I arrived in Grand Goave Sunday October 4th at
around 5pm via bus. The driver dropped
me off at the main intersection just over the bridge that separates the
farmland from the town. I unloaded my
stuff and hopped onto a motorcycle to take me to the school. Now I’m not a big fan of motorcycles, but if
you want to get somewhere and you don’t want to wait, they are the way to
go. After some arguably illegal maneuvers
by my driver, we arrived at the school/church grounds of Mission of Hope
(MOH).
MOH is an organization run by Pastor Lexidon Edme, and his
wife Renee. They’ve been working in
Haiti for a long time and have some amazing support from both inside and
outside of the country. The school teaches
several hundred kids ranging from toddlers to young adults, some older than
myself. Majority of the funding comes
from sister parishes back in the states, and there is no lack of support. The school has 25 XO laptops, 40 Kindle
tablets, and is currently constructing a computer lab and a dance studio. It’s definitely a drastic change from the
schools I worked at in Port-au-Prince.
Upon my arrival I was greeted by Renee who was the person
coordinating my accommodations for the week.
We said our pleasantries and then she introduced me to her husband
pastor Lex. Lex is a formidable figure in
his community and he receives tons of respect.
It’s hard to go anywhere with him and not get stopped every five seconds
by people wishing to say hello or ask questions. Lex gave me a brief tour and along the way we
bumped into another Blan (Haitian word for white person). His name is Laramie and he was accompanied by
his twin daughters of about 10 years.
Laramie and his family are traveling missionaries who recently moved to
Haiti. He and his wife Amy have 4 kids
ages 10-15. They are currently working
at the orphanage up the road and wanted to check out the school that some of
their kids attend.
The tour was over and it was time for “Sunday night worship”. Laramie overenthusiastically invited me to
sit with him and I obliged. Now I’m not
religious, but at the same time I’m not anti-religion. I was raised catholic and have no problem
attending mass. But Haitian mass is not
quite like American catholic mass. Scriptures
are read, Eucharist is shared, and praise is given, but with a different sense
of urgency. Pastor Lex stepped up to the
mic and delivered a sermon that conjured up more excitement than I ever
remember from Father Mike back at St. William. Arms were raised towards the
sky, hands were clapping, and hips were swaying as the spirit of his words fell
over the room. It was slightly
uncomfortable being the only one not overwhelmed by the holy spirit, but
nevertheless it was a sight I’m glad I saw.
Mass came to an end and as a group we headed back to the
house where I’d be staying. After a 15
minute ride down a street that reminded me much of Green Lake Road, we
arrived. The gate rolled open and we
pulled in. I stepped out and took in the
incredible view. Grand Goave is an ocean
town, and MOH is arguably the best place to take in the beauty of it all. Mountains to the west, mountains to the east,
and an island sits on the horizon to the north.
I dipped my feet in the water, grabbed some dinner, and then went back
to my room to prepare for the week I had ahead of me.
Grand Goave has been a much more regimented schedule. Wake up at 6:30, get ready, eat breakfast,
make lunch, and then go to school. From
10-11:30 I’ve been teaching a group of high school kids. Then I wrap that class
up, charge the laptops, and teach a younger group from 1-2:30. The translator the schools provided me with
has been far from reliable so it’s been hard to teach drawn out lessons. So far out of the 10 classes I’ve taught he
showed up to 1. In that one class period
I did an activity where as a class we took some measurements with a homemade apparatus
and estimated the size of the sun. The math was troubling for some, but we
managed to work through it and by the end everyone had their own estimate. http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/AtHomeAstronomy/activity_03.html
. The younger kids have been a much bigger challenge. A lot of the kids just see the laptops as
gaming devices. Although they do have
some educational games programmed on, they are much more than that. With only 25 laptops it’s been a struggle
every day to have one laptop per child, and to maintain order. I fear that the lack of a translator has really
been limiting the potential of my teaching abilities. Lex has other things to worry about and doesn’t
seem to take interest, his wife Renee is the more approachable of the two and I
plan on working with her this weekend to come up with a better solution.
Despite the challenges I’ve managed to form some great
relationships with the students and the staff members. Nurse Leah was a huge help getting me acquainted
with everything, and she was kind enough to let me use her Natcom 3G internet
stick to upload my last blog post. Rennot
is another person who has been a huge help.
He’s the go to guy for whatever needs to be done. Need a whiteboard? Ask Rennot. Need to turn
on the electricity? Ask Rennot. Need to buy your own 3G stick so you don’t have
to continue to work in the clinic in order to get Leah to let you borrow hers?
Ask Rennot. His help has been huge, and
even though we can’t always work out what the other person is saying, I am
always happy to see him.
Some of the kids have definitely been a big inspiration too. With the class of younger kids most of them
just want to play math games and take pictures.
But one kid in particular is too fascinated by the world around him to
be caught up in that sort of mindless entertainment. Dionson (pronounced Jenson) is a 13 year old
boy whose bright mind and thirst for knowledge has truly amazed me. All class he sits and reads the French Wikipedia
pages. He’s on a new topic every day and
never stops asking questions. Together we’ve
explored sounds, light, the stars, the planets, force, and a few other aspects
of the natural world. After the second day
of class he begged me to let him keep the laptop out a little longer. I of course said yes and he went with me to
the room where I charge the laptops. A
few minutes later one of his friends appeared and asked if he could use a
laptop. I told him he could only use one
if he used it to read. He agreed to my
terms and booted up his own machine.
After about 30 minutes I had a group of 5 all laying on the carpet
eagerly exploring Wikipedia. Dionson is
a brilliant young mind and I hope the other kids continue to follow in his
footsteps.
Aside from teaching I’ve spent my time at the beach
house. Every day a group of kids will
come by looking to play a game of soccer, swim, or partake in a new fan
favorite which I showed them, throwing around the Frisbee. Most the kids are pretty talented with a
soccer ball, but they still have a long way to go with a disc. I will surely be leaving some of the Frisbees
that I brought with me behind for the kids to enjoy.
Overall Grand Goave has been a bit of a challenge. It’s not easy to find helpful people, and it
makes me appreciate the help I had in Port-au-Prince a lot more. I will work things out with Renee this
weekend and next week I have a bunch of lessons that I’m really excited about. I’ll be exploring the concepts of gravity,
pi, and I may even have another rocket lesson.
Should make for an eventful week
Hang on,
Sean
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