the general population.  People are helping their neighbors, people are helping people, just like in Bondeau!  So, does it take disaster to bring out the best in all of us?  I don't know, but I do know that people, both Americans and Haitians, step up to help their neighbors when help is needed the most.  People have compassion for one another and that is God working in us and among us.

I'm writing from my home in Boca Raton and will return to Bondeau this coming week.  I miss all my kids and the simple, although challenging life in Bondeau.























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