Preparing
for my sixth visit to Haiti (and first since the earthquake), I’ve been in a reflective
mood. Here is a chapter form my book, Embracing the Gray
that explains my attachment to this struggling nation over the years:
After passing by the
hazed eastern tip of Cuba, our American Airlines flight banked steeply to the
right and within minutes we were passing over the northern peninsula of Haiti,
so recognizable due to the heavily rutted landscape. The French had not been kind when they
ravaged the once lush western half of Hispaniola of all the mahogany trees and
shipped the lumber back to Paris to make fine furniture. Over 200 years later, the nation is still 90%
barren, and what little good topsoil remains is being eroded into the
Caribbean. We circled over the Canal du Sud strait approaching Port au Prince,
a teeming city I had not been to in nineteen years. As we touched down on the single runway
“international” airport, memories began to take focus.
I had been to this
second-poorest country in the world three times in the 80s. In fact, my very first trip to a developing
nation had been here in early 1984 when I was managing Petra. We had begun a
relationship with Compassion a year earlier, and had seen thousands of needy
kids find sponsors with their enthusiastic concert audiences and via album
inserts. It was so humbling for us to meet some of the children we had been
sponsoring, and to see the life-changing results that child development in a
Christian environment could bring about.
A wiry American with
a unique accent was our guide on that trip.
He had been living in Haiti for six years, assisting with various
ministries, and eventually signing-on full-time with Compassion. His deep, expressive voice had been
influenced over his lifetime of being raised as a missionary’s son in West
Africa, then attending various universities in America earning multiple
degrees, as well as serving as a linguist in the Army on the Eastern Front of
Europe. Along the way he had mastered seven different languages, and we heard
him speak fluently and persuasively in the unique language of Haiti known as
Creole. Thus began a twenty-eight year
friendship with the man who is now my boss. Wess Stafford has since gone on to
become the president of Compassion International, overseeing an organization
that has grown to twenty times the size it was then, now giving manifold
assistance to over 1.3 million children in twenty-six countries.
I’ll never forget as
we were sitting in some sort of traffic back up—a very common Haitian
occurrence—along the N1 Highway near the coastal town of Arcahaie. I snapped one of my all-time favorite photos:
a little boy of about three with a distended belly from malnutrition, wearing a
ragged striped t-shirt and nothing else, proudly hoisting his torn little
hand-made kite on a ten foot string made up of whatever scraps of twine and
wire he had found. The breeze was
keeping it only about five feet aloft, but he was as gleeful as any child I had
ever seen.
Wess was seated next
to me in our van, and noticed my fascination with the tiny urchin. “Ah, yes…another little Ti Chape,” he
observed.
“What is a Ti
Chape?” I asked.
“It’s a Creole
phrase that many parents in these poorest areas of Haiti use with their
youngest kids,” Wess explained. “I’m
sure you’ll hear it often over the next several days as we visit homes. It’s a term of endearment…but it’s also one
of a harsh reality that reminds everyone every time it is uttered of how
devastating each day can be for people living on the brink. Ti Chape means ‘little survivor’ or ‘one who
has escaped death’.”
By this time,
several others from the band were leaning in close to hear what Wess was
explaining.
As a very
tenderhearted man, Wess could not conceal his passion for these people, and
tears began to well in his eyes, and with a catch in his throat he continued:
“Sadly, for the majority of the poor here in Haiti, the infant mortality rate
is as high as fifty percent for children under the age of five. So, often times parents won’t refer to their
littlest ones by their birth name until they celebrate their fifth birthday,
because they know all too well that many of them won’t make it that far. While they are still in this most vulnerable
toddler stage, they are affectionately called “Ti Chape.” I guess it is overly painful to consistently
call them by their real name for fear of assigning too much hope to their
prospects. This same phenomena happens,
by different names of course, in other desperately poor cultures around the
globe.”
I watched intently
for a few more minutes at that toddler joyfully trying to keep his tattered toy
buoyant on the air. Then we lurched forward in the traffic flow. For the rest of our stay I pondered what his
chances were really going to be within the next few months.
Later that day, I
saw my first human corpse abandoned in one of the filthy alleyways of an
intense slum on the bay known as City du la Sole. It wasn’t the only one I
would ever see in Haiti. Even now,
whenever I look at that tyke’s photo in my collection, it gives me great pause,
and it was all coming back to me nearly twenty-five years later as we drove
through the packed streets of Port au Prince.
On our final day of
this just-completed trip, we drove out the N2 highway along the southern Massif
de la Hotte peninsula, weaving past colorfully painted tap-taps (old pick ups
converted into buses often over-loaded down with upwards of twenty people),
soot-spewing diesel trucks, and UN troop patrol vehicles that help keep the
peace in this politically unstable environment.
As we pass tiny
farms, my mind drifts back to meeting Horele Georges. He was the third son of a
meager dirt farmer near the town of Miragoane.
Hector Georges supported his family of seven on a rocky plot about one-half
of an acre in size. He toiled with one
emaciated cow nearly every daylight hour trying to squeeze each ounce of
productivity out of that parched earth as was humanly possible.
When Horele was
registered into the program at age five, he began learning new agricultural
techniques that showed how yield could be increased dramatically with the help
of better seeds, certain fertilizers, irrigation techniques, and so on.
A year passed as he
observed through a couple of growth seasons how the corn at the project was
markedly bigger than what was growing on all the area farms. Horele started asking Hector if they could
try these processes on their crops. At
first his father just ignored him, but Horele persisted. Eventually Hector said, “Son, I’ve worked
this land in this way my entire life. My
father before me did the same, and your grandfather and great grandfather
before them. There’s nothing that can be
done that we haven’t tried.”
But Horele knew that
some of these ideas had not been put into practice…or at least he wasn’t aware
that they had been while he helped his father every day before and after
school. So, he continued trying to
explain to his poppa what he had been taught.
As it was just the beginning of a new planting season, Hector finally
relented, and said, “Alright, Horele.
I’ll let you have one row of this section where you can try your silly
tricks. I’ll be surprised if whatever it
is you try even survives the first heat wave.”
Taking what he had
learned at the Compassion project, the little boy eagerly set his attention on
that modest row of newly planted seeds.
Each morning he tilled and watered.
Each afternoon he blended in the fertilizing techniques he was being
taught, pulled weeds, and watered more.
Eight weeks passed,
and lo and behold, Horele’s row was two feet taller than the rest of the
plot. His daddy had certainly noticed,
but kept waiting for the stalks to wither.
When it was apparent that indeed his little son’s crop was going to be
substantially better than his, he sheepishly said “So, son, ummm…what is it
exactly that they are teaching you to do?”
By the time the next
growing season was finished, Hector Georges’ little farm was producing forty
percent higher yield than it ever had.
I look back fondly
on Horele, because he was a boy I sponsored for twelve years. And I finally met
him less than four months before he was to graduate from high school, near the top
of his class. His dad became so good at the farming techniques his little son
had taught him that he became a regular volunteer assistant with each new class
at the Compassion project. Skepticism
and even fatalism had been superseded by the youthful zeal of his child. Hector
eventually ended up on staff at the project.
Horele in his
mid-thirties now, with a family of his own.
He’s a leader in his church and in his community. And on the same tiny
scrap of land he’s still raising some of the best corn on that side of the
island.
It would be easy to
assess that not much has changed for the better in Haiti since that visit in
1990. There were still massive piles of
stinking refuse at nearly every street corner.
Sewers were packed and overflowing with debris. The charcoal based energy and cooking
lifestyle was still evident with a thick haze that covered most urban areas.
And tens of thousands of people packed every sidewalk and spilled out into the
bumpy streets…just barely avoiding dismemberment from crazed motorists.
We were headed out
to see one of Compassion’s projects that had been in existence for twenty-three
years, but had just a few years before added a new program that is helping
revolutionize our work.
When we arrived in
the rural town of Papette, where the Wesleyan Church had become a real
community center over the past two decades, and it was obvious that the one
thousand residents had a deep respect for all that the Compassion project had
helped them with over the years.
My little group of
radio professionals and I were ushered into the sanctuary where ninety-three mothers
and their infants had been patiently waiting.
It was amazing how quiet and disciplined the 120 or so little ones
were—we commented amongst ourselves that the same scene in America would’ve
been utter pandemonium. There was a look of gentle appreciation on the face of
each young woman when we made eye contact.
A handful of the
moms came forward to give testimony to what had revolutionized their
lives. You see, over Compassion’s fifty-six
years of existence, we’ve always been laser-beam focused on child development
for kindergarten age kids through high school.
But in the past five years, we have launched a new initiative called the
Child Survival Program (CSP), which supports mothers and children all the way
from their pregnancy, on into infancy, and through the toddler years.
One of the young
mothers, Irmice, had her little eighteen-month-old boy draped on her shoulder,
fast asleep, as she shared with the crowd.
“I serve a living, loving God,” she confidently declared. “If not for Him or Compassion, I, and
certainly not my baby, would be alive today.”
She went on to explain the loving care and instruction she had received
from the CSP staff, nurses, and social workers who showed her how to improve
pre-natal health via exercise, nutrition, and supplements. Then after her son was born, the encouraging
practical lessons like proper breast-feeding, preventive vaccines, immunizations,
and other medicines have continued.
On a subsequent tour
through the CSP wing of the project we saw cribs, tiny chairs, baby swings,
scooters, tricycles, a huge supply of learning toys and instruments, exercise
mats, building blocks, and everything else you would see in a well-run
education based nursery. They even had
weekly classes for social interaction/training and early literacy. For these
moms, who come from households where the average monthly income is perhaps $40
at best, this is a sanctuary for their babies in the truest sense of the word.
The CSP Director, Rose, explained how the tots were regularly weighed,
measured, and examined to make sure they were within healthy parameters. There
was a full pharmaceutical closet with everything a young mother could need for
their child. Extensive files were kept on each mom and baby that was regularly
updated with the weekly visits at their homes as well as at the project. We were thoroughly impressed. And the results
were obvious in the shiny eyes, gleeful giggles, and yes, even the healthy
full-throat wails of some little nippers.
We saw the wall
charts that were proudly displayed showing the progress of each and every
infant that had come through the program…and not a single one had died. In fact, once the three-year-olds “graduate”
from CSP, they then become eligible for Compassion’s regular child sponsorship
that runs from pre-K all the way through their late teens. And all of them from
four to five years ago were now enrolled there.
“What an ongoing
blessing we have seen as Compassion has been involved here for over a
generation,” said Rev. Thebaud, the aging pastor who had formed the church
three decades ago. “So many more precious little ones have been saved
physically and spiritually since we began partnering with you. I am retiring
soon, and will probably be going to be with the Lord very soon as well…however
I can rest easy knowing that things have changed so much for the better from
when we started back in 1985.”
Outside the project,
we saw some much healthier looking kindergartners sailing their tattered
kites. But they were in their school
uniforms, with good shoes on their feet.
I always like asking these little Haitian dynamos their names. It swells my heart every time to hear them
proudly blurt out their moniker: “Pierre!”
“Camille!” “Sebastien!” “Monique!” “Alain!” “Simone!” “Yves!”
I close my eyes and see a skinny tyke waving some big ears of corn
yelling out “Horele!”
And when I asked
these mothers on this day to introduce their littlest ones, there wasn’t a
single “Ti Chape” answer in the bunch.
# # #
If you would be
interested in reading Embracing the
Gray: A Wing, A Prayer, and A Doubter’s Resolve, you can get it via Kindle for just 99 cents via Amazon.com here:
Or you can get it as a
FREE PDF download at my website here (donations accepted):
It is also available
at most bookstores and internet sites in book form as well.
