PORT-AU-PRINCE — Every night, at the end of devotions, we sing the old Nat King Cole song “L-O-V-E,” and we end it with a chant:
“1-2-3…Goodnight, Chika!”
It is meant to remind us — all of us, the kids, the nannies, the staff, my wife and myself — that Chika is never gone. But, of course, she is gone, at least in one sense. She isn’t running around the yard, wagging a finger at the other kids, telling the older boys who can use a soccer ball or balloon, pulling someone into the gazebo to dance, or singing with that booming Ethel Mermanesque voice that you could rattled through the hard concrete walls of our Haitian orphanage.
It’s been five years since Chika died. Five years today. It’s sunny and warm here in Haiti and it was sunny that morning as well. Chika had performed a miracle the day before. Her breathing had slowed to an almost imperceptible level, and her heartbeats, measured with a stethoscope that my wife and I shared, had dropped to five per minute. The hospice nurses had told us this was the end, the moment we had to say goodbye to our precious child.
But there was a sound. A small, soft groan. We were flanked around Chika in our bed, the way she always liked it, a game she referred to as “cozy, fluffy bed camp” where the idea was to get as close to one another under the covers as you could.
So there we were, little Chika between us, choking back our tears, and I asked the hospice nurses what that small noise meant.
“Those are just the sounds children make when they are about to go,” we were told.
But I didn’t believe it. Neither did Janine. People had been wrong about Chika before. They were wrong when, after discovering she had a DIPG brain tumor, they said she wouldn’t live more than 4-5 months. They were wrong when they said that a second round of radiation wouldn’t help her. People had been wrong about Chika and her survival abilities so many times, that we doubted anything the first time we heard it.
“No,” I told the nurses that morning, “she’s trying to fight. She’s trying to stay with us.”
My wife agreed. And so we lifted her and I began pounding on her back with a small rubber device, and we suctioned her with a nose tube, and in moments, her respiration improved and her heart rate rose to 35 beats a minutes. The hospice nurses were stunned. She lived another day, and gave everyone who loved her a chance to come by and say farewell.
“In all my time doing this, I’ve never seen anything like that,” one nurse said.
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A tiny miracle
Of course, most of us had never seen anything like Chika. She survived the terrible earthquake of 2010 when she was three days old. Her single-room, cinder block house collapsed around her, yet she and her mother lived. She slept in a bed of sugar cane leaves that night, out in the field, under the stars. That was her bed for weeks.
Two years and half years later she endured another tragedy when her mother died giving birth to her baby brother. Chika was taken away that day by her godmother, who brought her to us at the orphanage.
For several years she was our youngest, loudest and bossiest child — and everyone loved her. Then the drooping face started, and the neurologist, and the MRI, and the diagnosis, and the trip to America that was supposed to be for a surgery that cured her and wound up as a one-way ticket into our lives.
Chika lived just shy of two years after her diagnosis. That’s incredibly long for DIPG patients. The disease usually strikes kids between 4 and 9, and is nearly always fatal. During that stretch with Chika, we got to know many other families enduring this horror. Some remain friends to this day. And some amazing work is being done to try and wipe out DIPG, particularly by our friends with Chadtough Defeat DIPG Foundation.
Haiti is home
But while we don’t miss those days of treatments, steroids, radiation, plane trips to New York and Germany, and the endless, maddening, race to find a cure, we sure miss Chika. We miss her every day in our home in America, which she filled up with singing and laughing and dolls strewn all over the floor.
But here in Haiti, we miss her differently. We miss her being a part of the group. She loved being our de facto daughter in America, loved the fuss we made over her and her alone, the trips for ice cream, the visits to an arcade where she collected tickets that you traded in for little prizes, the snuggling in bed between my wife and me while we watched a Peter Pan movie.
But Haiti was never far from her mind. She would always ask when she was going back. She would always ask if we could FaceTime devotions, so she could see the kids praying. She told everyone in the U.S. she had “five houses,” and she rattled off all the places she had slept for more than a night; yet she always added the qualifier “but my HOME is Haiti.”
And it was. I remember the first time we brought her back after a round of treatments. She was bloated up from the steroids and didn’t quite look like the Chika who had left months earlier. But she was bouncy and happy and could not wait to get there.
When we pulled into the driveway, you could hear the chants starting. “Chika! Chika! Chika!” The kids had all gathered awaiting her arrival, and when she emerged from the van, it was the loudest roar I’ve ever heard from our group. They grabbed at her and bounced her from shoulder to shoulder, and when they finally put her down, she ripped off her little sweater — it was Haiti, after all, and it was hot — and she ran to the swings and she jumped on.
Other kids jumped on with her. And they flew back and forth, Chika smiling like this was all she ever wanted, her legs extending to heaven with each ascent.
I often picture her on that swing, going higher and higher, and finally just lifting out of the banana seat and soaring gently into the stars. That’s why we look to the sky every night when we finish singing to her. Good night, Chika. There’s not a day that you are not with us.
PORT-AU-PRINCE — So how do our kids stay in shape?
American children have soccer, little league, gymnastics, high school sports. They have swim meets and health clubs, football fields and baseball diamonds.
We don’t have any of that, it’s true. But within our cramped, third-of-an-acre rectangle, our kids are hugely active. And I’d dare say they are faster, stronger, and more trim and fit than most of their American counterparts.
So how does that happen? Well. To begin with, we don’t have TV. We don’t have computers. We don’t have iPhones. So sitting on a couch — except to read — is the last thing our kids are interested in.
Secondly, while some rooms have air conditioners, many do not. And with temperatures usually hovering between 90 and 100 degrees, you don’t want to be inside.
Which brings you outside to our “yard.” It’s not exactly an LA Fitness, but if you look carefully, it has its features.
For example, we have a 50 by 25-foot patch of lumpy concrete. This serves as our soccer field, our street hockey rink or our “tennis court,” depending on what nets or sticks we use. But there is rarely a moment our kids are not engaged in some sport on that slab of concrete, and the games can go for hours.
‘Round the loop
Then there’s the “loop.’’ That’s what we call walking or running around the perimeter of our facility. And while there are no markings, lanes, or measurements, you do have to navigate potholes, mud, trash barrels, laundry lines and the occasional stray toy. This keeps you on your toes.
Ask J.J. One of our oldest boys (he’s 18 and heading to college next year), J.J. wanted to drop some weight. So he started running every morning with one of our incredible volunteers, Halie Chambers. They run early, before the sun starts baking the pavement. And just by doing that, in six months, J.J. has lost over 40 pounds. He’s trim and slim and ready for university. No membership fee required!
We also have our own version of a “weight room.” Granted, it’s upstairs, outside, on the roof of the living room, and it’s never gonna rival the Dallas Cowboys training facility.
But it does have a half-broken pulley machine, some loose barbells, a few free weights, a bench with no cushion and this old metal contraption that you can use for chin ups.
And somehow, using this regularly, most of our young men look like a page out of “Ripped!” magazine.
Basketball on the “court” / Photo credit: Danielle Cutillo Photography
In constant motion
But more than anything, our kids stay fit through perpetual motion. You know those PSA commercials encouraging kids to put in an hour a day of physical activity? They’re definitely not needed here.
As I write this, I look over the railing and see nine kids playing concrete soccer, four kids swinging hula-hoops, two riding bicycles (we only have two bicycles) and one running laps. Most of the rest are racing from one corner to the next, or dashing up the steps, or down the steps, or dancing, or holding hands with the nannies as they walk from spot to spot.
The orphanage is in constant motion. They run from school to music class to dance to the dining room. There’s no snacking between meals (we don’t have any snacks!) and so they eat breakfast, a big lunch and a small dinner at designated times. And while their diet, despite our efforts at full nutrition, still tends a bit towards rice and starches, they burn it off daily, and you’d be hard pressed to find any of the 55 children who you would label overweight.
J.J.(left) and Appoloste (right) ready to pump. you. up. / Photo credit: Danielle Cutillo Photography
So our kids rate high on the physical fitness scale, and I am amazed at all they can do without breaking a sweat. But the nicest part is, for whatever reason, there’s no vanity in any of this. We have almost no mirrors in our facility. So no one is primping, posing, studying their proportions or taking selfies of their muscles.
The kids are in shape because they lead a life of active, engaged routines, that’s all. They have no idea how beautiful or fit their bodies are in relation to some magazine glamour scale.
What we see when we see them at the end of the day is a group of strong, limber, growing bodies. What we see is health. And health, in this hot and poor country, may be the most beautiful feature there is.
PORT-AU-PRINCE — Outside my window, I hear a musical sound. Pa-Ping! Pa-Ping! It stops for a few seconds, then starts again. Ping! Ping! It goes on for half an hour — Pa-ping! Ping-ping-ping! — until finally, I drag myself out onto the morning heat to see if someone left an alarm going somewhere.
No alarm. It’s the sound of a language program being studied by Bianka, one of our teenaged girls. The program is called Duolingo. Every time you answer a question correctly, you get a ding.
Bianka is studying Arabic.
Pa-Ping! Pa-Ping-ping-ping-ping!
She’s getting a lot of questions right.
Bianka and Cinlove speaking Arabic
Some kids collect baseball cards. Some collect friends on Facebook. Our kids collect languages.
They never get tired of them. I suppose it makes sense. From the time they are eight or nine, they are already speaking three tongues — Creole, French and English — so adding another is hardly daunting. The bigger challenge is finding one that’s not taken.
“I can speak Chinese,” Junie-Anna would always tell me. This was when she was 13, 14, 15 (She’s 17 now). She would then rattle off sentences she had learned from the books I would bring her each month. She didn’t have a tutor. She had no one else to speak it with. But she wanted to learn Chinese. When I asked her why she said, “I want to go there one day.”
Maybe she read about it. Maybe she saw a movie. Maybe, because she dreams of being a veterinarian, she liked the pandas.
But she sat for hours and hours with those Chinese books, repeating phrases softly to herself.
And she’s not alone.
Junie-Anna and her Mandarin study books / Photo credit: Danielle Cutillo Photography
“¿Cómo estás?” / “Koman ou ye?”
Samanza, our oldest girl, is headed to Hope College in the fall. In the meantime, she studies Hebrew. Why? Who knows? We’ve had Jewish visitors over the years, including several rabbis and a young man who speaks Hebrew in his home. It inspired our kids. Samanza and Junie-Anna quiz themselves on how to say “How are you?” and “What are you studying?” in the original language of the Bible.
It doesn’t stop there. We have a wonderful teacher named Priscilla. She is from Brazil. Not surprisingly, we now have a cadre of young Portuguese speakers.
And since the Dominican Republic is on the other side of this island, Spanish is never far from our kids lips.
“Uno, dos, tres, cuatro…” you’ll hear out little ones rattling off.
Our music instructor, Dennis Tini, makes sure the kids learn songs in different languages. Our boys’ band (who call themselves “The Hermanos Brothers”) has done “Feliz Navidad” and “La Bamba.” Our little kids sing French nursery rhymes.
And of course, between the volunteers from various parts of the world, and our mostly Haitian staff, you’ll hear conversations start in English, continue in Creole and wiggle around in French.
All in all, it’s like living in a language lab, or the lobby of the United Nations.
Ordinarily, I’d stop with this observation. Our kids like languages. Pretty simple.
But I think it’s bigger than that. I think the willingness to communicate in a second language shows a sensitivity to the rest of the world, who may not speak yours.
In the U.S., we often have the expectation that English will be spoken wherever we go. That’s because, when it comes to North America, it pretty much is. And even when we go to, say, Europe, you can pretty much count on finding English speakers to make things easier.
Haitians don’t have that luxury. They know that Creole doesn’t travel. If they want to, they need to adjust.
John Carey holds an American Sign Language Workbook / Photo credit: Danielle Cutillo Photography
So they do — with fervor, with gusto, without complaint about the fairness of having to learn other nation’s tongues while no one is learning theirs. It’s one thing to love your language. It’s another to love them all.
Thus our orphanage is a cacophony of communication, a smorgasbord of syntax, an assembly of articulation, a tonnage of tongues.
And if you gave them time, I bet our kids could translate that sentence. At least five different ways.
It started with water. And food snacks. And paper towels. It progressed to hardware. Faucets. Shower heads. Over the years, it has morphed into school supplies, ink cartridges, acne cream.
There’s a lot of talk about supply chain these days. But at our orphanage, the supply chain has been chugging for more than 12 years. It begins with us shopping, continues with us packing endless duffel bags, and culminates in our arrival in a van or pick-up truck, unloading the goods as the kids circle anxiously and loudly volunteer to carry it all.
Socks, deodorant, boys underwear, educational videos…
The simple truth is, there are many things you can’t buy in Haiti. Other things are crazy expensive. Haiti is an island, so everything is imported. That raises costs. And some of what is sold there is inferior quality to what can be purchased in the U.S.
All of which launched us into a human delivery service. FedEx has nothing on us.
Crayons, aspirin, coffee maker, water filter….
Every month, depending on how many are coming with us, we maximize luggage allowance to incorporate the latest supply needs. We know every airline, every baggage limit. Over the years, we have made friends with porters and handlers who will shrug it off if we are one or two pounds over. It’s amazing when you say, “This is all for an orphanage” how nice some people can be.
Filling up an airplane in Michigan with supplies headed to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake / Photo courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
Delivering the basics, at first
The first haul we made was our initial trip to Haiti in early 2010. It was just after the earthquake, and we were told what was most needed were the basics: water, snacks, sanitary items, toothbrushes, toilet paper, soap.
In those days, you landed, you took your stuff off the plane, and you pretty much walked out. Operations at the airport were threadbare due to the earthquake, and few people bothered with customs or checking your luggage. This was when the Detroit Muscle Crew, a group of volunteer tradesmen from the Motor City area, began making trip after trip to our orphanage thanks to the generosity of Roger Penske and Art Van Elslander, who let us piggyback on their planes.
Minimal infrastructure at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport shortly after the 2010 earthquake / Photo courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
We stuffed everything from tile saws to lumber in those cargo holds. And no one ever asked us a thing when we landed.
Paintbrushes, PVC pipe, screwdrivers, twine…
As the years passed, our needs grew beyond construction. It was clear that certain things made more sense to buy in the States — reams of paper, computer cords, monitors, certain snack foods. We began to load every bag with as much as possible.
Then, when our school really got going, the supply needs tripled.
Math books, erasable markers, instructional DVDs, small plastic chairs…
Slowly but surely, month by month, we built up a supply closet, simply from taking one trip after another. Any visitor who joined us was asked to push their baggage to the limit. Periodically, when we are fortunate enough to be offered trips on private planes — the Masco corporation, for example, was kind enough to donate multiple flights — we took full advantage of the space, stuffing the empty seats with duffel bags.
Garage > airport > plane: our mini supply chain in 2022
Now, supplies to thrive on
These days, we have become quite specialized. Thanks to new programs and incredible volunteer instructors, you might find us filling our suitcases with art supplies, ribbons, Portuguese language books, basketballs. The music program has multiplied the supply needs, and airplane by airplane, we have built a small orchestra.
Violins, guitars, keyboards, ukuleles…
We’ve even managed to construct drum sets, one piece at a time. And since Dennis Tini, our musical director, is also a safety and CPR expert, we have brought with us fire blankets, emergency equipment, and even a full-sized mannequin to practice life-saving. I’m not making this up.
Photo credit: Danielle Cutillo Photography
There is pretty much nothing we won’t try to bring down if it enhances our kids’ lives.Is it heavy? Yes. Do we appear ridiculous? Often.
But the look on the kids’ faces when we pull in and unload is priceless. There is a sense of wonder. And you realize what a rare privilege it is to live in the world of FedEx, Amazon delivery and 24-hour supermarkets.
You realize how many people go through their days with nothing new being introduced. Nothing to unwrap. Little to open.
Our kids gather in the kitchen or the supply room and help us unpack rolls of paper towels, bathing suits, soccer nets, ice packs, guitar strings, silverware or boxes of quinoa. They marvel. They “ooh” and “ahh.” They say, “Is that for us?” We say, “Who else would it be for?”
We deliver. They smile. The supply chain chugs along. And it’s all worth it.
Top image: Stephania comforts Fabi, our newest and youngest at Have Faith Haiti
Youth has its privileges. Being the youngest child at our orphanage means your feet never touch the ground. The older kids, the nannies, the teachers and the adult visitors are all instantly lifting you up, carrying you, hugging you, making a fuss.
When a new young one enters the orphanage, everyone knows it. The child draws a crowd like a rock star in a parking lot.
For a while, our youngest child was Babu. Her grandmother had brought her to us not long after the 2010 earthquake, and had told us she was 2 ½ years old. That was pretty young for us back then, but her needs were great so we decided to admit her. Months later, when the grandmother finally brought us a birth certificate, we saw Babu was not even 2. But by that point, she was part of the family.
Babu, then and now. Photo credit: Brian Kelly / Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
Babu grew up, as they all do, and relinquished the “youngest” title to Knox, who came to us when he was 3, a victim of brain trauma in his infant years. We all carried Knox and fussed over Knox, until eventually, Esther and Stephania came to us from hurricane-ravaged Jérémie. They were both just three years old, born a month apart, and the older kids scrambled from one to the other, showering them with such love that it explains the utter confidence both of them have now, at the ripe old age of 8.
Knox, Esther, and Stephania in some of their youngest photos
I’m not sure who came directly after them, but I know pretty soon, Jerry took over. Jerry came to us through a staff member who knew the family situation, and asked if we could help. From the start, Jerry was so damn cute, a round face and hundred-watt smile, that kids would tag along behind each other, calling out “Jerry! Hey, Jerry!” and waiting for their turn to hold him.
Jerry!
Clubhouse rules
Jerry got so used to the carry-around treatment, that it was a shock to his system when, at age four, his crown was snatched by some younger kids from Les Cayes, like Esteven Belcom, who, after much prodding, told us, in a terribly quiet voice, that his real name was “Jeff.”
Soon the new kids were getting the New Kids Treatment, and we’d occasionally see Jerry watching the parade go by, lifting his arms as if to say, “Hey! Yo! What am I now, chopped liver?”
Recently, the youngest kid title belonged to Djoulissa, a charismatic ball of energy is who now approaching her third birthday.
But the current leader in the clubhouse is named Fabi. She just turned 2 last month. She has big eyes and prominent ears and a sometimes-dazed expression, which is understandable given the whirlwind she has been through in recent months.
Fabi celebrates her 2nd birthday with a bunny cake.
She comes from a village outside Les Cayes. Her father and sister were killed during the earthquake last August, her small home was destroyed. Her grieving mother, responsible for two older children, sought us out during a visit to the area. She knew of Siem, who was born in the area in the early 1990’s before coming to our orphanage as a young boy.
Siem is now in college in the U.S., and had gone with me to Les Cayes to help rebuild his mother’s house, which was destroyed in the earthquake.
Fabi’s mother, a tall, thin woman named Nadej, walked to the site of the wreckage with Fabi, then just 1 ½ years old, in her arms. She asked to speak privately with Siem, and then he translated for me.
“They had a house around here…it came down in the earthquake…a lot of them died…her mother, her husband, her daughter…she has two other kids…she doesn’t have a way to feed them…she wants us to take this one…she says she wants her to have a better life. She heard about me, and how I was raised at the Mission and the chances I’ve been given…She wants her daughter to have that…”
New kid treatment
As she spoke, I noticed she had a small packed bag with some clothes in it.
“Is she asking if we can take her daughter now?” I asked Siem.
“Yes,” he said. “Now.”
We had to tell her we were not equipped to do that, but that we would return in a few months after looking into the situation. She asked when that would be, perhaps doubting we meant it. We promised we’d be back around the new year, and we kept that promise.
And that is how Fabi came to us.
The new boss in town, Fabi
I look at her now, playing with Djoulissa, the youngest and the former youngest, still both in pull-up diapers, and I realize that one day, not too long from now, there will be another new one, with another story of desperation, and another chance to turn that desperation to hope.
And one day, Djoulissa and Fabi will be lifting the new young additions and comforting them when they cry, and telling them everything will be all right. Perhaps they will remember when they first got here, perhaps not. We can only hope the loving attention each “new youngest kid” receives upon arrival sets them on a course of feeling secure, in a large, unusual but ever-loving family.
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Have Faith Haiti Mission
c/o A Hole in the Roof Foundation
29836 Telegraph Road
Southfield, MI 48034
Have Faith Haiti is operated by the A Hole in the Roof Foundation, a 501(c)(3) org (TAX ID# 27-0609504). Donations are tax deductible.
About the Mission
The Have Faith Haiti Mission is a special place of love and caring, dedicated to the safety, education, health and spiritual development of Haiti’s impoverished children and orphans. You can learn more here.
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