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.
Abundance can be confusing. When you are used to so little, a lot can be too much. I had this in mind last week when three of our kids from the Have Faith Haiti orphanage came north with me for medical checkups and therefore were present for an American Thanksgiving.
Bringing our kids to America has always been a delicate process. First, there is enormous paperwork involved. Birth certificates. Passports. Visas. Interviews at the embassy. Permission from the Haitian agency that oversees us. Flight arrangements.
Still, the most challenging part comes when the plane lands. America and Haiti are different enough for adults who can read, watch movies and go online for a glimpse of what lies ahead. But for kids? It’s all unimaginable. From the roar of the jet engines to lifting into the clouds to the people behind the customs counter to the new model vehicle they get into at the airport.
Everything brings stares and hushed reverence. I have noticed our kids are mostly silent during their first few hours in the U.S. Sometimes they whisper to each other and point. But it’s a bit like landing on the moon. You’re almost afraid to speak too loudly, as if you might awaken something you never imagined.
With us now are Knox, 10, Gaelson, 10, and Babu, 13. Knox gets regular therapy treatments for an early childhood brain injury. Gaelson and Babu both had surgeries in America that require periodic checkups.
It’s hard to say what impresses them the most. The smoothness of the roads on the drive from the airport. The massive green signs on the highway. The flashing neon of strip malls and fast food places. All of this is alien to them. All of it draws stares.
And then comes the house. The fact that they get their own beds, no one sleeping above or below them. The kitchen that is right in the middle of things. The television set. Oh Lord. That thing becomes the biggest challenge.
My wife and I often keep a small TV in the kitchen playing a music channel. All that appears is the name of the song, the artist, and a logo. But within minutes I see the kids gaping at that TV, watching the logo float around the background, and I realize the awesome power of a lit screen to a child. And how quickly you have to break that trance if you want to maintain human contact.
And then there’s snow.
Babu decided what to eat on Thanksgiving
“Can we go outside and play in it?”
That was the immediate request when a blanket of white covered our back yard. Snow is the Holy Grail of strange American experiences for our kids. Obviously, they are never going to see anything like it in Haiti.
But the same goes for the Thanksgiving meal, where the abundance of food is overwhelming. Thanksgiving is a big deal in our home, we host it, and family comes in from all over the country. Consequently, the ovens are packed, the tabletops overflowing, the bowls and trays loaded with delicious edibles.
I remember my early years as a social worker in New York, back in the early 1980s, and how immigrants from Russia had to be accompanied on their first trips to the supermarket because the abundance of available food often left them in tears. It hit them, in the aisles full of snacks and the frozen food freezers, how far they were from home, and how much they’d had to do without while other parts of the world were indulging.
I worry about the same thing with our kids in Thanksgiving. We constantly explain “This isn’t a normal meal” and “Not everyone in America gets to eat this way” and they nod and say they understand, but sometimes I wonder.
Gaelson at breakfast.
Each morning, when the kids get up, they find me and we go make breakfast together. I ask them to help me, so they see food is something you must prepare, not simply order. They quickly jump in, cracking eggs, toasting bread, pouring milk over cereal. We pray before every meal. They say “thank you” for everything and help us clean the dishes.
But you can make all the rules you want. The eyes don’t lie. And what our three young ones see is consumption and possession on a scale that is unimaginable for them in Haiti.
Clockwise from top left: Babu and her American “cousin” Mia; Mitch and Knox watch “Lilo and Stitch”; Knowx with a new faux furry friend.
It is a fine line we walk, keeping that in perspective. I am heartened by the fact that, of all the activities that are offered — from a trip to the frozen yogurt store, a visit to a zoo, a drive to a trampoline place or even the snowman making in the yard — the thing they get most excited about is calling back to the kids in Haiti.
We hold up the iPhone and, through garbled transmission, they squeal and wave at the kids back home and ask what they are doing and, almost remarkably, “What are you eating?”
I can only imagine how faraway the children here seem to the ones back at the orphanage, as if they were calling from the moon. It feels like a moon visit sometimes. We navigate the craters as best we can, even mindful of how blessed we are in the country, and how to spread those blessings without overwhelming the large-eyed children who briefly share this strange new world alongside us.
Today, being Thanksgiving week, I want to talk about gratitude. They don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Haiti, and Lord knows there are enough reasons to feel more forsaken than embraced in this hot and impoverished country.
But I remember one of my early visits to the orphanage, being struck by a song the kids would sing in the darkness of the evening before they went to bed, a slow, swaying melody behind these words:
There’s a roof up above me
I’ve a good place to sleep
There’s food on my table
And shoes on my feet
You gave me your love, Lord
And a fine family
Thank You, Lord
For your blessings on me
To hear those high-pitched young voices, tired from the day, yet pushing such gratitude out into the heavens, well, it was beautiful.
It remains so.
Why does it seem that those who have the least often seem the most grateful? Our kids are taught to say “thank you” after food servings, cups of water, birthday gifts, even compliments. But it’s not the words that impress me. It’s the actions they take.
When I leave the orphanage, it’s not unusual for a child to slip me a folded-up letter. Sometimes it’s in the shape of an envelope or a heart. Almost always it contains a brief handwritten message, like:
“Dear Mister Mitch – Thank you for taking care of me. Whenever I have a problem I know I can come to you. I thank God that he sent you to us and that he will protect you.”
There is nothing special that prompts these notes. Nor are they always from the same kids. It appears to be a surge of gratitude that bubbles over from time to time, and child to child.
Our kids seem to take a certain delight in saying thank you. In the U.S., we often express thanks out of obligation — a thank you card after a wedding, birthday or particularly generous gift. Kids, especially, often need to be reminded to show their appreciation. It’s what makes the sentence “What do you saaaay?” so common in parenting.
But the kids at Have Faith Haiti get almost giddy when given a chance to express their appreciation. When a batch of Christmas gifts arrives from a church group, we have the kids sit down and draw thank you notes. They never roll their eyes. On the contrary, they attack the task, using multiple crayons, markers, pens. They write extra sentences beyond what they have to.
When a staff member is leaving or a volunteer’s time is up, the kids orchestrate productions that include speeches, songs, handmade gifts and heartfelt tributes. Honestly, I keep hearing Mickey Rooney squealing, “Let’s put on a show!” every time someone says goodbye at our place.
Photo credit: Danielle Cutillo
This past weekend, a couple of our American volunteers were going home. The kids could have waved goodbye and gone about their business.
Instead, they organized an “appreciation celebration” akin to a variety show. It had an emcee (Babu) and musical performances (by a group of our young girls who sang “I just wanna thank you, for being you, you, you”) and a speech by J.U., our 16-year-old wanna-be lawyer, who opened by saying to the two young women:
“You are very, very wonderful and beautiful and smart and we are happy we got to know you…and we want you to know that there are no mountains that are too high to keep us from seeing you again…”
He went on to thank them for coming to his country “during its darkest hours” and being brave enough to stay and teach the kids. He added that they weren’t totally leaving because “Haiti is now your home, too.”
This, by the way, for volunteers who had only been with us a matter of months.
But that’s what gratitude is in our cozy little run-down orphanage. It’s not an obligation, it’s a celebration.
It occurs to me that too often, we don’t find the joy that comes in saying thank you. It is bigger than all our turkeys, and in its own way, even more delicious. What a privilege to get to see something so huge in such little bodies. As that song says, a fine family. What more can we be thankful for?
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Have Faith Haiti Mission
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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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