A New Perspective

Through my company, The Keane Insurance Group, I was granted the amazing opportunity to be part of a mission trip to Haiti this past October. Our mission?  To provide loving care for orphans in Haiti, (you can visit Haiti Orphan Project for more information about this great cause!). I’m happy to say a trip I was once apprehensive about, turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life thus far. Let me explain:

Over a year ago, when our president, John Keane, first spoke to us about his vision for beginning a charitable organization, and the possibility of making trips to Haiti, I immediately wrote him an email and expressed interest in getting involved. When this vision became a reality however, I suddenly felt apprehensive. My worries started to get the best of me, and I began questioning my real motives for even wanting to go on a trip like this in the first place. Looking back, I think at that time I was searching...for a purpose? to fill a void in my life? to be like others who have experienced trips like these before?  Basically losing focus of the true cause: the orphans. Then, a strange phenomenon took place (a reverse psychology of sorts). Over the next few months as our first few groups traveled to Haiti, they all came back and shared their amazing experiences, had these inspiring stories to tell, and strongly encouraged the rest of us to go too. Yet for some reason, the more people encouraged and pressured me to go, the less I seemed to want to go. I began to feel like I was being pulled into something I wasn't ready for and wasn't really feeling inside of me as much. It was like I was supposed to go for the same reasons they had wanted to go, and was supposed to feel the same ways they had felt after their experiences. But, what if I went to Haiti, visited the orphans, and didn't feel that way? What if I didn't connect with the kids at all? What if I was miserable and sad the whole time I was down there? What if I got malaria? Like I said, my worries were getting the best of me. But above all, I wanted to go when the timing was right for me, and I wanted to make sure I was going for the "right" reasons.  So, I thought about it A LOT and decided to give it time (what ended up being almost a year), believing that I would know when/if I was ready to embark on a trip like this to Haiti. During that next year, I went through a lot of changes in my life, much personal growth, and had some great conversations with some of my wiser friends. I got to a point where I felt much stronger as a person, more secure in who I was, and had developed a stronger faith and peace within me. I seemed to have fewer distractions, a clearer mind, and a more open heart. I finally felt like I was ready to step out of my comfort zone and do something big.  So, I emailed our trip leader Les and said, "Sign me up for the October group!" …and the excitement began to build inside me. 

Thursday morning, October 13, our team decided to meet at the fine hour of 4 a.m. (which meant waking up around 3 a.m.) to head to the airport. For someone who is not usually a morning person and struggles to get out of bed for work every morning (I don’t know how you crazy morning exercise folks do it), you can imagine this may have been a challenge, and I debated whether to even go to bed at all that night. To my surprise however, I popped right out of bed at 3 a.m. and was ready to go!  I knew already this trip was off to a good start :)

Our group of 16 arrived in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti early Thursday evening. Let me pause for a moment for some first impressions: after my last view from a plane had been looking down on the beautiful city of Miami, I can’t even begin to describe to you the contrast view flying into Haiti. The first thing that struck me were the sprawling tent cities scattered across the city. Even though I had seen this on the news before, it was so much more powerful witnessing it in person and became a very sad reality. 

After we arrived, we walked out of the airport and piled into a bus, which would serve as our trusty transportation the remainder of the trip.

...except for this particular moment...thank God for all of our strong men!! :)

I spent most of our drive to Croix Des Bouquets looking out the window of the bus, just taking it all in. As we drove through the city I was speechless at the poverty I saw all around us, and I also made the realization that we were really only seeing a snapshot of daily life for the people in that part of Haiti. There is so much (worse) I know we did not see. Driving and looking out the windows, I honestly felt a bit awkward that the people in town could see us looking out our windows at them as we drove past. Something just didn’t feel right about this to me. It was almost as if we were on a tour at the zoo gawking out the windows, but these were not animals, but human beings, like me, we were looking at. I couldn't help but wonder what they were thinking. What do they think of us Americans coming into their country? Why am I so fortunate to be on this air conditioned bus, with all my conveniences packed in my backpack? So many thoughts racing through my head. About an hour later, we finally arrived at the Jumecourt Inn in Croix Des Bouquets, where we stayed the first and last nights of the trip.

The Jumecourt Inn sits right next door to an orphanage called Source de la Grace, and as we pulled in we were greeted by the sounds of very happy children shouting out in joy for our arrival! The best way I can describe this is a group of children who had just been told Santa was here to see them and personally deliver them all the presents in the world!! (it turns out for these kids one of the greatest presents we could give them was simply our presence). The minute we arrived we dropped off our bags and walked right over to the orphanage, without a moment to pause and take it all in. I had no idea what I was expected to do at this point, but something inside told me to just jump right in! 

As I walked into the sea of children, one little boy immediately grabbed my hand and took me away from the group. It seemed that he wanted to sit with me all by himself, so we sat next to each other on a cement wall as he smiled at me with excitement. He examined my hands, held my arms, talked to me and sang songs to me (in Haitian Creole). I had no idea what he was saying, but I think somehow we knew what each other was feeling. Using the few (very few) words of Haitian Creole that I knew I managed to ask the little boy what his name was, and he said “Sonny” (I believe it was pronounced Son-eh). Sonny showed me a little slingshot toy he had made for himself out of a basic girl’s hair tie and some sticks he kept in his pocket. He would fling the little sticks, aiming exactly where he wanted them to go. I could tell he was very proud of his invention!  I then noticed there weren’t really any toys, or items in general, laying around the orphanage and quickly made the realization that these children do not have many material possessions at all. They mostly make their own toys and yet seem simply happy with what little they have (a lesson many of us could learn). After a few piggy back rides and sitting and playing with Sonny for a while, he suddenly grabbed my hand again and started leading me back towards the inn. He was saying something like “manjay, manjay” and pointing away as if telling me it was time for me to leave. I said, “But I don’t want to leave yet.” He, of course, didn’t know what I was saying and continued to lead me towards the inn, so I gave him a hug goodbye and took a few pictures with him. It was so hard not being able to talk to him and tell him I would be coming back, be he seemed to understand what was going on. Everyone else in my group started heading back over to the inn at this point too, so I asked one of my group members what "manjay" meant, and he said “to eat”. Sonny was telling me it was time for dinner! He knew the routine. So cute! I just loved that little guy...

My first taste of a Haitian dinner was delicious. We had chicken with rice and red sauce, fried plantains, fresh pineapple, fresh avocado, and potato salad. Yum! I would say the first evening was definitely a success, creating a lingering excitement in me (which woke me up promptly at 5 a.m. the next morning with no alarm clock! Well that, or the roosters crowing :)). 

Day two began with a four hour drive up the coast of Haiti to the city of Gonaives, where we settled into a new hotel for the next two nights, and then drove to visit another orphanage called Desire` Village. The drive to Gonaives was quite different from our drive through the city the previous day. This time instead of poverty stricken city life, we saw vast fields with stunning green mountains on one side and the dazzling (that one’s for you Jeffy) blue Caribbean ocean on the other. Simply breathtaking! It is amazing yet confusing to think how this is all part of the same country -- the same beautiful island.

Again, as we pulled into the second orphanage, all of the kids had the biggest smiles on their faces and began jumping for joy! (I could really get use to this). We stayed at Desire` for a few hours playing with the kids and simply sitting and hanging out with them most of the time. A little girl attached to me this time and had fun playing with my hair, wearing my sunglasses and taking a ton of pictures with my camera, (the kids LOVE taking pictures and really love the immediate gratification of looking at themselves on your digital screen; thank God for digital cameras!).


  

 

The third day we visited an all boys orphanage called Saintilus, where the famous Red Rover incident occurred (if you haven’t seen the video yet, you are missing out! Haha! But you're also in luck...click to watch it below! How did Jeff not see this one coming?)   

HAHAHA...sorry, still laughing about the video :) Where was I...
There were a lot of older boys at Saintilus, so it was a bit of a different experience as they weren't as interested in being held or piggy back rides, haha. Instead we played music for them, some of the boys enjoyed singing to us, we took pictures and videos, and we played games like soccer...and Red Rover!
 

After spending an hour or so with the boys at Saintilus, we took a short walk out to the countryside to see the site where our very own orphanage will be built (the Haiti Orphan Project is currently funding the construction of a brand new orphanage near Gonaives). It was a beautiful piece of property outside the city, set among rice fields, with towering mountains as the backdrop. 

It’s so exciting that we have already begun fundraising to raise money for small projects that will make up parts of the orphanage, such as a running well for clean water. Check out this video of the 5K we put together specifically to raise money for this well: 


Race Day Video 


I look forward to hearing about the progress and hopefully getting to be a part of our orphanage in person someday! 


After this we took a quick stop at a marketplace in town and walked out to the town's beach. This was by far one of the most awful scenes I saw all weekend. Every inch of the shore was covered in trash (and other things I will not mention), with wild animals living among the rubbish. Needless to say, we did not stay here long, but it certainly left a lasting impression. 

We then went to visit a precious group of orphans at the Philadelphia Evangelical Church. I am told many of these children will eventually be the ones to live at our orphanage. During our visit, the kids excitedly sang songs to us and we sang two songs to them that we had learned in Creole. We also painted nails, had jump rope contests with the kids (ask Jeff who won his!), and we helped them make puppets out of paper bags. It was a lot of fun, and again, the kids were all so happy! 

Sunday morning we attended church with the people of Gonaives. We listened to a rather long, interesting Haitian sermon (which was partially translated for us - ask the women in our group what we learned in church that day, haha!), and it was then time for our big performance, which we had practiced diligently for on the bus the last three days.  Our entire group went up on stage in front of the congregation and sang the two children’s songs that we had learned in Haitian Creole. Boy was THAT an experience! It was hilarious! We definitely got a few chuckles from the audience and each had at least one of the two songs stuck in our heads every single day for the next week!Haha.

   

Ala m kontan m kontan

jezi renmen, jezi renmen, jezi renmen oh, oh, oh!

Ala m kontan m kontan

jezi renmen, jezi renmen

Se bagay meveye!

I think Les MAY have caught a small clip of our performance on video, but sadly, you will not see that here :)

After church we began our long drive back to Croix Des Bouquets and the Jumecourt Inn. We were all pretty tired (and not to mention sweaty and dirty) by this point in the trip, so you can imagine how awesome it felt when our bus driver pulled over on the shore of the Caribbean ocean and let us take a break for a swim. Oh my goodness, the water felt amazing! This was a little piece of heaven if you ask me. I have never seen anything like it and still cannot believe we got to do that!

We made a few final stops before getting back to Jumecourt. We visited the memorial grounds where countless number of earthquake victims were buried, and we drove through downtown Port-Au-Prince and saw the remains of the Presidential Palace. I was shocked by how much damage still remains unfixed from the earthquake. Both of these stops were very sad, but a good reminder of the natural disaster that affected the lives of so many over a year ago, and still to this day.

We finally made it back to Jumecourt Sunday evening, and had a few moments with the same kids from the first night. I was SO touched that my little Sonny remembered me! He was so excited to see me, but this time let some of his friends share me, haha. A group of them sat all around me (Sonny on my lap of course), and I let them scroll through all of my pictures from the trip so far. They pointed and giggled and seemed to absolutely LOVE looking at my pictures. Every time a picture of me would come up, Sonny would say “Melissa!” and kiss the camera screen, haha!  He was a-dorable. There were even a few old pictures of my family I had left on my camera’s memory stick and as the kids scrolled through those they would point and say “mamma” and “papa” to my parents. It was so fun sitting with these children enjoying such a simple activity. That last night with the kids was wonderful, but much too short. Les and Tim from our group somehow managed to have enough time to get hair cuts from the kid's barber shop before we left though, haha! They were very good sports!

 

Monday morning we were up early (like every morning, which continued to surprise me with how easy it was) and off to the airport for our long journey home to the states. I was honestly a little surprised that I wasn't quite ready to go home yet. I would have thought by this point I would have been craving a long hot shower, my nice cozy bed, cell phone service, and a watch, but none of that really seemed to matter anymore. Without a watch, constant access to the internet, or a cell phone, I was forced to live life in the moment...and it was awesome. I didn’t want this amazing trip to end and somehow wanted to hold on to this feeling forever. I had experienced and learned so much in such a short time. Who would have thought the simple lives of the people in Haiti and the joy of orphaned children could teach you so much. We have so much to be thankful for. Everything I had worried about beforehand, turned out better than I could have ever expected. Things that would normally bother me or make me uncomfortable somehow were hardly noticed. Expectations of sadness and discouragement were replaced by feelings of happiness and hope. Amidst poverty in a third world country and what could be considered unsafe circumstances at times, I felt completely safe and protected. It is so hard to wrap all of this up in a few short words, so I’ll finish with this: I was told that people prayed for me before and during this trip, and I must say, I have never felt closer to God.

*Shout out to my amazing October group! You were all a huge part of my experience and made the trip that much easier and even more enjoyable for me.  Les, you were an awesome leader and I really enjoyed our group meetings, lessons and bead ceremonies each night. I look forward to taking more risks and making another trip to Haiti someday! 

To read more information about the specific orphan villages we visited, click HERE.