Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Port-au-Prince: Round 3

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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