by Paul Farmer
“Margaret, I have something to show you,” he said as we pulled into the driveway of the rectory, a short way down the hill from St. Clare’s Church. The building was quiet, an empty shell compared to the day before. It was rarely used during the week, although Fr. Gerry had big plans. We walked across the dusty yard to the right side of the building.
“This is where the outdoor cafeteria will be. A large space for the food program to be served. Three hundred children will be able to sit down at once.” His eyes smiled and his voice was convincing.
“An outdoor cafeteria?” I said, confused.
He nodded. “With a roof and sturdy tables and benches for the children, and a concrete floor so they won’t hurt themselves on the rocks and glass.” He led me around the corner and pointed to the back of the rectory building. “Right here is where the new kitchen will go. With running water and a big stove to cook food, so we can serve meals to the children all week long.”
I squinted in the sunlight, trying to imagine the new kitch en and the possibility of more days of food.
With a big smile, he continued, “Over here is where the school will go.” He pointed to the empty half-acre lot on the left side of the rectory. “With a daily lunch, a library, and a health clinic. And over there”—he spun around and pointed to the road leading to the rectory—”I see the roads paved. No more roads that wash away each time it rains. No more struggling to get up the hill.” Then he turned slowly in a circle, pointing to the homes surrounding us. “Margaret, I see all the children fed and their parents working. Everyone has enough food to eat and electricity and running water.”
I looked with him into the neighborhood, past the piles of garbage and the dark interiors of the dilapidated homes, trying to imagine his vision. But I couldn’t. The bleak reality overwhelmed me. So I shut my eyes and tilted my head back. The sun burned my cheeks as I tried to picture a school next to the rectory. After a few seconds, it began to take shape. It was three stories high—bright blue, orange, and yellow. Happy colors. I imagined a bell ringing and dozens of children skipping through the gate, books in their arms, chatting and laughing as they walked into classrooms and sat behind new desks, their teachers greeting them.
“Father Gerry?” I opened my eyes quickly, excited about this vision. “Do you think I should start exploring grants to raise money for the school? How much do you think it will cost?”
He laughed, “First Margaret, we feed the children, we keep them alive. Then the school.”
Fr. Gerry glanced at his watch. It was time to pick up Paul and drive to the airport. As we walked through the yard and back to the jeep, Fr. Gerry turned to me and said:
We have a Creole saying I want to teach you. Piti piti na rive. That means little by little we will arrive. One step at a time, Margaret. In Haiti, sometimes they are very, very small steps. Sometimes we go backward. But it’s important to keep taking steps, even though they are small. Never lose hope. Never give up. One day, maybe not during my lifetime, but one day, we will get there.
kado!
Eight weeks later I was back in the crowded airport in Port-au-Prince. It was my third visit to Haiti. This time, I had Luke with me, and four 75-pound duffel bags stuffed with toys for the children.
Luke and I had made a collection before leaving, asking the first- through sixth-graders at his school to donate “like new” Beanie Babies, SuperBalls, Hot Wheels cars, and other small gifts. No need to shop, I told them. If Luke’s room was any indication, they had plenty of beautiful, unplayed-with toys in their own bedrooms to share. I was right. Toys filled my living room the night before we left. Luke and I counted each one to be sure we had enough—900! Just about enough for each child to receive two.
We’d planned this visit to Haiti quickly. I had a business conference in Miami and decided that it was too close to St. Clare’s not to go. There were so many things I wanted to learn more about—education, health care, drinking water-—that any opportunity to visit Port-au-Prince, even for only three days, felt important. So I e-mailed Fr. Gerry and bought two tickets. Just nine months earlier, when I went to Haiti for the first time, the process of flying to Port-au-Prince was huge, logistically and emotionally. Now it was starting to feel normal—almost like visiting another state. We arrived on a Sunday morning, just in time for the food program.
Since Fr. Gerry was leading Mass, he told us to look for a “Margaret Trost” sign when we landed. The man carrying it would drive us to St. Clare’s. But as I looked around the airport, I didn’t see him anywhere. We sat on our luggage and waited. Five minutes. Ten. Twenty. I wasn’t sure what to do. Should we just stay put? I didn’t want to miss the food program. I’m usually so thorough and organized, but I’d forgotten to ask for the phone number at St. Clare’s. I didn’t even know the address.
“Taxi?” A man in a baggy navy blue suit approached and pointed to the door. His smile and gentle manner seemed trustworthy.
“Oui,“ I said hesitantly, wondering whether climbing in the backseat of his battered white taxi was safe.
“Addresse?”
I described St. Clare’s Church, hoping he’d heard of it— up on a hill, peach-colored, close to the airport, Fr. Gerry. His face was blank. Whistling to a couple of porters, he consulted with them for directions. Nobody seemed to know where it was. They called over more porters, and finally the huddle of men agreed we should go straight, then left, then right.
As we inched along in traffic, the driver peered down street after street, unsure where to turn. I began to think I should have stayed at the airport. I clutched Luke and my backpack and studied the streets, trying to recognize something from my last visit with Paul—the corner soda store, the kindergarten school near Manmi Dèt’s house. I didn’t have her address either. Her neighborhood didn’t have street signs or numbers on the houses. All the streets we passed looked the same—vendors and shacks and barefoot children walking around selling gum or hoping to wash car windshields for a penny.
Twisting and turning through the maze of streets, we eventually came to an empty dirt soccer field. It looked familiar, like one I remembered seeing near the rectory. I started to get excited as I studied the houses. The more I looked at them, the more familiar they seemed. “Over there,” I guessed. We turned right, proceeded down a narrow road, turned right again, and sure enough, there was the white two-story church rectory. St. Clare’s was just a few hundred yards up the hill. I could hear the congregation singing.
The children were already gathering at the rectory for the noon meal. “Luke, we’re here!” I didn’t even want to think of what could have happened, only that we’d made it safely. “Mési, mési!” I jumped out of the backseat and shook our driver’s hand.
He flashed a smile. “Pa gen pwoblèm” (No problem), he said as he unloaded our bags.
Nennenn heard the taxi and ran to greet us. She pinched Luke’s cheeks and kissed his forehead over and over. When she unzipped the green duffel bags, she gasped at the sight of the hundreds of toys. “Kado!” She pulled out a doll and squeezed it. “The children are going to be so happy!”
The kitchen was hopping with activity. Plates were already being dished up. The line of children grew quickly as they waited for the door to open. Standing on tiptoe, they tried to peek through the door’s metal grate to see what was going on inside. They could smell Nennenn’s creation.
Nennenn gave the word, and the door flung open. Hundreds of kids filed in. The girls went upstairs, the boys stayed on the main floor. They’d expanded to the second floor, putting tables and benches for another 100 in an open-air porch area. The children slid next to each other on the benches, filling the tables in a matter of seconds. Immediately, plates started to flow out of the kitchen. Nennenn liked the meal served hot. The human chain of volunteers went up the stairs and into two rooms on the main floor. “méesi, Bondye, méesi!” (Thank you, God.) From upstairs the girls’ enthusiastic voices singing grace filled the rectory. Soon the boys seated downstair
s started singing their prayer. Then, after a nod from an adult in each room, all I could hear for several minutes was the sound of spoons scraping plates.
Luke and I stayed in the kitchen to help the servers. Luke’s face was serious as he watched the children eating, through a window. Many of them were his age. As much as I’d talked about the hunger in Haiti, it hadn’t been real to him until that moment.
By the time Fr. Gerry arrived, most of the children had finished eating. He was so relieved to see us. He said his assistant was still looking for us at the airport and was worried something had happened. I told him about the nice taxi driver and then showed him the bags stuffed with toys. He gave us a hug and turned to make an announcement to the children. Although I could not understand exactly what he said, I recognized the word kado, which means “present.”
The room lit up with screams of excitement. Hands clapped, bodies squirmed. Nennenn proudly opened the first duffel bag and Beanie Babies made their way down the bench and up the stairs. So did Hot Wheels cars, yoyos, SuperBalls, dolls. Luke asked Nennenn if he could help her pass out the toys. Within minutes, the rectory looked like a carnival. Laughter, games, children playing everywhere. Some huddled in a corner with their Beanie Babies. Others raced tiny cars through the gravel outside. Older girls braided their new dolls’ hair. SuperBalls flew around. Chaos. Joy. Tears. Luke was in the middle of it all, surrounded by kids, handing out the gifts from his classmates. I caught a glimpse of him, overwhelmed by the crowd, holding toys over his head and trying to pass them out one at a time.
I sat down on the bench to watch the children play. The kitchen servers were eating now, looking on with big smiles. Next to me was a 5-year-old boy, quietly holding the little red fire engine he’d received. He slowly moved it back and forth on the table top, watching the wheels turn. He moved his fingers over the red paint, studying the engine’s shape. I watched him hold his new toy as if it was the most precious thing he owned. I thought of all the children at Luke’s school who had gone through their overstuffed closets and shelves to select toys to share. I didn’t think they had any idea what joy just one toy would give a child.
Luke joined me on the bench. He was happy and exhausted. I put my arm around him, and he rested his head on my shoulder. I was so glad I’d brought him with me. Since my first trip to Haiti, we’d had several conversations about how much more we have than most people in the world and how important it is to share. I knew this was a day my 8-yearold would never forget—a day when he’d experienced sharing on a grand scale and the joy it brings both the giver and the receiver.
Students
Abulb dangled from a wire high in the middle of the ceiling, but there wasn’t any light to brighten the tiny classroom. The electricity was off again that day. The children, 8 to 14 years old, were dressed in blue-and-white-checked uniforms, sitting shoulder to shoulder on the four rows of wooden benches, their knees touching the backs of the child in front of them. I counted fifty. When I walked in to greet them, they rose politely and said in unison, “Bonjour, mademoiselle. Bonjour, mon père.” Fr. Gerry was with me. It was Monday morning.
I’d asked Fr. Gerry to take me to a school in the St. Clare’s neighborhood, so I could see where we might be able to enroll children from the food program if I could raise tuition money. I remembered the mother with the piece of green-and-white-checkered cloth who had come up to Fr. Gerry’s jeep a couple of months earlier. My hope was that if there was money left over after we paid for the food program, we could start sending children to school—one at a time. Piti piti. Little by little.
The teacher, a young man with a bright smile, enthusiastically wrote third-grade math problems on the blackboard as the students concentrated on the lesson. Thankfully there was a small window that let in a little light and some fresh air. But other than the window and the chalkboard, benches, a few pieces of paper and pencils, and a handful of books, there wasn’t much more to the classroom. The walls were unpainted cement blocks. The window didn’t have a screen or curtains. I searched for science projects, art supplies, posters, a globe. Nothing. Luke’s personal back-to-school supply list had more items on it than what was in that entire classroom.
But the room was anything but dead. The students were focused and serious. I wondered how it was possible for them to sit so close to each other without teasing or fighting or goofing off. But that didn’t seem to be a problem. No one fidgeted. No one spoke out of turn. No one stared out the window. I didn’t think it was a performance for me. I felt their eagerness to learn. These kids wanted to be there.
As I leaned against the classroom wall and watched the children concentrate on the blackboard, I noticed some of them squinting. Maybe it was the dim light, but maybe they needed glasses. It occurred to me that I’d never seen a Haitian child wearing glasses. A well-used Pokémon backpack peeked out from under one child’s legs. It looked empty, but I hoped there was a lunch in it. I wondered how many of these children ate breakfast and whether they’d have homework that night. Did they have pencil sharpeners in case their pencil tip broke? Paper to write on? Did they do their homework by candlelight? Some of the children were so much older than the others. I wondered how they felt being in a class with children much younger than they were.
“Un, deux, trois, quatre. “ The enthusiastic voices of first-grade students in another classroom distracted my thoughts. They were learning to count in French. Only 15 percent of Haitians speak French, yet the education system has always been conducted in French. Every child needs to become fluent in order to understand the lessons. Historically, this has been a way to separate the “elite” Haitians, who speak primarily French, from the poor majority, who speak Creole. Although Creole was being spoken more in schools since President Aristide’s first term, French was still the primary language of education. Most land titles were written in French. The justice system and all government business were conducted primarily in French. Having to learn another language in order to read and write, and the lack of free education and adult literacy programs, were reasons why Haiti’s illiteracy rate was so high—50 percent.
The voices of the students learning to count didn’t disturb the kids I was with. The math lesson continued. I looked to see if there was a door that could be shut but realized it was broken, allowing the sounds of learning to float freely from one space to the next.
As I walked out of the school, a little girl about 8 or 9 crossed the street in front of us. She was wearing torn pink sneakers and carried two large pails of water. She set down her load and looked up at the window, where she could hear the lesson being taught. Her face revealed how much she wished she could be learning, too, but carrying water was her job that day and probably every day. She picked up her buckets and continued down the dusty road.
La Maison des Enfants
Iwalked tentatively up to the blue gate and peeked in. I was nervous about volunteering at La Maison des Enfants, a home for orphans and children who were critically ill. But I had nothing planned for the morning and Manmi Dèt was happy to watch Luke. Like Son Fils, the facility was run by the Missionaries of Charity and was the last hope for families with sick children who couldn’t afford to pay a doctor. It was the only hope for the dozens of orphans who lived there.
I lifted the latch, went in, and was greeted by a nun wearing a light-blue sari and habit. Fr. Gerry had arranged my visit. My mentioning his name brought a big smile to her face as she escorted me into the two-story building.
“The sick children are in the room to the right. The others are through that door straight ahead. There’s a play yard in the back. Please go wherever you’d like.”
As I stood in the middle of the room debating where to go, six children burst through the door. They hugged my knees and pulled me over to a straw stool. Before I knew it, three of them were in my lap. They were so tiny and light, there was actually room for them. One played with my hair, fascinated with its golden color and straightness. Another rested his head on m
y shoulder. A little girl stroked my cheek, turning my head to face hers every time I looked away. They were maybe 4 or 5 years old. The others anxiously waited their turn. I sensed their fear that I would leave before they got their chance to be close, so I let them hold a finger and drew them into the huddle. A few minutes later, bowls of creamy rice were passed out. The children on my lap ran to their eating spots, waving as they left.
With six rooms filled with beds on the first floor and more on the second, I guessed that about seventy or eighty children lived there. Most of them were 10 or younger. About twenty babies and toddlers were in the front rooms, the area for sick children. I decided to stay with them. Looking into each of their cribs, I could see that many were close to death. Their bodies were emaciated, their breathing shallow, their eyes withdrawn. They didn’t have any interest in the plastic play boards strapped to their crib railing. Occasionally one would cry. But for the number of babies in the room, it was ominously quiet. I saw two IVs, but no other evidence of intensive care equipment. I glanced into the nun’s supply room and saw a handful of medicines on the shelf, and the books Tropical Medicine and Where There Is No Doctor.
I watched in awe as the nuns patiently changed tiny cloth diapers, wiped away tears, and spoon-fed breakfast. They were always busy with a task—not hurried or stressed, but continually moving. The work it took to meet the needs of all these children—how did they do it? I was emotionally exhausted after just one hour, and started glancing at the clock to count the minutes until Fr. Gerry would pick me up. I couldn’t fathom being there every day like the nuns.