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Haiti

The following represents how our trip to Haiti affected our team of eleven as a whole....

Set against a lush mountain landscape stood the palace. We passed it as we drove through Port-au-Prince-- the earthquake damage so extensive that it toppled the main dome from its stately place-- set in the center of beautiful green lawn, and fenced off from the rest of the city. It was, it seemed, a symbol of Haiti itself: a country so devastated by disease, malnutrition, poverty, and natural disaster as to shake its people from their stately place; still set amid such natural beauty; and yet so unknown by the outside world. At least, it was unknown to us. True, we expected to see poverty, we had heard of the AIDS and tuberculosis problems, and we knew there would be considerable damage from the 2010 earthquake; but all these things were intellectual, mere curiosities that gave us pause but failed to effect a true understanding of Haiti’s need.

The trip through Port-au-Prince, in fact, was sobering. We were tired, having taken a red-eye and getting-- at best-- intermittent sleep. What we saw, though, would have left us silent anyway: tent colonies to the sides, dilapidated buildings, thickly-trafficked streets with countless people walking all directions. The whole city looked improvised and haphazard. Streets wound in unpredicted directions. Hilly and pothole-ridden, they were lined with buildings that seemed to be constructed on a first-come, first-serve basis. The poverty, in fact, was overshadowed only by the ubiquitous exhaust smell, poured forth by trucks and cars and tap-taps throughout these busy lanes.

Then, four hours later, we arrived. The orphanage in Jacmel, called the Hands and Feet Project, gave the immediate impression of contrast with the city outside its gates. Spacious, crisp with color, and modern, the complex expressed visually what we would come to understand emotionally: that the children here are loved. We found out as much through our interactions with them during the week, turning during moments of painting and play to find one or more with open arms to seek our embrace. That embrace, along with the need we saw in Haiti, would come to change us more than we expected.

Some of that change came through experiences outside the orphanage. We visited, for example, a Catholic hospital in downtown Jacmel called “Sisters of Charity,” whose children’s building houses boys and girls infected with HIV, skin disease, and tuberculosis, among other infirmities. As with the orphanage, the children we encountered took to us immediately, our presence seeming to help them to forget—if only for a moment—why they were there.

Equally significant was what we found Hands and Feet itself doing. Its official purpose-- “to raise a generation of orphaned children who will grow up to reach their God given potential.... [and to] empower first world citizens to partner with us in service at home and abroad”—offers only a partial understanding of its work in Haiti. We witnessed, for instance, the building of a large cistern that would eventually provide clean drinking water to the people of Jacmel, while we found that the directors-- a doctor and nurse named Ken and Diane Pierce-- offer medical services in addition to their work as administrators. More broadly, and perhaps most importantly, the organization plans to expand the number of orphanages in Haiti from three to eleven, a vision that will provide hope to children whose families are unable to care for them. For boys like Marco, this hope is substantial: Dr. Pierce found recently that this teenage orphan could eventually be apprenticed to become a commercial airline pilot, employment that would surely provide for him and his family.

If Haiti is known mostly for its place as poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, the staff of Hands and Feet—a unified group of American and Haitian workers—have the opportunity to help change that. As a group, we were proud to experience a moment in its history, to be part of something greater than ourselves, to take part in the vision to do more for a country so wracked with need; and while needs like those of Haiti may paint a sobering picture, they also, we found, compel people to move into unfamiliar spaces, to look outside of their own needs long enough to understand and bring hope to others. Such a perspective can change lives, not the least those who hold it. Haiti is indeed a place of need, but there is also a beauty there, found as much among the lives of those committed to its change as in the resilience of its people. For many in our humble group of eleven, this was monumental, impressing upon us an example of benevolence that we hope to act out in our own lives. It could, in fact, be said of us that we took a part of Haiti home.

If you would like to sponsor a child through Hands and Feet, visit http://www.handsandfeetproject.org.

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