It’s true, you’ll find many problems in a Haitian orphanage. But you will also find some cures.
One is the cure for self-pity. No matter how uncomfortable you are in the States, they’re more uncomfortable in Haiti. No matter how broke you are in America, they’re more broke in Haiti.
And no matter what you have to endure, there are children in Haiti who have endured more.
Two of them live with us.
Their names are Knox and Gaelson. They both recently turned 10 years old. Given their backstories, that alone is a bit of a miracle.
Let’s start with Knox. The kid is liquid sunshine. A blinding smile. Wide-eyed enthusiasm. An endless stream of happy conversation. And I have almost never seen him cry.
Not that he lacks reason. Abandoned when he was an infant, in a patch of woods behind a hospital, he was taken in by a passing woman who found him and tried to raise him. When Knox was one year old, he either fell or leapt from a table top and smashed his head open. The doctors had to perform emergency brain surgery.
That procedure left Knox akin to a stroke victim. His left arm was locked and raised nearly to his clavicle. His left leg was permanently bent, his foot only touching the ground at its toes. When he was brought to the orphanage, it was nighttime (a strange time to visit) and he was sleeping. When we woke him up to talk to him, he initially refused to speak. He was only three years old; he must have been petrified.
Finally, our wonderful American school director at the time, Anachemy MIddleton, had a brilliant idea. She sat behind him, wearing two hand puppets, and let the puppets talk to him instead.
He lit up.
And has never stopped shining.
Mitch and Knox / Photo credit: Connie Vallee
The six million dollar boy
Knox has been coming to America for medical treatments for nearly four years now. A brilliant doctor named Edward Dabrowski devised a plan of injections and rehab. And a team at Beaumont Hospital Physical Therapy puts Knox through grueling routines of stretching, stimulation, even an avatar-like machine that he slips inside; it allows him to see an animated version of himself on the screen as he manipulates walking.
These medical and therapy experts donate their time and services partly because they are just good, caring people — and partly because he is Knox. All the kid does is smile. He jumps in to every activity. And he never stops talking.
“Oooh!” he will say, pointing at a cartoon character, “that is from Sonic the Hedgehog, not true?”
(Knox says “not true” at the end of sentences because in Creole, the phrase “pas vray?” is used the same way. So he will say “We’re having pizza tonight, not true?” And we will answer, “True.”)
Knox will point things out through the window. He will ponder the universe. He will ask who will win a race, “Superman or the Flash?” and then make the case for each one. Despite his limitations, he never sees a half-empty glass.
How he does this so cheerily, while limping through activities, holding everything one-handed, turning the pages of a book with his good fingers while keeping it down with an elbow — well, I don’t know.
But it is inspiring.
Mitch and Gaelson / Photo credit: Connie Vallee
The boy who lived
The same goes for Gaelson. His backstory parallel’s Knox’s. When he was very young, someone in the provinces brought him to a tuberculosis clinic, because he had been coughing.
They never came back for him.
He lived there for more than a year, despite the fact that he did NOT have tuberculosis. Then, having withered to a shocking, skeletal weight, he was taken to a malnutrition center. Again, there was no one to claim him. He stayed there for a long time, until they could no longer be responsible for his daily care. They contacted us at the Have Faith Haiti Orphanage, and we took him in.
Tracking Gaelson’s progress at the malnutrition clinic.
Where Knox was garrulous, Gaelson was silent. Getting him to say anything was a big deal. But when he did speak, his squeak of a voice revealed a child seeking love and attention in the most desperate, moving way.
Gaelson coughed constantly. We were repeatedly told it was nothing. Then, a few years ago, he stopped eating. Anything he ate he threw up. We rushed him to a series of Haitian doctors, none of whom could do anything for him. It turned out he had a hole in his esophagus, so anything he ate or drank was going into his lungs. This could cause aspiration and if not addressed, death.
No one in Haiti could address it.
In the dead of winter, we managed to get him out of Haiti and to Detroit, where an incredible team of doctors and nurses at Children’s Hospital in Detroit, led by a surgeon named Justin Klein, operated multiple times on Gaelson, eventually closing the hole and removing a withered lung which wasn’t functioning.
Gaelson was in the hospital for more than a month. At times the pain was excruciating. But he held that stoic posture. He gripped a stuffed animal (a hedgehog) and let his tears fall silently. He endured better than most adults would. And when he came home, that sweet squeak of a voice began to open up, to ask for something to eat, for a Lego set to play with, to say “I love you.”
Bonded as a team
Recently, Knox and Gaelson came for medical treatments at the same time. This was during the start of the pandemic, and suddenly, while they were here, getting back to Haiti became difficult. So they stayed in the U.S. for several months, sharing a single bedroom, and we got to watch a small miracle: perhaps sensing their shared medical challenges, or the fact that they began life shunned by those who should have loved them, Knox and Gaelson became a team. They grew inseparable. They watched Lilo and Stitch cartoons while lying on top of each other. They shared toy trucks and action figures. They giggled and whispered before going to bed. And they weren’t the least but self-conscious about hugging each other for photos.
Knox and Gaelson in Michigan / Photo credit: Connie Vallee
What they didn’t do is complain. Never. We never heard “I don’t WANNA go!” We never saw a refusal to put on a jacket when heading to the hospital, or a pouting attitude when a doctor’s appointment loomed. They seem to get, as all our kids seem to get, that being helped should be met with gratitude, not complaint. They hug the doctors and nurses who tend to them. They draw them pictures.
There’s a famous play (and movie) written by Neil Simon called “The Sunshine Boys.” It’s about two old comedians who are constantly feuding.
We’ve got the real Sunshine Boys. They’re 10 years old. And whenever I am feeling sorry for myself, I look at them in our yard, Knox running with that one good foot, Gaelson riding a bicycle with his one good lung, and I realize I have one good existence, and very little to complain about.
That’s also part of life at the orphanage, where we are occasionally plagued by sickness, but continually surrounded by cures.
PORT-AU-PRINCE — It takes many things to work in a Haitian orphanage. Patience. Love. Endless energy. A sense of humor. The ability to go long stretches without a hot shower.
And courage.
At least these days. You have likely been following the headlines coming out of Haiti. Over the weekend, a group of missionaries, 16 Americans and one Canadian, were heading to the airport — after visiting an orphanage — when a gang stopped their vehicle, took it over, and is now holding them captive, demanding millions in ransom money.
I was actually eating dinner with a group of friends that night when a local official received a Whatsapp message on her phone. It was sent from one of those missionaries, inside the bus, telling recipients that men with guns were outside trying to kidnap them. Spread the word.
It was like witnessing a crime through a locked window.
Photo credit: Danielle Cutillo / Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
Terror isn’t measured by the number of awful acts committed. It’s measured by the fear those acts create. The gangs that have seized control of certain areas of Port-au-Prince may have only actually kidnapped hundreds of people, but they have frightened millions. They have made the thought of traveling the streets an “is it worth it?” equation.
And they have effectively locked nearly half a nation behind doors.
On high alert
We take many precautions at the Have Faith Haiti Orphanage. We make almost no outside trips with kids or our American volunteers. Our vehicles have no identifying markings. We never, ever, go near the areas known to be gang controlled. We have security on our grounds at all times, and travel with security when we go back and forth to the airport.
As a result, we have, fortunately, had no incidents like the one happening now. Still, we hear the stories. It is why I so admire our volunteers, who come to the orphanage despite this, who stay on despite this, working tirelessly every day, teaching, feeding, nurturing and loving the children.
It takes a lot to work in an orphanage. But it takes even more to call this island nation home and shoulder the daily burdens of poverty, corruption and the knowledge that you are largely on your own when it comes to protection.
Why do they do it? Why do you do it? I hear that all the time. The State Department has issued a travel warning for Americans. You shouldn’t be there.
Well. I can only answer for myself, but I can also tell you what the volunteers now and over the years have said.
We do it for the kids. For the smiles they flash when they see us, for the arms they lift when they need to be comforted, for the eyes that widen when they learn something in school and the eyes that close peacefully when they fall asleep in our laps. You simply don’t want to trade that vital human interaction for the fear of a small group of criminals.
And, to be frank, the State department has been telling people to avoid Haiti for most of the nearly 12 years I’ve been there.
So we do it because it feels worth the risk, because these children are worth sacrifice, because we can’t imagine not being there for them.
But there’s something else.
Cooking with Chef Harry and Nahoum / Photo credit: Danielle Cutillo / Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
Ordinary bravery in dangerous daily life
There’s also the fact that every day, our Haitian staff, teachers, nannies, maintenance staff and security guards, take a chance by coming to the orphanage to work.
Understand that, despite the blazing headlines about this missionary group currently being held for ransom, kidnappings in Haiti are not largely foreign targets.
Of the more than 600 people documented as kidnapped this year, only around 40 have been foreigners. The rest are Haitians, most of them average — a street vendor, a restaurant worker, a student on his or her way to school. They are accosted and taken away despite their poverty. The kidnappers, who almost always make ridiculous monetary demands, usually settle for a handful of dollars. But that handful of dollars means a great deal to the families that have to pony it up.
They are robbing from the poor. They are robbing form their neighbors. It makes going out a daily act of bravery for Haitians who won’t get a CNN story if they are abducted, who can’t afford security guards, who can’t stay inside forever, because food needs to be found and money needs to be earned.
And if they can brave the daily anxieties, should we do less?
Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
Shining lights
Still, it is no way to exist. It is bad enough to live in abject poverty. People shouldn’t have to live in terror. It is the reason I publicly beseech the American government and the international community to get more involved.
The police in Haiti are crippled. They are overworked, underfunded, under-armed, and constantly enticed by the gangs to take a bribe, look the other way, or even come join them. With the government effectively collapsed after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, there is no real force to enhance the police, to direct new funding or training.
Haiti needs help. The outside world should step in. A relatively small but constant force could send these gangs scattering. The largest gang, 400 Mawozo, the one believed responsible for the missionaries capture, is reportedly 150 members. That’s not an army.
Meanwhile, terror is met every day here by determination. In fact, it is swamped by it. There is far more bravery than horror in Haiti. You only need to look down any street.
It takes a lot to work in an orphanage. But it takes even more to call this island nation home and shoulder the daily burdens of poverty, corruption and the knowledge that you are largely on your own when it comes to protection.
Yet millions do it every day. They are an inspiration. And I do believe their fearlessness, and the morality of the world, will ultimately win out in Haiti.
Until then, we soldier on, carefully, wisely, with endless precautions. And we turn to the light the shines in the faces of the children and fills the heart with courage.
***
Top image: A woman walks in the deserted street in Port-au-Prince on October 18, 2021. – A nationwide general strike emptied the streets of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince on Monday with organisers denouncing the rapidly disintegrating security situation highlighted by the kidnapping of American and Canadian missionaries at the weekend. The kidnapping of 17 adults and children by one of Haiti’s brazen criminal gangs underlined the country’s troubles following the assassination of president Jovenel Moïse in July and amid mounting lawlessness in the Western hemisphere’s poorest nation. (Photo by RICHARD PIERRIN/AFP via Getty Images)
Nearly three months to the day when an early morning text message alerted me to a presidential assassination, a ping close to midnight on Saturday, Oct. 16th brought more shocking news: the brazen abduction of 16 Americans and 1 Canadian in Port-au-Prince by the gang known as 400 Mawozo.
I’ve heard from many of you concerned about me and Have Faith Haiti, and this brief note confirms that we’re OK. Shocked, but not surprised. And on high alert with additional security — as we have been for some time.
The violent protests that called for the resignation of former Haitian president Jovenel Moïse in 2019 had already begun to frighten away NGOs and service groups; the pandemic only exacerbated resources. Orphanages have been attacked, most recently in April in Croix-des-Bouquets. But it’s not just outsiders: ordinary citizens are kidnapped and held for ransoms that families can ill-afford to pay.
Some of Haiti’s latest tragedies have made the headlines, but countless undocumented crimes are just part of daily life.
On a ride from the Toussaint Louverture airport to our orphanage in December, an angry group of protesters, wandering down a major street, spotted our van. Since we were the only thing coming or going on that block, they decided to rush it. A huge rock was thrown at the windshield. In an instant, men were screaming and jumping on the hood and the roof and the grabbing at the doors.
Fortunately, when our mission’s Haitian director jumped from the car and screamed that we were with an orphanage and were only trying to get to our children, the anger subsided, and in time the protesters merely rode on our vehicle as we continued on, past burning tires and closed shops. The men screamed at no one in particular. I think they just wanted their voices heard.
The journey to the airport earlier today was spared harassment. This time.
***
Top image: A man drives his bike around burning tires ignited following a call for a general strike by several professional associations and businesses to denounce the insecurity in Port-au-Prince on October 18, 2021. A nationwide general strike emptied the streets of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince on Monday with organisers denouncing the rapidly disintegrating security situation highlighted by the kidnapping of American and Canadian missionaries at the weekend. The kidnapping of 17 adults and children by one of Haiti’s brazen criminal gangs underlined the country’s troubles following the assassination of president Jovenel Mose in July and amid mounting lawlessness in the Western hemisphere’s poorest nation. (Photo by Richard PIERRIN / AFP)
One morning at the orphanage, I heard a knock outside the kitchen door. I opened it to see a semi-circle of children burst into song — “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” — while a man in cargo shorts and a t-shirt played the accordion and guided them along.
This was not just any accordion player. His name is Dennis Tini. He once ran the entire prestigious music department at Wayne State University. He’s played with jazz groups all over the world. You can buy his CD’s.
But here he was, in Haiti, on the landing outside our kitchen, playing the simple chords of a Christmas carol and singing along with the kids.
One of many things that will astonish you on the journey to running in orphanage is how many people are willing to come along. From our very first trip to Haiti, when I wrangled two of my closest friends to accompany me, to our current status with four full-time American volunteers teaching in our school and a steady stream of monthly visitors, from photographers to doctors to soccer moms, there has never been a shortage of people willing to help out.
I will write about some of them as the weeks go on. They are worthy of attention and often quite fascinating.
But today, I begin with Dennis, because, at 73, his story is unique.
A beloved professor – in Michigan and Haiti
First of all, Dennis Tini is a world class jazz piano player who has shared the stage with legends like Buddy Rich and Jon Faddis. For years he taught at Wayne State University, co-founded its jazz studies program, ran the choral union, and became head of the entire music department.
When he retired a few years ago, his plan was to travel and perform, do some composing, and grace the stages of clubs and amphitheaters around the globe, where his talent was always welcome.
One night, my wife Janine and I called him up to say hi. We got to talking about the orphanage, our kids, how deeply they loved music. Eventually I tried to nudge him, blurting out, “You should come with us sometime.” When he didn’t say no, I nudged him some more.
Pretty soon, he was on an airplane sitting next to us. I didn’t ask what convinced him. But I knew once he arrived, the kids would take him over, they’d mob him and tug at him and ask if he could “teach me to play, too!”
And that is exactly what happened. We introduced him to the kids and explained that he was a great artist who had come all this way to help them learn music. When we asked who wanted lessons, every hand shot up.
Soon Dennis was working from sunrise to dinner time, teaching kids piano, accordion, guitar, bass, drums, vocals, harmony, notation. He began to come with us almost every trip down, always toting a new instrument in his luggage. One time it was a violin. Another it was a bass amp. He got his friends in the business to donate everything from flutes to microphone cords. I joked that he was bringing us an entire music store one instrument at a time.
Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
A musical (and martial) artist
It’s now been several years that Dennis has been coming. During that time, our kids have learned to sing in Italian, French and Hebrew, to perform in harmony and in rounds, to play everything from reggae to gospel, and to sing everything from “Ob-la-di Ob-La-da” to “Buffalo Soldiers.” Dennis has also become a de facto head of security — he has studied martial arts for years and is compact, strong and fearless.
“You see that fork?” he told me once when we were worried about violence in the streets. “That fork is a weapon. That broom is a weapon. You just have to know how to use them.”
And he does.
Dennis teaches in a classroom, in the gazebo, on the balcony, and occasionally as a strolling troubadour. It is not uncommon to see him with an accordion slung over his shoulder, playing pied piper to a line of children shaking tambourines or clacking sticks behind him.
Our kids have formed various bands and on occasion, as detailed in an earlier post, they perform “concerts” on the steps of our school. Dennis and I play with them for support, Dennis on one keyboard, me on another, directly across from him.
Sometimes as we play, I look over at him, his fit, trim frame, closely cropped hair, light mustache, eyeglasses focused on the keys, and I wonder what the heck he is doing here, with us, in this tiny corner of the universe, playing “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” or “Sing a Song” from Sesame Street and not getting a penny for his labor.
Dennis Tini, Appoloste, and Mitch // Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
The answer lies is in the way his eyes spring open when a child sings a beautiful note, the way he gushes “Yes, now you’re doing it!” when a drummer clicks on a beat, the way he urges “Do-Fa-La!” or “One AND two AND…” The way he says “I just love these kids.” The way he shows it.
Remember when Lebron James famously said “I’m taking my talents to South Beach”? Well, Dennis Tini has taken his talents to a banana yellow orphanage on a potholed street in a hot crowded city in one of the poorest countries in the world. I don’t know why he keeps doing it. But he could not be more welcome. I look forward to the knock on the door this Christmastime, and the joyful noise that awaits when I open it.
***
If you missed the live chat last week about some of the issues our kids face, you can watch it here.
I sometimes get asked what’s the best moment in running the orphanage.
That’s easy.
Arriving.
We have a tradition of overdoing it when someone shows up. Big time. It started years ago, and it goes on to this day.
“When we get a visitor, WHAT DO WE DO?” I will holler.
“RUN AND HUG THEM!” the kids will holler back.
And that’s what happens. Arrivals are a messy loving chaos. Understand that you can’t just sneak into our orphanage. We have a big thick gate, and a security guard who is on the inside, so in order to let him know you are there you have to do some big-time honking. Especially if he is elsewhere on the grounds. Or in the bathroom.
Honk! Honk! You can be out there hitting the horn for two minutes. So there’s no way your arrival is a surprise. Heads turn. Everyone looks to the gate. Finally, your vehicle bounces in — we have the world’s worst driveway, thanks to the Haitian street repair crews; many a chassis has been bruised, dented or ripped while entering — and then you pull up to an area under the trees, close to the gazebo where the kids are usually playing.
By that point curiosity has taken over, and dozens are children are drawing near to the vehicle like yellowjackets swarming to a discarded candy bar. And once the door opens? Well, that’s it. The running begins. The leaping. The squealing. The piling on. The hug upon hug upon hug.
It’s the best feeling in the world, isn’t it? To be greeted in love?
Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
The creole word for hug is “anbrase” — like embrace — and we say it all the time. When our kids gather around a new nanny, we tell them “anbrase li” (hug her) and they do. When a volunteer first arrives, same thing. “Anbrase li.” It’s gotten so common that the kids do it by themselves.
The arrival hugs are the most enthusiastic, and often come with questions whispered in my ear.
“Did you bring us a movie, Mr. Mitch?”
“Are you staying for my birthday, Mr. Mitch?”
Certain kids are particularly proud of their embraceability. Moise, for example, only 8 years old, will climb up my body with no help, and hang on by his legs in a vice-like grip around my torso.
Dorvinsky, 11, a smallish boy whose smile occupies at least 40 percent of his face, fancies himself a mini-chiropractor, and likes to squeeze around my tailbone until I grunt (I swear he has actually adjusted a few vertebrae.)
The teenage girls lean in gently, the teenage boys try some heavy arm-around-the-shoulder shaking. But everybody gets into it. No one stays on the sidelines.
Maybe this is my doing. I am forever telling them “You’re never too old for a hug.” And many of the kids who started doing this by leaping into my arms are now are taller than me, and stronger as well.
But I learned from my beloved college professor Morrie Schwartz (the Morrie of “Tuesdays with Morrie”), who was always seeking a hug. He taught me, as he was dying from ALS, that we desperately need human touch when we’re leaving the world, same as when we enter the world as newborns.
“That makes sense to me,” he said. “It’s symmetrical. What doesn’t make sense is why, in between the coming and the going, we act like we don’t need that physical touch.”
He’s right.
Especially here in Haiti.
Morrie Schwartz, left / Photo credit: Rob Schwartz
We recently had a couple of the teenage kids come back to America with us for medical reasons. They stayed for a couple of weeks, even after the doctor appointments were finished. We had regular routines, making breakfast together, riding bicycles together, and of course, big hugs in the morning, and big hugs before bed at night.
When they left, they wrote my wife and me thank you notes that they left on our kitchen table. They were precious. In one of them, Bianka, a 15 year-old teenage girl, wrote “These two weeks are the safest I have ever felt in my life.”
I teared up when I read that. It reminded me how much we take our safety, our security, our very right to live for granted here. In Haiti, where danger lies outside every gate, where kidnappings, shootings or sudden violent demonstrations are commonplace, and where there always seems to be an earthquake or hurricane that is coming or just happened, security is precious. Feeling safe is a luxury.
Maybe this is why the orphanage’s culture of hugging is as strong as it is. We are not in a great neighborhood. We do not have access to reliable public services. We are not wholly safe. But when you come through our gates, you are part of us, part of a family that revels in itself, in its joy, in its recognition that in numbers, we are stronger, and in caring, we are more secure.
Photo credit: Danielle Cutillo / Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
Remember that song, “Embraceable You”? Everyone at our place is an Embraceable You. We may be the most hugged corner of Haiti. If so, so be it. As Morrie said, why pretend the feeling we need at the start and end of life isn’t what we need in the middle? I am leaving next week for my monthly stay in Haiti and already I am thinking about the car door swinging open, and the moment that makes it all worthwhile, the best moment of all.
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Reports about children’s mental health for the last 18 months are staggering, but providing a sense of safety and security for our children has always been an essential part of Have Faith Haiti. Social and emotional learning and support are built in to the care we offer. I’d love to speak with you about some of the social and emotional issues our children experience in Haiti, when they first arrive in America for school or extended visits, and take your questions about how we do it for a family of 50+! I also invite parents, teachers, and other care workers who work with kids and teens to share some of their advice. Please drop me questions in the comments at the end of the article and I will answer them tomorrow!
Make your check payable to “Have Faith Haiti Mission” and send to
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.
