Welcome to “Life at the Orphanage,” a newsletter about life for the 50+ children of Have Faith Haiti. Keep up with me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for surprise details from the kids in Haiti
It began with a drum. A small, half-broken, heavily-stained bongo drum. The kids would fetch it from the office every evening and pass it around on during devotions.
As a former musician, it didn’t take me long to notice how good the drumming was. Kids as young as six would pound those drums with their palms, the side of their hands, their fingertips, producing different sounds from the skins, speeding up or slowing down with ease.
So I got a second set of bongo drums. And a third. Then I began to bring down a donated drum set, a piece at a time. One trip a snare drum. Next trip a cymbal.
Eventually we had a whole kit, which the kids lined up to try. Then a guitar was added. Then I brought down a keyboard.
“Can I play?” became a common refrain. And each new budding musician inspired another. Can I play? Soon, with so many kids interested, we were accepting donations of anything musical from anywhere we could get them.
A former embassy worker gave us her cello. A Haitian friend brought by a violin. A local Detroit music store called Huber and Breeze sent down flutes, electric guitars, bass guitars. Can I play? Can I play?
Then came the game-changer. A man named Dennis Tini, who’d retired from his job as chairman of the music department at Wayne State University, agreed to pay a visit and take a look at our kids.
That was several years ago.
He has never stopped coming.
Call it luck, passion, or the kindness of strangers who happen to be musicians, but thanks to Prof. Tini’s constant teachings — and the boundless dedication of our kids — I believe the Have Faith Haiti Orphanage is the most musical children’s home in the country.
We have an entire large room just dedicated to music instruction. It houses guitars, drums, strings, keyboard and wind instruments. We’ve got accordions. Ukuleles. Recorders. Saxophones.
It was hugely satisfying to hear the squeaks, plings, smacks and boom-booms coming from that music room year after year. But the most fun started one day when I had a bunch of the teenaged kids around me, and I said, “You know what? We should form a band.”
Their eyes lit up.
Stars in the making
From that moment to today, we have grown into our own little Motown studios. There is a teenage boys band, a teenage girls band, an early and pre-adolescent band and a group called “Future Stars” made up of younger kids with various talents.
Having been in several bands when I was in high school, I knew the camaraderie of making music. I believe it is unlike any other. Performing it is a second language, a rapturous communication that makes you smile uncontrollably with a well-played lick on guitar, or a surprising fill from the drummer, or a high note hit by the lead singer.
Music is joy. Children are joy. Children making music bangs the joy meter like a hammer in a seaside arcade, shooting it up until the clangs the top bell.
Let me take you through the first rehearsal. The boys, from 13 to 17, filled the room and meandered to instruments. Appoloste knew a few chords on piano. Good enough. Kiki knew a few chords on guitar. Good enough. Louvenson was a natural drummer. Great. J.J. agreed to try the bass. Now we’re cooking.
A boy named Jonathan Ulysees (who we call J.U. to distinguish him from J.J.) has a high-pitched voice and a natural showmanship. We made him the lead singer.
And we launched into our first effort: “Do You Love Me?” by the Contours, an early 1960’s tune out of Motown – where else? – that starts with a spoken reflection:
“You broke my heart
Cause I couldn’t dance
You didn’t even want me around
But now I’m back
To let you know-
I can really shake ‘em down.”
We had J.U. try this. Since we didn’t have any microphones, we had him sing it into a large green comb.
It was perfect.
Straight to the heart
From that initial attempt, the boys have grown into a semi-polished unit with a repertoire big enough to fill an hour-long set. They’ll try anything. A James Brown song (“I Feel Good”), a One Direction song (“Steal My Girl”) oldies (“Rave On”, “Hit the Road Jack”) reggae (“Buffalo Soldiers”) holiday songs (Bruce Springstein’s “Santa Claus is Coming To Town” ) even spirituals (“I’ll Fly Away.”)
They call themselves The Hermanos Brothers (hermanos being Spanish for “brothers”, which technically makes them The Brothers Brothers.) But you can never have too much brotherhood. And they play with a sense of family, sharing the vocals, splitting verses, moving around on the instruments to give others a try. They even blend in a violinist, because Widley, a 16 year-old with incredible study habits and discipline, has made the violin his own. No problem. You can always work a violin into a reggae tune, right?
The teenage girls were the next to form an ensemble. There are seven of them, so they labeled themselves “Destiny Seven.” They are partial to pop songs that I have to learn (“Girls Like Us” by Zoe Wees) and old girls group songs (“Please Mr. Postman” “Mr, Lee,”) which they teasingly call “Mr. Mitch’s music.”
The middle-aged group, affectionately named “Tet Chaje”, (which is creole for “Troublemakers”) will pretty much sing anything. They’ve gone from “Jingle Bells’ to “Yellow Submarine” to “You are My Sunshine.”) They mix boys and girls, too young to have much distinction between their voices.
And our newest group, The Future Stars, just perfected an incredible version of “Que Sera Sera,” where all the instruments and vocals were done by them, despite their youth.
Mixed in with all of this are Haitian songs, French songs, religious numbers and folk tunes. It all culminated last year in the first of what has become a tradition: the school steps concert.
This is where we drag all the instruments from the music room, set them up on the school patio (one of the few places where you can count on shade) and perform a multi-tiered concert, where the bands run on and off the “stage” to do their rehearsed numbers.
Professor Dennis J. Tini with the kids of Have Faith Haiti
You know the best part? Not the singing, which is getting better all the time, or the playing, which is advancing with each show.
It’s the way they root each other on. There is no battle of coolness, no held-back applause out of concern that those clapping might not get as much love as the current band. Just unbridled glee at hearing each other perform. They clap in the hot sun. They jump up and dance on fast numbers. And there are always huge ovations when the bands finish.
It has gotten to the point where we do a concert every month, that’s how much they love it, that’s how musical the orphanage has become. What started with a bongo drum has blossomed into a variety show.
And inevitably, when the show is over and the equipment has been stored and life is returning to normal, I will hear a five-year-old walking through the yard alone, singing a line they never heard until that day (“Please Mister Postman look and see…”) And with that I know the special magic got through, the way music always does, from the most meager beginnings, straight to the heart.
Welcome to “Life at the Orphanage,” a newsletter about life for the 50+ children of Have Faith Haiti. Keep up with me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for surprise details from the kids in Haiti.
We all remember going off to college. Loading the car. Making the trip with our parents. Watching nervously as the campus came into view, marveling at the other kids who already looked settled in and were throwing a frisbee on a stretch of green lawn.
If you recall the crazy mix of curiosity, apprehension, and departure from everything you had known in your life until that point — take that and multiply it by 100, and you’ll land on what was going through the minds of four young men who boarded an airplane with me Sunday afternoon, heading to a land they had never seen before.
One was Edney, who I wrote about a few weeks ago. Illiterate until age seven when he came to our place, he’s now an academic wiz who blew our TOEFL score record out of the water.
He was accompanied by Jhonas, who spent much of his life in a ragged, makeshift tent with a blue tarp as a roof and dirt as a floor. There was no electricity. He did his homework on his knee.
The two of them will now be roommates at Madonna University this fall, thanks to a scholarship program we have set up for the Have Faith Haiti orphanage. I brought them with me a few weeks early to get a look at America — along with two of our upcoming seniors, J.J. and Kiki, who will be attending college a year from now.
The looks on their faces as the airplane lifted off were priceless, the kind of smiles that you can’t hold back. They stared out in silent wonder, seeing, for the first time, the top of the mountains that gave their island home its name — Ay-ti — or Haiti, the land of mountains.
Now disappearing through an airplane window.
Kiki, Jhonas, Mitch, Edney, and J.J. at the Detroit River
The scene at the orphanage a few hours earlier was emotional. There were tight hugs from the staff members and exaggerated laughter from the other teens, unsure of how to take the moment. Leaving? Some of them were leaving? A few of our younger boys began crying uncontrollably. One of them, named Manes, couldn’t even speak when I asked what was wrong.
“Is it because Edney is going?”
Tears streamed down his face as he shook his head yes.
Remember, there are often goodbyes at the orphanage, but never for the kids. Adults come and go. Teachers leave for the summer. Volunteers finish their time. But the children? They are a unit. A pack. A tightly knit family that sees one another every single day, eats together, goes to school together, prays together. Our facility is just over a third of an acre — for more than 50 children. You are always in each other’s orbit. You can’t help it.
Now, as if sending a rocket to the moon, a new orbit was about to be explored. It was cause for celebration and sadness. Jhonas’s mother, whom I hadn’t seen in years, came to say goodbye to her son. She wore a Sunday best red dress.
Jhonas and Esterline with their mother / Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
“I asked God to watch over you and to thank you for what you are doing for Jhonas,” she said in Creole. “It is only because of you that he is getting this chance.”
I told her we would make sure he was safe, which seemed to be her only worry. Jhonas removed his glasses periodically to wipe his eyes. Despite the August heat, he wore a blue suit that a friend had sewn for him. He is rail thin, and the clothing drapes on him as if hanging in a closet. He hugged his mother tightly, hugged his sister, Esterline, who is also at our orphanage, and got into the car.
Edney was next. The night before he had choked up during devotion saying “I’m really gonna miss you guys.” Everyone stood and said one thing they were going to miss about him as well. Now, as Edney closed the door, one of our teenaged girls blurted out “This is really happening,” as if, to that point, it was all just a fantasy, something I spoke to them about like a fairy tale, leaving the orphanage, going to college, saying goodbye.
One last family photo of the summer before our teenagers depart for school in the US / Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
When the plane touched down in Florida, I told them “Congratulations. You’ve now set foot in a second country.” They smiled but didn’t speak. In fact, for much of the process — deplaning, customs, getting a passport stamp — they gaped in silent curiosity. When Edney asked if it were possible to read a book on the next part of the flight, I took out my iPad and downloaded something. It took about ten seconds. The young men blinked in astonishment. Our internet at the orphanage, when it works, if it works, is like watching a mule pull a plow. You wait. You wait. You wait some more.
Here, suddenly, was the speed of America, in the simple press of a button. It was the first of hundreds of impressions like that. The car on the highway heading to our house. A highway? What’s a highway? The hot and cold water faucets. The indoor showers. The parking lots filled with cars at a dealership. The food that you can order online and pick up briskly. A myriad of everyday things that we take for granted.
When we first entered our house, we came through the garage, and the young men’s eyes widened.
“Bicycles,” they marveled.
And the next morning, they were on them. They had never navigated an adult bike before. (We have a couple kiddie ones that get shared at the orphanage.) They rolled cautiously into the street by our house, and, wobbling with the newness of the pedals, they began to ride.
Kiki, Jhonas, and J.J. take to cycling / Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
I watched this with a welling in my chest. What must they be thinking of a world where, in less than a day, you can go from abject poverty to a bicycle ride in a leafy suburb? Are they thinking why didn’t I have this earlier in my life? Or are they thinking I wish I could bring this back to my brothers and sisters at the orphanage?
The summer wind blew as they navigated ahead, thin rubber tires rolling them through a strange new world, their eyes saying hello to everything.
***
The scholarship program for students like Edney is hosting a fundraiser on August 19 at Madonna University. Info and tickets are available here. Please spread the word!
👋 and welcome to “Life at the Orphanage,” a newsletter about life for the 50+ children of Have Faith Haiti. Follow along as I share the universal lessons learned watching the purest of childhoods in one of the poorest places on earth. Looking forward to hearing what you think in the comments.
PORT-AU-PRINCE — When you first arrive at our orphanage, the kids will descend like bees. They’ll buzz you and hug you and study your clothes and pull at your hair, especially if it is substantial. Then, amidst their giddiness, they’ll ask you a question:
“How long will you stay?”
It is more than curiosity. It is defense. Orphaned kids have many fears, but the worst is abandonment. They have all been left behind at least once in their lives. Most are afraid it will happen again.
So when new people come in, the kids measure their intended stays, then subliminally dole out the affection they’re willing to risk. A long stay means unbridled love. A short stay means they’re more guarded. Deep down, the kids sense a price for getting attached. They still want that attachment. But they are scared of being ditched.
This is one reason I come here every month, without fail, and have since 2010 (except for four awful months at the start of COVID-19.) When the kids get sad upon my departure, they’ll ask, “When are you coming back, Mr. Mitch?”
“What month is it?” I always say.
“March.”
“What month comes after March?”
“April.”
“So that’s when I’ll be back, right?”
It seems to work. Knowing there is a reliable return, one that they can point to on a calendar, eases the pain of saying goodbye. They see it my leaving as an absence, not a farewell.
Farewells, they don’t like.
Farewells break their hearts.
We had a farewell last week.
It broke all of ours.
Teacher Phedre (left) with students who completed Collége 1 grade level in the spring of 2019 / Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
Not long enough
Vladamir Delinois was one of our top teachers. He went by the name “Phedre” – or “Mr. Phedre” to our kids. A stocky, smiling man who could look menacing in a helmet and sunglasses yet soft and fatherly with a couple of kids in his lap, Phedre had a radio-announcer’s voice that boomed from one end of the grounds to the other.
We met him during our first few months in Haiti, back in 2010. He stood out because he spoke English like an American. That’s because he left Haiti as a child and lived with his family in Brooklyn, then Florida. He even served in the U.S. Army. When he returned to Haiti, he worked in various security type positions until the 2010 earthquake, when everything stopped.
That’s when we arrived. Phedre knew someone at our orphanage and began to hang around, shooting the breeze with all of us. He was easy to like. He was always telling stories, laughing loudly, earning the nickname “Hollywood” from some of the crew. He had grown children and a new baby son. He loved kids. You could see that. A few years later, when we needed English teachers, he applied, and we welcomed him onto our staff.
Louvenson and Phedre at a recent beach club field trip / Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
During the past few years, Phedre worked tirelessly with our high schoolers on their TOEFL test preparations. The TOEFL (Test Of English as a Foreign Language) is the gold standard for foreigners wishing to study at American universities.
Phedre reveled in getting our kids ready. He was constantly asking me to bring the latest study books to increase their chances. He gave mock tests. He coached our kids on how to actually take the exam, what questions to leave behind, how to budget their time.
The goal was to score higher than a 70, a benchmark for admission to many American universities. Last year when Edney, one of our brightest kids, scored a 96 on his first try, Phedre was as proud as a father watching his son score the winning touchdown.
“I knew he could do it!” Phedre bellowed. After the score was posted, we announced it to our kids. And even as they marveled at the number, some set their minds on surpassing it. They knew the path to doing that went through Mr. Phedre.
He was transforming into a sensei, a wise, guiding force that could unlock the mystery to college education and a trip to America. Our kids couldn’t wait to study with him.
Now, suddenly, they can’t.
Phedre died.
During the pandemic, we have many of our staff members live at the orphanage. It’s the only way we can ensure they aren’t exposed to COVID-19. A few staffers could not do this, like Phedre, because he had children to take care of at home.
Consequently, he came and went, and we had him tested twice a week. It was expensive and time consuming, but we valued his health and his teaching. One day, the test came back positive. Phedre immediately went home and quarantined. He stayed out two weeks. Although he had no real symptoms, he stuck with the protocol and when it was safe, we welcomed him back, relieved in a way, that we didn’t have to worry about him catching it anymore.
That was many months ago.
A few weeks ago, Phedre came to visit. He had bad back pain but seemed OK otherwise. A few days later, he said felt sick and went to an aunt who was a physician. He got worse. Next we knew, he was in a hospital. He texted a friend that he was having trouble breathing and that the people at the hospital said he had COVID-19. He was confused. Didn’t he already have COVID-19? Wasn’t he protected against severe symptoms a second time around?
The next day things got worse. He was moved into the Intensive Care unit.
He texted “I’m scared.”
The next day he was gone.
I got a text from Yonel, our Haitian director. “We lost Mr. Phedre today. I am very sorry.”
Phedre with his son, Jhi / Courtesy of the Delinois family
There one minute, gone the next
It is the kind of death that happens every day here in Haiti — sudden, jolting, no satisfying explanation. Not having been there in that hospital, we don’t know what Phedre was exposed to, or what precautions were taken. We get no report. No charts. No phone calls.
There are rare pockets of decent health care in Haiti, but for the most part, it is a broken system. Poor people go to hospitals. They get scant attention. Sometimes they come out. Sometimes they do not.
Had he lived in America, Phedre would have been vaccinated. He would be alive. But there is no vaccine in Haiti yet, despite being 700 miles off the Florida coast. Everyone here is rolling the dice.
Phedre was 56. We were stunned at the news. The kids cried. The other staff members cried. He was just at our place, revving his motorcycle, pulling off his helmet, flashing that big smile. How can someone be there one minute and be gone the next?
It is the fear that hovers ominously over all of us, and even more so at an orphanage like ours. I feel so badly for Phedre’s family. For his students. For the kids who will never have him grill them on TOEFL questions and beam brightly when they get the answers right.
The night after Phedre died, I got a call from one of our teenage girls at the orphanage. She had asked to use Yonel’s phone. She said she just wanted to talk to me.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” I asked.
“I just want to know,” she said, “that you’re not gonna leave.”
“Leave? Leave where?”
“Leave us.”
I swallowed hard. I knew what she meant. It is the emotion rooted in all our children, and, by extension, all of us as well. How long will you stay? For Mr. Phedre, it was not long enough. Not nearly long enough.
Phedre spent an entire day cooking his top-secret chicken wing recipe for a student-teacher meal in 2019 / Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
👋 and welcome to “Life at the Orphanage,” a newsletter about life for the 50+ children of Have Faith Haiti. Follow along as I share the universal lessons learned watching the purest of childhoods in one of the poorest places on earth.
PORT-AU-PRINCE — The chairs were arranged in crooked lines. A wooden podium stood near the front. The sun was baking hot and it was not even 10 a.m. I pressed a button on my phone and “Pomp and Circumstance” played through a speaker. As the little children craned their necks to see, people started walking down the aisle.
Here, amidst the chaos and poverty that is everyday Haiti, was a graduation. Not a fancy graduation. Not a large graduation. To be honest, the graduating class was one student.
But that one student meant the world to us.
Ten years ago, under the academic guidance of my educator sister, Cara Nesser, we opened a school at the Have Faith Haiti Orphanage. Well, first we built it. Then we opened it. At the time, our oldest students were eight or nine. We had no middle school or high school. We recruited teachers from our staff and the community.
As the years grew, the school elasticized. We invented new grades as new grades were needed. Cara’s curriculum swelled. So did the number of kids and the teaching staff. We added a classroom. We sprawled our sessions out into the yard.
But the learning never stopped. And now, for the first time, one of our students, just shy of 18, was receiving a diploma and heading off to college in America.
Edney / Photo by Patty Alley / Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
His name was Edney. He wore a blue gown with the proper blue cap, and waited until the official moment to flip the tassel. Never mind that we had to teach him that tradition an hour earlier. He embraced it with a smile that could light up the entire power grid of Port-au-Prince, which would have been nice, since we only get power a few hours a day.
“Today is simply the end of a chapter of a very, very, very long book,” Edney told the audience in a speech he had written on his own. “I started kindergarten when I was seven. I was illiterate. I didn’t know how to read or write…”
“I was not used to love when I felt alone. I was not used to words of encouragement when I screwed up…”
An education.
Learning is a bitter subject in Haiti. Almost everyone must pay to go to school – public school, local schools, private schools. Every few years, a politician squawks about making education free to the public, as it is in most parts of the world. But it never happens.
Consequently, nearly half the country remains functionally illiterate. The average Haitian adult has had three years of school. It is not uncommon for people in their 20s to still be in junior high, having had to stop and start their education depending on available money.
We knew early on at the orphanage that the only way to change this was to open a school on our own grounds. So we did. With the help of Haitian laborers, a group of dedicated American volunteers whom we called the Detroit Muscle Crew built a three-room schoolhouse, painted it banana yellow, cut a ribbon, and let the kids walk through the doors.
The Detroit Muscle Crew and local laborers work on the school building / Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
School Director Cara Nesser holds up shapes at the front of the classroom on the first day of school (2011) / Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
Edney arrived in 2011, just as the school was starting. He was a quiet kid with a high forehead, big almond eyes, and a long grin that hid many of the deeper emotions he was feeling. But he loved to learn. And soon he was finding any corner of the orphanage to sit and read.
He became a perfectionist, mad at himself if he didn’t score the highest grade. As he grew up, he blitzed through the science and math classes that we created and was working on calculus during the pandemic. He beat the required TOEFL score to attend American college by 30 percent.
All of our children at Have Faith Haiti have a scholarship waiting for them to attend university in the U.S., provided they make the necessary grades. We do this through our own dogged fundraising and through a partnership with something called the Michigan Colleges Alliance, a consortium of more than a dozen small colleges in Michigan.
Edney will be attending Madonna University in Livonia starting this September. He told me last week that he was “nervous.” When I asked why, he said “All the kids there will be smarter than me. They’ll have been speaking English since they were born.”
I put my arm around him.
”That’s OK,” I said. “They haven’t gone through what you’ve gone through.”
Edney (2011) / Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
Edney lived through an earthquake that leveled his country. He lived through a hurricane that left thousands homeless. He lived through having to start his life over at age seven, learn a new language, a new home, new parental figures.
He has studied outside, at night, with mosquitos and oppressive heat bearing down on him as he tried to read beneath the light of a single bulb. He didn’t have Google to look things up, or a phone to text classmates, or internet to research anything whenever he wanted.
He earned his education the old-fashioned way. Books. Papers. Lots of homework. But that doesn’t mean I don’t fret for him, that I’m not nervous myself as he heads to our country.
Since arriving at the orphanage, none of our kids has ever spent a night without other kids sleeping in adjacent bunk beds. None of them eat alone. None of them have ever walked to school by themselves, or had to find a professor across a campus, or had a teacher they couldn’t hug after class.
I remember the moment Edney came to our orphanage. His grandmother brought him in. She explained the poverty they were living in, explained how he had no chance of schooling if he stayed with her, how there was little food and unsafe shelter. Edney was a little old for us, already seven, and quite shy. But something about him struck me. A curiosity in his eyes.
We told his grandmother OK.
Now, soon, he will be leaving us.
His graduation, just days before the Haitian president was assassinated in his home, was a rare moment of quiet loveliness in an otherwise turbulent nation.
As he finished his speech, Edney started to choke up.
“If I am here today,” he said, “I could not have done it without you guys. Thank you for making this day special for me…
“Of course, I’ll be coming back here every three, um, every few months…”
That’s when it hit him he was leaving. He stopped and wiped his eyes. The wind blew his paper off the podium.
“I just love you guys,” he rasped.
Everyone applauded, his schoolmates, his teachers, the staff, the little kids. A few minutes later, all the teenagers gathered on the porch of the school and sang the pop song “Friends Forever” by Vitamin C, with Edney in the middle as they swayed arm in arm.
“As we go on, we remember,
all the times we,
had together
Then, just as they’d practiced it, they let Edney go, and he slipped off, in his blue cap and gown, waving to them as he went.
As our lives change,
Come whatever
We will still be
Friends forever…
It was a graduation in the midst of poverty and chaos and generator fumes and barbed wire. But here at the orphanage, it’s not what things looks like, it’s what they mean. That morning meant hope for the future. So it was everything a graduation should be.
PORT-AU-PRINCE — This is a post about the outside and the inside of our orphanage, and how in Haiti there is a world of difference between the two.
The inside, I have written about. A slightly ramshackle, third of an acre rectangle with five small buildings painted banana yellow and lavender; a chapel, a trio of connected classrooms, a dorm, a music room, and a guest house. There’s a gazebo where we pray and meet, and a massive green kenep tree that hangs over our “soccer” field, which is really just a potholed grassless area with old tree roots poking up like oatmeal lumps.
The inside is also 50-plus children (we just took in nine new ones this month) who wake us up each morning with squealing and laughing and singing.
The inside is a guard at the gate, which only opens for returning or exiting cars.
The inside is safety, familiarity, a place where a teenage boy named Edney, who is about to go off to college in America, runs laps in a square wanting to stay in shape for his big trip. He passes three kids reading books on a stoop, a small group learning a card trick around a table, and a handful of teenaged girls on the steps outside the kitchen, laughing at a private joke.
The inside, in our orphanage, is the known world.
The outside is something else.
That outside came barreling over our walls last week, first in the form of a text message I received from a cherished Haitian friend whose family has been in this county close to 200 years.
It arrived with a ping at 5:30 am.
“The president of Haiti has just been assassinated. Do not go out. Cancel all visits.”
By now, you have probably heard some of the story. Like many things in Haiti, it is confusing, violent, rumor-filled and tragic.
The president of the country, Jovenel Moïse, was murdered in his home in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. A large group of commando style killers reportedly entered his property, somehow didn’t harm a single guard – or even a dog – but managed to put more than a dozen bullets into Moïse’s body, and gouge his eye out. They also shot Moïse’s wife, who was later airlifted to an American hospital.
Theories flew. They are still flying. Columbian mercenaries are part of the story, and many have been arrested, but no one is sure if they were hired to kill, capture or protect the president. Political rivals have denied involvement but are, of course, suspect. Questions are everywhere. Meanwhile, the line of succession was thrown into the hopper when the next in line, the president of the Supreme Court, recently died of COVID-19, and the next in line, the prime minister, was just ousted by Moïse in favor of a new one. But the new one could not be confirmed by the parliament – because there is no parliament! It’s been disbanded.
There are currently less than a dozen people running the government in Haiti.
Less than a dozen?
Against this backdrop, the president being assassinated in his own home leaves the average Haitian wondering the same two things: if the president isn’t safe, how can we be safe? And if the president is dead, what happens to us?
Here is what happened to us. We lost our electricity. It would not come back for days. We took stock of our water (good) our food (OK) and our fuel (not so good.) We were warned to beef up security immediately and we managed, through friends, to hire, that afternoon, two plainclothes police officers to roam our grounds and climb atop our buildings to scour the streets.
Orphanages have been attacked, most recently in April in Croix-des-Bouquets, where bandits killed a guard and raped several teenaged girls. With the outside portending chaos after Moïses’ murder, we spent the day going over panic plans, how to set off alarms, scream a safety word, and get the children to the roof of our tallest structure to try and fend off any attack.
What’s strange – maybe even ironic, an overused word in Haiti – was that the day before, the outside had been a blessing.
For the first time in nearly two years (thanks to COVID-19) we took a field trip to the beach. This involved two buses, 50 kids, 16 staff members, a police escort and two hours in traffic. Didn’t matter. Upon arrival, our kids went nuts.
The place we went to, Wahoo Bay Beach Club, had a pool as well as a beach, plus a basketball court and a small restaurant where meals had been arranged. For our kids, it might as well have been heaven. They splashed, dove, threw a beach ball around and never stopped smiling. The little ones wore inflatable wings on their arms and leaned against doting nannies in the shallow water. The teenaged boys showed off their cannonballs.
Archange, 3, enjoys the crystal clear water / Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
Mitch Albom helps Estafania, 11, float in the pool as Cinlove, 15, looks on / Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
At lunch, the entire group welcomed a plate full of Haitian specialties, chicken, beans and rice, plantains, pikliz. They were so thrilled to be outside the walls, and they said “Thank you Mister Mitch” about a million times, although in truth, the trip was planned by our great friend Verena, and we sent her pictures to let her know what a success it was.
In fact, the only time during the eight-hour experience that there was quiet was on the bus rides out and back. On American field trips, this can be when kids make the most noise; they scuffle or poke fun at each other.
But our kids were mostly silent in their seats. That’s because they rarely get a look at the poverty parade that lines the streets of Port-au-Prince. This is the other part of the outside: crowded vendors, one atop the other, trying to sell any meager ware to get enough food to eat. Kids their age banging on car windows trying to sell trinkets or water. Women, old before their time, carrying huge barrels or trays atop their heads. Endless traffic. Choking fumes.
The outside is sobering reality, and our kids stare at it as if watching a world that they’ve heard about, but is usually hidden in the attic.
Courtesy of Have Faith Haiti
With the death of Moïse, there is no hiding. The nation was stunned by the murder, and for days after the streets were eerily quiet, everything closed, everyone hesitant.
It will not last. A power vacuum in Haiti always means a scramble for control, and whether through elections, force, or martial law – which Haiti is under now – there will be mayhem and fear. The nation braces for it. We brace for it.
For one sunny afternoon, the outside was a beautiful panorama of blue water and sand and thatched-roof patios and Coca-Cola bottles. And then it was all gone, in an after-midnight murder of the president, and Haiti was once again leaderless, the outside world reverting to danger, and no walls safe enough to let you sleep without worry.
I spent the next few nights tossing on my pillow, thinking about how fast 50 kids can get to a rooftop, how we need to get someplace safer, how this country can be so glorious and so grim at the same time, and how to steer our children between the two.
Click here to watch a previously live broadcast from the orphanage, discussing the latest from Haiti.
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.
Join a community of monthly donors