PORT-AU-PRINCE — We start when the sun goes down and the pavement beneath our feet loses its heat.
“Anu machay!” I announce. Let’s walk!
I didn’t used to declare this. It started quietly, as a way to get exercise during the pandemic lockdown. A simple walk around our third-of-an-acre lot. To be honest, it was little more than walking in a large circle.
But no act, big or small, goes unnoticed by our kids. And after two or three laps (each of which take no more than a minute and a half) one of the younger boys skipped alongside me.
“Mister Mitch, what are you doing?”
“I’m walking.”
“Can I walk with you?”
“Sure.”
He took my hand. He fell into step.
Shortly thereafter, another boy joined. Then two girls. I had not viewed this as an official “activity,” but in a place where throwing small pebbles in the air can be a full-out competition, I guess I should have figured on it.
“Mister Mitch, can I walk with you?”
“Mister Mitch, I want to walk!”
“No, me!”
“Me!”
On we go.
Round and round
The walk itself is not much on scenery. We pass the gazebo where some kids are reading. We duck under the laundry line. We slide by the guard shack, beneath the basketball rim, to the right of the trash dumpster, past the three-room schoolhouse, beside the purple-painted music room, down the alley beneath the patio, past a wheelbarrow, the old generator, the steps, the water cooler and back to the gazebo again.
What makes the walk special is the ever changing cast of kids who grab my hands, pull on my shirt, hug my legs. And the conversation. The curious, often meandering, stream-of-consciousness chatter that kids offer when they’re happy and engaged.
“Mister Mitch, Manez hit me.”
“Mister Mitch, look at my shoe.”
“Mister Mitch, can we have popcorn tonight?”
“Mister Mitch, I found a nail!”
Lately, with Christmas having just passed, there’s been a lot of spontaneous singing.
“Come they call me a rump-a-bum-bum!…”
“We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas…”
“The first Noel, the angels did sing…”
The other day, little Moise, Chika’s younger brother, held my hand and pointed to the sky and said, “That where Chika is.” Chika, of course, died five years ago. Moise talks to her — actually yells hello at the clouds — on a regular basis.
“Chika! Hi, Chika!”
On we go.
Look
Although it is often the small kids who clamor to walk, at times, the teenagers saunter alongside.
“You are doing your exercise, sir?” JU, a 16-year-old, will ask.
“Yes.”
“Can I exercise with you, sir?”
“Sure.”
“Sir, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Um…when you were my age, what was your biggest failure?”
It goes on like this. I’ve talked about nutrition, the law, Beatles music, World War I, high school, haircuts and American slang on these daily walks. I’ve navigated accusations over who hit who, who grabbed who, who stepped on the other’s shoe. I’ve given advice, solace, told stories about my youth and led a chorus of “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight.”
The other evening, as we were walking, the little kids suddenly yanked at my shirt, stopping me in mid-pace.
“Gaday!” they squealed. Look!
They were pointing to the sky, and the sudden crescent moon.
“Lalin! Lalin!”
They marveled at it for a good minute, asking me why it was so small, why it was so bright. They seemed perfectly content to stand there, on a concrete slab, talking in the early evening sky. I tried to remember the last time I stopped and looked at something in such wonder. And then I realized it was pretty much every evening about this time, and the gathering of innocent kids just happy to walk beside me. Haiti can be stunning in its simple pleasures. On we go.
Each issue from “Life at the Orphanage” chronicles the joy and lessons learned among 50+ children in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Comment below, and follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
The old song asks the question, “What are you doing New Year’s Eve?” I know. I know this year and next year and for many years to come, just as I have known for the last decade.
New Year’s Eve, for me, is spent at our orphanage, with 50 or more of the happiest kids to ever ring in a change in the calendar.
It wasn’t always this way. The truth is, we kind of invented the tradition. Back in December of 2011, I asked what the kids had usually done for New Year’s. The answer was “nothing much.” When there’s no money, nowhere to go, and the average age is around 12 years old, really, what did we expect? Good luck trying to keep kids up until midnight, especially when it’s hot and humid and buggy and the electricity keeps going out.
But recognizing that the New Year is rung in at different times around the globe, I figured why not jiggle the clock until it made sense for us?
Thus we created the Have Faith Haiti Orphanage New Traditional New Year’s Dinner Meal, which, unlike the 10 pm, five-course affair you pay big money for in fancy restaurants, consisted of the three staples of orphanage celebration: pizza, cake, and juice.
Now, it wasn’t easy convincing a nearby pizza place to make 20 pies on New Year’s Eve. We had to pay in full that morning and pick up the pies in the late afternoon. No matter. Our kids get hungry early. The “midnight meal” begins at 6 p.m.
Over the years, we went from eating on the balcony to setting up picnic tables in the yard. There, by the light of solar-charged bulbs, we were able to distribute the pizza, pour the juice, and later cut the sheet cakes into 80 pieces (kids and staff included.)
But that was just the start.
“Fireworks,” I said one year.
“Fireworks?” Yonel, our director, said back.
“Yes. We have to create some.”
He rolled his eyes.
“This isn’t something we have, Mr. Mitch.”
Well, I said to myself. Not yet.
Nancy Giles, journalist and CBS Sunday Morning correspondent celebrating NYE at Have Faith Haiti
Field of dreams
If you haven’t figured it out by now, Haiti is a funny place when it comes to resources. It can be hard to find clean water, difficult to buy mouthwash, damn near impossible to find certain fresh produce. But when I pulled Siem aside and said, “Listen, if I give you some money, do you think you can find someone who sells sparklers?” his response was simply, “Do you have $10?”
I gave him the money. A half hour later, he was back with a brown paper bag and 50 sparklers.
Go figure.
We decided to make these sparklers our version of fireworks, symbolic of the passing of one year and the start of another. Wanting to make sure the kids didn’t burn themselves, we cleared out an area of the flower bed, filled it with some extra dirt, and declared it the official “field of dreams” meaning each sparkler carried a child’s wish for the new year.
The kids sensed that something was up when we came in with dirt.
“What are you doing, Mr. Mitch?”
“Preparing for tonight.”
“What is tonight, Mr. Mitch?”
“You know. New Year’s. Where we sing…you know…”
I pictured the moment when the last sparkler went out, and realized that in most places — Times Square, New Year’s Eve concerts, city ballrooms — the stroke of midnight ignited a explosion of “Auld Lang Syne.”
So I gathered the kids in the gazebo that afternoon and taught it to them.
A cup o’ kindness
Now, I’d like to say I knew the words, but I didn’t. I still don’t. After “should auld acquaintance be forgot,” I basically, well, forget.
Then again, I figured, our kids didn’t know what “auld” meant. I’m not sure what “auld” means. What mattered was the melody.
So that’s what we learned. The song, at least on our New Year’s Eve, goes like this: “Da-da, da-da-da, da, da-da, da-da, da-da-da-daaaaaaa!…”
And that’s what we sing after each kid plants his or her sparkler, and watches it fizzle until the final sparkler goes out. Then a huge cry of “Happy New Year!” spreads across our little third-of-an-acre, and the kids leap up and down. They scream, they hug, they dance, they leap, they all but fly through the air.
The first time I saw this, I nearly cried. Here were children who a year earlier had not even celebrated this milestone, now so ready to be joyous, accepting new traditions as if they’d been doing them for years.
And now we have been doing them for years. The pizza, the cake, the sparklers, the singing. We have added a new wrinkle, the writing of New Year’s resolutions, two per child, which I then gather and put in an envelope not to be opened for 365 days.
Then, on the 1st of January, each kid read’s aloud the old resolutions, and the others vote on whether he or she made it come true.
If yes, they get a t-shirt.
If no, well, they usually get a t-shirt.
Hey. It’s New Year’s.
Josue and his resolutions for 2020
I know there are fancier ways to do it. I know champagne and tiramisu sound better than pizza and sheet cake. But I honestly wouldn’t trade our simple little New Year’s (the kids are in bed by 9:30!) for the catbird seat next to Anderson Cooper high above Times Square.
Given all the madness, danger, poverty and corruption of this island nation, the fact that its children can so purely and emotionally ring in a new year – with undying hope that this one will be better than the last – is something not only to celebrate but to cherish. I wouldn’t be anywhere else.
When Yonel Ismael spent his first Christmas at the orphanage, he got an orange and some crackers in a plastic bag. No tree. No presents.
“That was what it was like in those days,” he recalls. “We were lucky we got anything at all.”
Yonel was five years old at the time. It was a different organization with a different set of priorities.
Yonel Ismael, executive director, stands proudly next to the orphanage’s Christmas tree.
Today, more than 30 years later, Yonel is our Haitian executive director at the Have Faith Haiti Orphanage. And because he remembers Christmas with just an orange and crackers, he takes special pride in making sure the holiday is a hugely memorable event for all 53 children.
And I mean huge.
“We start with the Christmas tree, which goes up early in the month,” Yonel details. “Then we really get going on December 20th, right after school is out. We have tournaments between our kids at different levels. They have a tennis tournament, a soccer tournament, boys, girls, little kids, older kids.”
All of these are conducted, mind you, on a 45-foot patch of dirty concrete. Kids have to navigate potholes as well as each other, and the “fans” in the “stands” are just members of our orphanage cheering from picnic tables.
But it’s loud. It’s spirited. It’s fun. And it works.
“On Christmas Eve we crown the winners,” Yonel says. “And then we have the big meal.”
This meal also has its tradition. It started, back in Yonel’s childhood, as the one night of the year that the children got to eat chicken. Today, chicken is a regular part of the weekly menu.
But goat is still special.
Yes.
Goat.
Anticipating joy
“We have a man named Siqua who comes every year and gets a goat. He prepares it and then our cook makes it special,” Yonel relates. “The kids love it. They talk about it all year long.
“This year our cook (we call him “Chef Harry”) wants to do a buffet, too, where he has fried plantains, rice, beans, some fish.”
If all this sounds like a big deal, it is. On purpose. Giving children something to anticipate, especially children who have gone without for so long, is a deliberate act.
Still, none of it compares to Christmas day itself. That’s when the annual “Christmas Play” takes place.
Actually, it’s more like a variety show.
Over the course of a few hours — in front of an audience of staff, teachers, and family members who are invited every year — the kids do everything from solo violin performances to group dances. There are readings. There are speeches. Some kids talk about what Christmas means. Some read Biblical passages. Some sing holiday songs. Some play piano.
Our various bands, the teenaged boys, the teenaged girls, the middle-aged mixed kids, all do at least one number. And then comes the Christmas play itself, in which the kids re-enact the entire Christmas story, complete with Mary, Joseph, wise men, even sheep.
The kids look forward, every year, to finding out what role they get to play. Of course, the meatier parts tend to go to the oldest kids. But that hardly deters the joy. One year, when she was four, our little Chika played a sheep. It is one of the favorite photos we have of her. You can see in the magic in her eyes and her effusive smile, the sheer delight of being…involved.
Chika, Christmas 2013. Photo credit: Jennifer Hambrick. Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
And that is really what all this is about. Being involved. Having a holiday that is more than just a perfunctory bag of crackers. Doing something. Performing something. Creating something. Anticipating something for months – and finally having it come to pass.
Scenes from a Christmas play
And sometimes, tears
For most of the kids, Christmas day is an endless unfurling of joy, including the much-anticipated stocking emptying and the present unwrapping. The kids get a number of small gifts that are all the same, such as shoes, hoodies and Bibles. And then there will be a few special things that are purchased or donated by others and organized and delivered to Haiti with precision skill by a handful of folks in America, including Patty Alley, Connie Vallee and Janine Sabino.
But Christmas is not without its challenges. It is the one day of the year that parents of our children tend to come visit, if they are alive or have the means to get to Port-au-Prince. Of course, many of our kids do not have parents. But those who do wait all year sometimes for a glimpse of them. And invariably, someone does not show up, and the child is crestfallen.
When that happens, the nannies, the staff and the other kids all step in. They offer hugs. They dry tears. They tell the child to focus on the positive things. But it does damage. I can’t deny it. It is something we anticipate every year and stand ready to fight with extra love and attention.
Beyond that hiccup, Christmas at the orphanage is a tapestry of laughter, squealing, music, prayers, and an annual reminder by Yonel — who is also the orphanage’s spiritual director — that the day is not about presents.
“I remind the kids that on our birthday, people give us gifts. But on Jesus’ birthday, not only do we celebrate it — but we receive presents also. That’s the type of love that Jesus spread and shared. And that’s why we say Jesus is love. That’s what Christmas is truly about.”
The coming days will be frenetic for Yonel — not unlike a director in the final days before a Broadway musical opens. The stage must be erected. The decorations done. The costumes — which have become quite elaborate for an orphanage! — have to be organized.
But because he still remembers a more meager holiday season, Yonel, now 37, is the perfect person to manage the annual tradition.
“I always look forward for it,” he says. “It brings me joy, because I get to do something for the kids that I didn’t get. Things I never dreamt of. Now I’m the one that can bring smiles to the kids’ faces, to make them feel happy, to make them feel that they are at home.
“For me to play a role in that now — that’s amazing.”
Welcome to next installment of “Life at the Orphanage!” Looking forward to hearing what you think in the comments.
Today I’m going to detail an ongoing battle at the orphanage, one that has not settled in nearly 12 years, and is, unfortunately, not likely to settle in the near future. Our opponent is powerful, anonymous, without shape or form. And it has us, literally, over a barrel.
I am talking about electricity.
Since the day I arrived in Haiti back in 2010, electricity has been like manna from heaven. You love it when you have it, but every day you look to the sky and wonder if it will return.
Understand that, on average, three out of every four Haitians don’t have access to electricity. They use wood, charcoal or kerosene for light, heat and energy.
The “lucky” 25 percent get their power from Électricité D’Haïti, a poorly run government company known better as EDH, which could well stand for “Endless Dark Hours.”
EDH is underfunded, relies on subsidies, uses outdated equipment, and runs a too-small, inefficient power grid. There is no rhyme or reason to when power is provided and when it is gone. Fuel shortages, which are commonplace, make things even worse. And it’s very common for neighbors who don’t pay for electricity to shimmy up poles and hook a wire onto your existing electrical current, so you don’t even know what you’re paying for, or if you’re paying for your own lights or the lights of someone down the street.
All this results in the daily battle: you never know when you are getting electricity or for how long.
For years, we have relied on two small light bulbs near the front gate. When the bulbs are on, it means we have power from EDH.
When they’re off, we don’t.
Which brings us to the generators.
The loudest resident
Generators are part of everyday life in Port-au-Prince. Businesses, NGOs, schools, government offices, all rely on generators, ranging from small but heavy portable units to massive, dumpster looking monstrosities painted royal blue.
You always know when the generator is on. It’s when you have to yell to be heard in a normal conversation. Or when your room starts to rumble late at night. Generators are not quiet inventions, and the roar when they start up will grab your attention.
To be honest, the generator is part of an audible comedy. You’ll be lying in bed at night, trying to sleep to the steady hum of a large fan. Suddenly, that fan noise will halt. It’ll be dead silent and pitch black. A minute later, you’ll hear someone yell “Dal!” (for Mr. Dal, a valued staff member who oversees the generators.)
“Dal!”
A minute after that, you’ll hear Mr. Dal turning a key as if starting up a gas-guzzling Cadillac. Suddenly, a deafening roar will sound, and your fan pops back on, and you drop back in your pillow and try to return to sleep.
This often happens in the middle of the night. But it can also happen in the middle of the school day. It can happen at 4:00 in the afternoon. Then the power can come back on at 4:30. Then it can go off at 5:15.
Honestly, if you didn’t know better you’d think there was a laughing baby throwing the switch at EDH headquarters.
Mr. Dal shows the generator to some of our oldest // Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
A jolt to the system
Of course, this wreaks havoc with appliances like refrigerators or desktop computers, because the power is constantly going on and off, jolting their electrical systems.
As bad as it is for the gear, a bigger worry is the fuel. It takes diesel fuel to run the generator. Lots of it. Hundreds of gallons a week. The problem is, you can’t always find it. Or the fuel trucks won’t deliver because they are being menaced by gangs who stop them, rob them, even kidnap them.
A few weeks back, the situation got so bad that Port-au-Price had to effectively shut down, because gangs weren’t letting the fuel trucks through. No fuel, no generator. No generator, no power. No power, no lights, fans, freezers, etc.
What’s comforting is how adjusted our children are to these power outages. They’ll be in the middle of singing their devotions and the lights will go dark, and they just keep singing. Or they’ll be doing their homework and have to shift from overhead lights to flashlights. Slipping into darkness carries little fear inside our gazebo.
Partying in the dark // Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
But it’s a huge problem around the country, and yet another burden that the Haitian people carry on their shoulders. You shouldn’t have to check two little lightbulbs every day to see if you can run the fridge or the office equipment or a lamp. Yet that’s the ongoing battle in our little corner of the world, praying for electrical manna and trying to stay in the light.
Top image: People line up with empty jerry cans at a gas station of Port-au-Prince, Haiti on November 1, 2021. – Those who can afford it rely on pricey generators, which are no help in the face of the severe fuel shortage caused by gangs, who have been blocking access to the country’s oil terminals in the capital and its outskirts, with the government under pressure to ensure security for companies to reach the crucial storage facilities. (Photo by RICHARD PIERRIN/AFP via Getty Images)
Our oldest kids have been trying to fill out college applications. But not the way I remember doing it decades ago.
There’s no Mom and Dad pouring over the words. No letters of recommendation from family friends. No padding the “extracurricular” with sports teams, chess clubs, and charity trips.
For our kids, it’s them and the application.
Which got me thinking about an application memory of my own.
The forms back when I applied (in the 70s) required you to put down your parents’ occupations. And I realized I didn’t really know what my father did. I knew he went to work each day, knew the name of his firm from company picnics.
But his actual work? His job title? I was clueless. My father did not believe in mixing work with family, and dinner table conversation was never about the office or challenges he was facing. It was always about us kids.
So I had to ask my father “Dad, what do you do?” And he said, “Just put down ‘businessman.’” Which is what I did. Apparently, such vagueness didn’t hurt me. I was admitted to the schools I tried.
But it reminded me that you can learn things through college applications. I was reminded of this again when our six oldest kids wrote their 650 word essays.
The essay question was this:
“The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?”
Simple question.
Complex answers.
Two Jonathans: left, J.J.; right, J.U.
In the days before us
As I read the essays, one after another, my eyes teared up. I’m going to share some of them here, but in the interest of respecting privacy, I won’t give any names.
One of our young men wrote:
My house barely had a loaf of bread, never had clean water to drink, and never had sufficient money. I was emaciated with innocent eyes, begging for food in the dirty streets of Haiti. I would walk from town to town, trying to get something that could support the family. Sometimes I was lucky to be handed a coin which I treasured. Other times, I would return home exhausted with empty handed and my father would be ashamed of himself because he had nothing to feed the family. My mother would sing to the hungry children saying that there will be hope and there was no need to cry. I listened to her lullaby, not knowing that I was the hope she was referring to.
I had never heard that story. Because we now take children in so young (age 2 or 3) they don’t really have memories of life before the orphanage.
But I forget sometimes that our older kids arrived when they were 5, 6 even 7. There were days before us. Authority figures before us. Family before us.
In reading the essays, I was shaken to see how difficult those families could be. One teenaged girl wrote:
My dad did not allow bad grades. Unfortunately, I was not a bright student. When I failed at something my father would hit me. Sometimes the neighbors had to come and beg my father to stop.
Another girl began her essay this way:
“I’ll never forget the hot Sunday afternoon that my grandma told me that I was an accident, that my parents were not planning on having me.”
And a young man started his essay with:
“My mother died while giving birth to me. Our family was impoverished, my father was old, my sisters and brothers were young and illiterate. All I could recollect was crying for food and milk. But no one could provide that for me.”
He’s 18 years old now. How long has he been carrying this memory? How long has it burned inside him?
Widley and Kiki
Stories that move you
As I sifted through these essays, one after the other, I choked up at the thought of how hard life had been for our kids before arriving here. Why hadn’t I been more aware of this? Perhaps because when I conducted the admission interviews, whoever was with the children spoke only of poverty and the inability to offer education or nutrition to the kids. But I never really heard it from the kids’ perspective. And bad adult behavior was rarely admitted.
Then, upon arrival, I guess the group dynamics of 53 children took over. It can overwhelm personal tales of sadness. I imagine, kids being kids, they saw other kids playing and started playing, too. What child would prefer to wallow in sad memories? Not when there is so much new life ahead.
While the essays all included the shattering early years of the kids’ lives, they also included an appreciation for where they are now, which left me humbled and proud. Amongst them:
“Suddenly, God changed my life by leading me to this mission…”
“In the mission mistakes were a normal part of human life, while at my dad’s house I felt like mistakes were a crime…”
“The orphanage taught me to love one another and gave me what I strived for most during my younger years: food, clean water to drink, a proper shelter. I had people taking care of me. I did not have to beg in the streets anymore…”
Reading those conclusions only strengthened my resolve for what we are doing here. And I was once again gobsmacked by the honesty and humble gratitude of the children of Haiti.
I don’t know if our kids will get into all the colleges they apply to. Just getting them to take the TOEFL test is a major undertaking (a risky journey through dangerous streets.) They don’t have Advanced Placement courses. There is no National Honor Society. They lack the means to get a summer job that will boost their resumes.
But they deserve a chance. Reading their essays, you realize their entire lives have been about surviving, enduring, adjusting. I am hoping whoever reviews their applications, they take a real moment to stop and read those 650-word stories.
Make your check payable to “Have Faith Haiti Mission” and send to
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.
