Family Week!

Every week is busy here at Be Like Brit, and this past one was no different!  Len and Cherylann arrived last week on Monday to visit with the children and tend to some business, and our Be Like Brit family grew by three boys!

Len and Cherylann greet the children as they come home from school!

Brothers! (L-R) Kerby, Davidson, and Fredo

One of the week's biggest events (and one of my favorite days!) was last Sunday after church when Rosenie and I took 14 of Brit's children out with us and visited the communities they were living in prior to coming to Be Like Brit.  Part of our programming includes regular family involvement (keeping in mind that family may mean a variety of things in this context!) and while the policy itself is ever-evolving and being tweaked to accommodate for each individual child's need or desire, I believe it's very important to keep the children connected to their roots.

I sometimes refer to Be Like Brit as a "bubble of privilege", and the last thing I want is for our children to become so insulated inside that bubble that they lose their sense of identity and all familiarity with what the real world is like for most people in Haiti.  That's how we bring up a generation of future leaders who value things like reciprocity - by keeping them connected.

At any rate, the children were more than excited to go and put on some of their best clothes as we piled in the pickup truck and set out for the afternoon.  And yes, driving a pickup truck filled with children in Haiti does make me nervous!

Let's go, already! 

I really had no idea what to expect as we set off for the first stop.  I had spent a lot of time discussing the visits with the children involved, being sure they wanted to go, talking about how they felt about going, etc., etc., but still, those things you plan for the most often are the things that you have to have a "wait and see" attitude.  I wanted our children to be excited about seeing aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors, old friends, and even a few moms - but I was nervous about the emotional toll it might take on them.  I mostly feared that some of our children would express a desire to stay - to not want to come back to Be Like Brit.  How would I handle that?

One of the homes from where some of our children came from

I was so relieved to be witness to the excitement and the anticipation each child felt for the others as we neared the next "house".  They couldn't wait to introduce their new brothers and sisters to their extended families or to the people with whom they were living; to show their new brothers and sisters their old home, to see old friends.  They were genuinely happy, excited, and spoke proudly of going to school and what life is like for them now at Be Like Brit.

Steeve was happy to see his Grandmother!

Something that I don't think I'll ever be able to fully "get" or understand is how familial relationships seem or appear to work in Haiti.  At face value, even when bringing children in to the Orphanage, there seems to be this stoic, emotionless, very matter-of-fact exchange of "child for birth certificate" sort of arrangement.  I always ask the adults bringing us children if they would like to walk around and see where their child will be living, meet their caregivers, etc., and almost always get an awkward no.  When I ask adults about visiting the child they will be bringing us, they almost always say something along the lines of, "yes, sure, when would you like me to visit."  There's not often tears, there's never a screaming child holding tight to the arm of the adult who has provided him or her with care for the last 'X' number of years.  At least not on the surface.  I remember crying so hard the first day of school every year until I was about 9.  I have yet to see that happen here - that separation doesn't seem to bring any sadness.

Walking to another house!

And that's how these visits seemed, at least for the most part. Children and adults were not overly emotional about seeing each other. They didn't run up to one another and embrace.  There were no tight, long hugs and tears of joy like we see in the States every day at something as simple as an arrival gate at the airport.  And I can't quite yet figure that out.  It wears on my mind constantly.  Is it that simple?  Is the presence of a child in your home so much of a burden because it's another mouth to feed that the absence of that child provides so much relief that the dominant emotion is not sadness?  Or is it a facade?

Socrate, waving?

I can't help but believe there's more going on beneath the surface, though I realize that's my own Western framed mind telling me this.  The whole idea of trauma is something scholars contest as a social construct of Western thought and not so much a reality for those who are supposedly suffering from it.  I don't know who is right and who is wrong, and quite frankly, I don't care.  I'll continue to be mindful of all of this while keeping the best interest of our children as the number one priority.  Smiles don't usually lie.  Our children seemed overwhelmingly happy to reunite briefly with friends and family, share a quick hug, and head back home to Be Like Brit.  As I spoke with each child afterwards about how they felt about their day, it was clear that all was well with their world.  At least for the moment.

Thanks for reading - and enjoy a few more photos from that day!

Jonathan

Old friends in the neighborhood!

Love na's neighbor is happy to see her!

Waving to Be Like Brit from another hill!

Ephesiens recognizes his old neighbor!

Many of these homes have yet to be rebuilt, 3 years later.

We Are Family

One of my favorite things about working at Be Like Brit is the fact that no two days are ever the same.  This week, we were visited by a group of three from Monahan Brothers Inc. Roofing in Plattsburgh, NY who also happen to be family.  While by day they worked hard on installing the thick, white, elastomeric covering on the massive roof at BLB, and I worked on my tasks, by night it felt just like home; friends and family gathered ‘round the table for a good meal, lots of laughs, and sharing of new moments that none of us will soon forget.

Brian Monahan and Adam Donohue of Monahan Brothers, Inc., Plattsburgh, NY 

The arrival of Brian and Lanai Monahan (my cousins; father and daughter to each other) and one of their good friends and employees Adam donated their time and money to come to Be Like Brit to finish the roof off with an industrial strength product to keep the building and the children as dry as possible during Haiti’s heavy rains season.  In record time, the crew, along with some help from our regular crew was able to install the product on the 11,000 square feet of roof!  The “B” for Brit now glows even more brightly with a nice white finish! 

After a long day of work, we set out to tour the community to hand out donations that our group brought with them for some local families.  The response is always the same, dozens of children – if not more – run out from their homes, be they tents, tarps, tin huts – whatever, and chase after yelling “You! You!”  Excited and eager, their bright faces and smiles take just a tiny bit away from the reality of their circumstance.  For a fleeting moment you can forget about the fact that they are living in squalor, sleeping on a floor in filth, hungry, dirty, sick, and sometimes even naked.  Indeed, it is all one needs to do to get a bit of perspective on things. 

Lanai Monahan of Plattsburgh, NY hands out donated items to children in the Icondo area of Grand Goâve, Haiti

One place in particular we happened upon was especially tough.  After climbing a small hill and making our way up the worn dirt path etched into the hillside, we found a small boy on the ground, naked, writhing in pain, legs buckled up underneath him, grinding his teeth so loudly I thought he was struggling to breathe.  As we discovered this boy and realized he was alone, we left the house to get our friend Srihari, an emergency medicine doctor volunteering at Be Like Brit for 3 months to see what, if anything, we could do to help.

With our interpreter, we learned that this child is mentally retarded, deaf, and mute.  It also appears that he’s suffered from Polio at some point in his life, and we are told he has never walked in his ten years.  Ten years on this earth in utter isolation.  He is alone, outside, on the ground.  He is severely malnourished as he is not regularly fed.  We’re told this is because when the boy seizes, it is believed he is possessed, and nobody will approach him.  With nothing to do, we left, knowing that while the boy may not be dying, in all likelihood the remainder of his life on this earth will be spent in the way that we found him.

Choking back the tears and ultimately losing it altogether, I announced my desire to go back to Be Like Brit.  I had seen enough.  There has only been one other time in my life where what I saw before me moved me to tears and nausea in the same instance.   That was when I toured one of Rwanda’s Genocide Memorial Museums.  I thought of the thousands of human skulls and bones in that museum on display as a reminder of the atrocities that human beings are capable of.  Yet even in this visceral moment, I was reminded of the great capacity for love and compassion and good in the world.

So, like family does, we circled the wagons.  We joined the ladies in our kitchen here at Be Like Brit and worked together to clean up after the massive meal we are so fortunate to have.  We tried to teach some of our Haitian staff the words to some crazy American songs; we did some embarrassing dance moves and made fools of ourselves.  We escaped from what we had just witnessed. 

Brian and Lanai with our kitchen staff here at Be Like Brit!

Haiti is a dichotomy.  It is a beautiful country – quite possibly the most magnificent green mountains I have ever seen, towering over the crystal blue waters of the Caribbean Sea.  The Haitian people are genuine and sincere; they are humble.  At the same time, this same natural wonder is full of the most severe poverty the Western Hemisphere knows.  Sometimes that can be found in our very own backyard, behind the secure walls of yellow and white – indeed, laying on the ground, naked, hungry, alone.

As I think about the boy I saw lying on the ground, I realize my tears were born out of frustration.  Call me a hippie, call me a liberal – call me what you will.  There is no reason for anyone in the world to live that existence.  Brit saw that.  Be Like Brit is the result.

What will you do?

Thanks for reading,

Jonathan

See a few more pics from the week below!

Roof from behind the wall