Seguimos Luchando

Sadly, I have very little good to write about it. That’s not true—I’m continuing to love my work here and the kids, there have been great moments seeing them understand a concept or write a word, but since I last wrote too many horrible things have happened, and I feel compelled to share them with you.

I’ve been through phases here about how I perceive the poverty in the batey. My first realization was that there is a range of poverty in the batey---from people who eat a paste of flour and water to people who have DVD players (although I only know of two). Some visitors have commented that the situation in the batey didn’t seem as bad as they had imagined. But my second realization was that even if most of the people have food and shelter, poverty is about more than resources available and subsistence—it’s also about a lack of choice. No documents, no work (that’s not slave labor), no education, no way to break the cycle. Even if a family can afford to feed its children, that doesn’t give their children a chance at a better life. So my third observation is that poverty is more about resources and choices; it’s also about culture. Here in the batey there is a culture of violence—against children, against women, and against each other. These are all pretty basic concepts, but since coming back from Christmas I have witnessed these three elements of poverty at play so clearly.

RESOURCES

A little over a week ago, they told us once we got to school that a little boy (around 4)had died—from mysterious causes. I saw his brother Alejandro (8), who I’m buddies with, and he seemed to be behaving normally. So I started dancing with him, since I thought he might want someone to take his mind off of it. Then suddenly he said to me, “I can’t dance, profe.” When I asked him why, he told me, “My brother died.”

I asked him if he knew where his brother was, planning on telling him that he went to Heaven. Alejandro said, “Yes. He’s in the house.” When I explained that, “No, he’s an angel in Heaven watching you,” he said, “No, profe, he’s in the house!”

So I went to the house. The little boy was laying on the floor, naked, and they were cleaning him and dressing him. Propped up against the door was a tiny coffin made of little wooden planks stapled together. I just stood with Alejandro and stared in disbelief.

Everyone said that the doctors didn’t know what he had, and that his grandfather had died three months ago. Allusions to voudou and something fishy going on were preeminent. But I quickly found out that his mother brought him to the dispensary two days before his death because he was swollen, with sores all over his body. The doctor told us that he had wet malnutrition—caused by a lack of protein—which manifests itself in a swollen belly, swollen body, and can also come out in the form of body sores.

The only thing more upsetting than this was that four days later, another little boy (about 2-3 years old) also died of malnutrition. In this particular case, the community seemed to know about it---neighbors were saying “We knew this would happen, that kid never ate,” etc., etc. It’s so scary that 1) children are dying from something so preventable, and 2) that in this case community members noticed and didn’t take any action.

Our clinic does run a nutrition program that has had several success stories, but there are children like these that we hadn’t even known about. It’s definitely made us hyper-aware of the situation and we are working to create more awareness, get more children involved in our nutrition program, and educate the kids who come to our school about what a good diet should consist of.

Another death is imminent in Batey Lecheria—the father of many of our children, Ernesto. He stopped taking his AIDS medicine a while ago and is now waiting at home to die. His daughter, Angi (9), took me to visit him. It was dark when I went in the room, so I couldn’t see well, but I couldn’t make him out in the bed until I saw his head. His body didn’t even make a bump under the sheets, and he seemed to be unconscious. His children play outside the house, while their father dies inside the house.

CHOICE

TO FEED YOUR CHILDREN:
Last week, my friend Melania told me that her baby (about 11/2 years old) recently passed out from hunger. Sometimes she just doesn’t have enough money to feed her kids properly. She recently got a job cleaning a house, which will help, but I calculated her earnings and they’re pitiful: she works 12 hours a week and earns an equivalent of $67 per month—meaning she makes about $1.40/hr. So a pregnant woman and her three children are living off of a little more than $2/day. She has a good head on her shoulders—although severely emotionally and mentally troubled. She wants to make good decisions, but her lack of documents and family situation (single mom, three kids, another on the way) does not give her the luxury.

TO WORK
.
Recently two mothers of our kids moved to Argentina, which I was excited about until it was insinuated to me that they were part of a prostitution ring. I’ve recently become more aware of different mothers of her children involved in prostitution. I do not know much about how there work is arranged, but it seems as though some do not see any other option to find work and feed their families, while others see it as the best choice; the choice with the highest gain. On weekend beach trips we’ve taken we’ve seen COUNTLESS prostitutes (ALL Haitian women) with older European men.

CULTURE

OF VIOLENCE

Our school has a covered patio for an outdoor space. Coconut trees surround the school, so many times they fall directly on roof and it sounds as though a shot went off. This sound normally gets me every time but I always know what it is. Two weeks ago, while some kids were working inside and others were eating snack, we heard that noise, and it didn’t phase me. Then suddenly children were rushing inside saying that it was a shot. The crazy thing was that the kids weren’t even scared, just kind of excited. After a couple of minutes we were informed that it was over and the kids went back outside and continued as usual. This isn’t common (well, for my experience, anyways—clearly the kids were accustomed to the sound). Later we found out was someone shooting at a thief running away. The alleged thief ran into the school/clinic “garage” to try to get away from the man. Thankfully, the door was locked that goes from the garage directly into the school. The week before I had to throw out (I realize this sounds horrible outside of our situation—I had to “invite her to leave”) a badly behaving student, and within five minutes she had gotten back in. This is because often our handy man leaves the door from the garage to the school open. We asked him to be more careful and because of that the door—that the thief apparently was hoping to get through to get away from the armed man—was closed. If it hadn’t been closed he could have come right into our school. Thank God!

OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Today we got the worst news of all. One of our girls, Yolanda (12), has been repeatedly raped by a father of two of our children (Carla, 8, y Carlos, 10) for the past few months. She cleans his house regularly and apparently a lot of the community knew about this, but only last night a child saw it happening and told Yolanda’s mother, who wasn’t aware before. Yolanda has been vomiting and having dizzy spells and we are worried that she is pregnant. She is so nervous—she has almost chewed her nails off. I pray that this isn’t the case. Either way, this girl’s life has changed forever. Although I haven’t worked with her in a while, I got to know her pretty well in the beginning of the year. She looks much older than she is, so unfortunately she and other girls in her similar situation are prime targets for sexual abuse and assault. But she’s still such a little girl. When I picture her, I see her zipping through the Montessori materials—she’s a quick study. And then today I saw her, twelve years-old, torn apart, and possibly a mother-to-be. Some of the men in the community were overheard talking about how it’s not rape because it’s been going on for a while, and how she’s even talked to them in a flirtatious way. On the other hand, her step-father and other men in the community say that they are waiting for her rapist to come out (he’s been holed up in his house all day) to kill him.

HOPE

I see this community as a thriving one in many ways—families care for unwanted children, teenagers care for their younger brothers and sisters, women are seeking us out to learn to read and write so they can help their kids, and we have kids who learn to read every day. But in the last couple of weeks we’ve seen so much of the dark side of the batey. Mientras tanto, seguimos luchando. Please continue to pray for this community.