Mission Work in Haiti

(The Summer of 1986)




I used to travel a lot, 713,000-air miles as of today, and this writing. In 1986, I traveled to Haiti for a two week stay, to do some missionary work up in the mountains; so I really do not know how it is today, other than some of the turmoil in the newspaper I’ve read; and the updating I used get in letter form about every three months from certain folks I’ve met back then—stopped some years ago also, but let me tell you about the Haiti I knew back in 1986, it may come out better.
First of all the people were very warm, kind, but poor, for the most part—some very poor. I was in several locations, but Port-au-Prince, was my first stop where I stayed and slept on top of the roof of an orphanage and brushed the cockroaches off my back when I was trying to get to sleep (I did some puppet playing with the kids there); after two days there, we drove by truck to the mountains (not steep mountains like in Peru, but difficult to drive a truck up, and muddy), and settled at a Baptist Church, slept on the floor, like everyone else does up there, wooden flexible rugs—we did bring along some blowup rubber mattresses, so some of us got a better night sleep than others: the village was very small—called Rankeitte (forgive the spelling, that is how it sounded). It only had about a hundred folks there, and occasionally I went to Cap Haitian, a few miles down the mountain from where I was. I helped build a medical clinic for the poor folks there, the doctor said he wouldn’t treat them unless someone did, so nineteen of us—out of Minnesota (young, old, male and female), jumped on a jet, and flew into Haiti, and did just that.

The blacks are descendents of the African slaves imported into Hispaniola sometime in the 16th century. The Mulattoes I recall were descendents of these slaves. I took a six week course back then before I went to Haiti and here I only stayed in Haiti for two weeks, but I felt—as I often feel—it is wise to know the background and culture of a new place in the world, in which you are intending to visit; thus, you get less surprises, or at least you are somewhat prepared for them, when they do come, and they do come.
Anyhow, slaves intermarried with the French, so you get some lovely women there with mixed blood. I noticed a handful of white residents in the republic back then, not many, mostly concentrated in Port-au-Prince. French may be the official language, but Creole is the spoken one when I was there. Mixed with Creole is English, so listen closely: there is a saying in Haiti: the poor man doesn’t dream of a chicken; he dreams of an ox: Cbien derrie cbien; devant Cbien: Monsieur Cbien; accordingly, this leads me into my next talk. Like in Peru, the Haitian peasant has what you call, honorable stealing…and perhaps a little fighting mixed, but I’ve only seen a very limited part of that Haiti, I was of course careful, and I’m sure I was lucky. They are good-humored and to a certain degree philosophical, not sure why, they are poor as mice, but they smile all the time—nonetheless, they appear to have a good outlook on life.
Because they are poor, and because of this lack of income—especially in the mountainous areas—they get their neighbors to help them do big jobs, like: building a shelter, that is more like a shack or something on that order, and in return, they help them later in the construction area. And normally a feast is done soon after the construction is complete, that is to say, similar to the Peruvians—
When we built the clinic we did pay the help—some of the help that is, and we did have a gathering in the mist of a fire, and some eating, with the midnight moonlight overhead, and we danced and celebrated for putting that last brick into place.

In the day you see them, [them being: the Haitians, the common folk] preaching Christianity, and at night you hear the voodoo drums. That is what I call red beans with sweet potatoes. Well, I could write on and on about Haiti, and its lovely people, and this is really my second article on Haiti, I did one back in 2005. Haiti never gets old for me, I am still fond of that country, and I do hope they will find peace among themselves.

Written 1-3-2010