Today we started our day in Port Salut on the hotel patio overlooking the Caribbean. After a fantastic breakfast of ham and cheese omelets, coffee, and fresh juice, we visited the English school sponsored by Joan and Ray. The program consists of 4 levels, with each level consisting of 1 year of English teaching. We shared with the students a little bit about ourselves and then let them ask questions of us. Catherine and Ashley spoke with 4-5 students each from the level 3 and 4 levels while David, Stu, and Ray talked with approximately 20-30 level 2 students. This was extremely fun and allowed the students to practice their English. As many as 14 students will be graduating after this year with their certificate as the first students with 4 years of English class completed
After leaving the school, and on our way out of Port Salut we made two more stops. The first was a stop to see Mary Lou and her five children. Mary Lou had two daughters that were previous restaveks in PAP, but with the help of the Conn’s a house was built for Mary Lou so she could get her 2 daughters back home from PAP and out of the restavek system a couple of years ago. As we visited and began to talk with Mary Lou she shared that she had sent her youngest daughter to PAP because she could not feed her. She also told us her other daughter had contracted TB and been very sick earlier in the year. After a long discussion with Joan, Mary Lou agreed to get her youngest daughter returned from PAP and make sure they attended school beginning in October. On the ride back to PAP it was heartbreaking to hear the plight of Mary Lou (she was a child restavek) and her children and her inability to provide food, leading her to send yet another daughter away to become another abused restavek.
Our second stop was to view another piece of property, on the outskirts of Port Salut that the Conn’s hope to build a transition home on to further build into the community in and around Port Salut. This piece of property was back off the main road and similar in size to the property in Port Salut that will be used for the community center. We joined with local community members and prayed on the property. Before we departed we passed out shoes, some clothing, underwear and anti-parasitic medicine to the community who gathered.
After viewing the property we continued our journey back to PAP. As we passed through the multiple towns and markets we were taken back by the constant barrage of malnourished children with thin arms and legs, and distended stomachs. The need is immense and everywhere you look.
We entered into PAP about 2:30. Joan and Ray had a meeting at pastor Sheeba’s church, aka the “big yellow church”, regarding some restavek students and their report cards. We all sat around in one of the temporary school classrooms that were built after the earthquake, and rested after our long drive. There are 12 classrooms that had over 800 students in session this year. This school is to replace the one that collapsed during the earthquake killing approx 30 students, 8 of which were restavek children that Ray and Joan were serving. Ray & Joan are working with the church to find a property where the school can be rebuilt.
At the conclusion of the meeting at church we picked up Nadine, one of the child advocates for the Restavek Freedom Foundation. We dropped her off at home and proceeded back to the house where we all crashed and rested before dinner.
Ray & Joan were unable to join us for dinner so we invited Louise, the house manager, to sit down for dinner with us. Louise led us in prayer and during dinner Ashley and Catherine led us in practicing Creole. Dinner was great as usual, and to bless Louise the guys cleared the tables (I know…very weak) while Ashley and Catherine washed the dishes.
Tomorrow Ray and Joan will be headed home and leave us on our own for a couple of days. We plan to go to the metal market and we will also begin looking around town for accommodations and other resources for support future trips.
Ray humor for the day:
As we were taking Nadine home we saw the strangest thing. A group of 10-12 guys were trying to carry a 15-foot I-beam across the street, when out of the blue Ray says, “That’s interesting, those guys are trying to salvage that piece of iron. That should be interesting trying to get that in their living room.”
For the Haiti Team,
David
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