I’ve spent my time since the last post back in
Port-au-Prince. Once again I’m staying
with the fine people here at Haiti Communitere.
I spent the first week working at Cazeau with Dyna and Johnny
Laine. Dyna is a teacher at the school
who runs an after school XO program on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In our 2 lessons together, Dyna and I taught
typing, and showed the kids how to do research using Internet-in-a-box (iiab). iiab
is a terabyte hard drive containing all of Wikipedia in multiple languages, and
other educational software. We explained
to the kids how to use the search feature and asked a few basic questions for
them to look up. The young group quickly
grasped the concept so we let them explore for the rest of class. One little girl stumbled upon the page for
feminism. I thought it a great photo op, but she had more important matters to
attend to. It’s amazing to see what sparks the kids’ curiosity. Giving them the ability to explore and learn
is a wonderful feeling.
Between my two days with Dyna, I helped Johnny Laine teach an
English class to the kids in the orphanage.
Johnny is a Haitian who works for Ken Bever at Hope for Haiti’s Children.
He teaches English to the kids twice a week.
We started off the class by walking through and learning words and their
pronunciation. Next I read the class a story, and sentence by sentence they
repeated after me. Although this was cute, I wasn’t really impressed until the
next step. I read the story in English again, but this time Johnny had the kids
translate it into Creole. The class
translated in unison and did so perfectly.
We read another story and then I asked each of them individual
questions. The English class was especially
easy to teach and was a nice break from my regular lesson plans. Below are a few students from the class.
That Thursday was also Thanksgiving. The holiday is not celebrated in Haiti for
obvious reasons, but I was staying with a bunch of Americans, so we had our own
party. The day before, people went out
and bought some live turkeys and let them roam the compound. Then Thursday people were here all day
cooking. There was turkey, stuffing,
mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes pie
for dessert. We all pitched in $10 and
that paid for some live entertainment too.
A talented musician from the city brought his guitar and played a few
songs for us while we ate. It wasn’t the same, but it was a nice taste of home.
That weekend I helped out around Communitere doing
chores. Michael is a middle aged
volunteer from the UK. He had been cleaning the storage closet out all week,
and recruited me to help him sort through some old electronics. We went through 3 or 4 boxes of gadgets left
behind, and found some really cool stuff.
The first thing that caught my eye was a Nintendo Entertainment System
(NES). We kept digging and found 3
laptops, dozens of walkie talkies, and more than enough wires. I hooked up the NES as soon as I had time and
tried to get it working. The conventional techniques weren’t working (blowing
the dust out of the cartridge), so I ended up disassembling it to better
diagnose the issue. The 72 bit connector
that the game plugs into was bent out of shape. I bended it back into place,
and after a few tries we got it working.
The next day I checked through the computers and was able to salvage a
laptop. I offered to pay the people at Communitere
for it, but they were just happy to clear up some space. I dropped the laptop off at Cazeau, and it
will be sent to one of our teachers at a later date.
I’ve spent this week bouncing around between Cazeau,
Croix-des-bouquets, and Silar’s orphanage.
At Silar’s I had to document all the information of the electrical
appliances he uses. The plan is to later
convert his electricity from 110 volts to 24 volts. At Cazeau I did some more work on the
internet, including installing a new Ethernet cable. The idea is to permanently
install an access point in the principal’s office so that the kids can connect
whenever. I spent my time in
Croix-des-bouquets with Jeanide and Junior.
They are two Haitians who I have worked with in the past. They have recently started their own English school
and are teaching once a week. I went
around with them and talked to some potential students about joining. We went and visited one school down the road
from where they hold class, and we talked to a few classes before and after
recess. During recess the older kids
played soccer in the yard. I joined in
and showcased by very limited skill. The
Haitian sun is unforgiving and after 20 minutes I tapped out with my team up
1-0. By the end of the recess we lost
6-2. My team needed me but I was spent.
We taught a class on Saturday and had a pretty good turnout. We went through some basics, “What is your
name?” “What do you like to do?” “How old are you?”. One girl told me she liked to sing. Junior asked her if she would sing for
us. She seemed very shy so I tried to
make her a deal. I told her I would sing
if she would. I held up my end of the
bargain, she did not. Nevertheless the
kids enjoyed my performance. We talked
for a little longer and the kids told me about their families and what else
they liked to do. It was a great group
of kids and their English will only continue to get better with the help of
Jeanide and Junior. Depending on when my
brother Paul lands, I may take him to visit the English class with me when he
arrives on December 13th.
The final place I’ll be working at is Bois d’avril up in the
mountains. I’ll be heading there
tomorrow and returning the 12th.
After that I will show Paul around Haiti. I definitely plan to pay a
visit to Mission of Hope in Grand Goave. I spent 3 weeks there and want to say
hello to some of my favorite students.
We will go all around Port-au-Prince, and maybe back up into the
mountains. It seems surreal that my work in Haiti is coming to an end. I know I’ve accomplished a lot, and I have
enjoyed every second, but the work is far from done. It’s hard to be informed and optimistic for
the future of Haiti. There are wonderful
people here, Haitians and foreigners alike.
I just hope that their good intentions produce good results.
Hang on,
Sean
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