Written by: Amber Van Schooneveld
The first thing you notice when you wake up in Port-au-Prince is the smoke. Your eyes sting, and it feels as though you’ve had a smoky cloth held over your mouth all night from the Haitians’ cooking fires. I half expect to wake up next to a campfire in my tent, not in a major city.
The streets of Port-au-Prince are a zigzagging labyrinth that all look the same to me, and I can’t understand how everyone isn’t permanently lost. The streets are steep like San Francisco, and so potholed that you practically have to have a truck or SUV to buck up and down and over the broken cobblestones.
Women in tank tops carry baskets of fruit on their heads, while others squat roadside frying plantains for passers-by.
Tap taps, the main transportation through the city, spill over with thin men in suits on their way to work. The tap taps are a chaos of color, pickup trucks painted in fuchsia and purple and green with pictures of famous singers and Jesus on them.
As our truck sits in traffic, a woman with blank eyes taps on the window with her hand held out.
We arrive in front of the white-barred gate of a Compassion-assisted child development center, that opens up to a wide courtyard filled with children playing basketball and running about.
The children spot my camera right away and timidly tap me on the shoulder, hoping to have their picture taken so they can see their faces on the screen. They smile and giggle until I raise the camera, when they suddenly stand up straight and compose themselves seriously for their photo shoot.
The courtyard is ringed by classes, and we smell cookies baking in the cooking class filled with teenage girls. They give us a plate to take home with us.
We poke our heads in various classes where some are learning sewing, some painting, and some are studying the Bible.
In the class of 3- to 5-year-olds, we greet the class, “Como ca va?” And 30 little voices shout back in unison: “Ca va bien, merci! Et vous?!”
I speak to the teacher of the painting class, who learned to paint in that very project. Now he makes occasional money selling his paintings on the street. He is meek and quiet and asks that I’ll pray he can afford Bible school so he can become a pastor.
I talk to the project accountant, a tall, well-spoken man who asks for the prayer of the sponsors as he and the other project workers serve the children.
After disrupting several classes and giving an impromptu geography lesson, we leave with our plate of cookies. We bump back up and down the Port-au-Prince streets, and I’m frankly relieved to pull safely up to our clean hotel away from the noise and smells of the streets.
We have dinner at the hotel, looking down over the pool and tennis courts, surrounded by lush green overgrowth. I ask my Haitian friend if he likes it here, in Port-au-Prince, where he has grown up. He shakes his head no. Although it is home, he would rather be elsewhere, like the millions of the Haitian diaspora.
And yet, he stays. I’ve grown to admire these people who believe in and love their country, even when it would seem so tempting to desert in a situation so hard. Yet each day, they get up and choose to try to be a part of changing their country by serving the children and giving them hope for a different future.
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January 12th, 2009 at 7:45 am
Thanks so much for sharing, Amber. You write so that it feels like I’m there, seeing it with you.
So good to know the staff at this center care so much about the kids, and providing hope of a better life.
I wonder if the art teacher has applied for LDP?
Thanks again for this post. It touched my heart today.
January 12th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Thanks for this great description. It takes me back to my visit to Haiti a few years ago. I certainly hope to return some day to see two boys I’ve sponsored there.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Thank you so much for sharing this! I sponsor five children in Haiti, and have not yet had the chance to experience Haiti due to cancellation of Compassion sponsor trips to Haiti in the last year. This is a great glimpse into Compassion’s work in Haiti, and I will share it with my blog readers!
January 12th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Thanks, Amber, for the beautiful photos and the beautiful description! You blessed my heart today!
January 12th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Amber,
Thank you for such a great story!! It feels like I’m walking with you thru Port Au Prince! I read all I can and watch the news for anything to do with Haiti. The news is always so tragic! I don’t have any sponsored children in Haiti(mine are in Ethiopia)but I’ve been considering it..
January 13th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Heather, are you going on the sponsors tour to Ethiopia, next month?
January 15th, 2009 at 6:18 am
Vicki – are YOU going to Ethiopia? I’ll be traveling alone and need someone to chat with!
January 15th, 2009 at 8:49 am
No, Tracy, I won’t be going. I asked, because my husband just began sponsoring a 9-year-old boy there, and we would so love to send him a few things.
I’ve been alone on each of my sponsor tours, but I’ve met such neat people! You’ll probably have some staff folks from Colorado, as well, which can offer you an opportunity to ask questions. I’ve had no further contact with most of them, but I consider several of them friends.
January 15th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Thank you for that story Amber… you write so very well.
I am somewhat new to Compassion. I started sponsoring a little boy in Rwanda back in May 2008.
Recently, I have been enjoying Compassion’s blog page and also have a site listed on the blog roll (God’s Hands, My Hands).
I was wondering, is it possible for me to purchase a painting from the painting teacher? I don’t know anything about the area he lives in, or how/if things could be shipped, but perhaps the opportunity for “us” to purchase his work could bless him with the money he is in need of for his schooling(?) If you could find out, I would love to know. It would be a true blessing for me to have an “original painting” from him.
God bless you,
Barbara
January 15th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
By the way, Tracy, Jo Ann Stroup will be your tour leader from Colorado Springs. If you don’t know you, you’ll be glad of the opportunity. She’s terrific! If you have the chance to sit next to her on a bus, or anything, take advantage of the opportunity to chat with her. And tell her I said “Hi!”
January 15th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Speaking of purchasing paintings, I’m not sure where I saw it, but there was a posting that had a slideshow of different paintings done by children from different Compassion centers around the world. I’d be interested in purchasing prints of some of them–the purchase price could be donated to any fund that impacts the children from whose countries the paintings came from, or “where most needed”, or whatever. If this were to become an option in the store, *hint*.
January 15th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Thanks Vicki! And thanks so much for the nice comment. Keep in touch, I can’t wait to write more about the trip! 23 days and counting!
January 16th, 2009 at 6:09 am
Hi Barbara! Thank you for your kind comments. Let me look into that question about the art for you, and let you know!
January 16th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Hello Vicki,
I’m out of work since November and just can’t justify putting it on one of my credit cards just so I can go. I haven’t been sponsoring both girls for all that long either-I don’t know how much that should be taken into consideration before going on a trip..
No I won’t be going on the Ethiopia sponsors tour next month.
January 21st, 2009 at 8:30 am
Judy,
The post that you’re thinking of is Focus on the Forest. I’ve shared your suggestion with the person who runs our online store.
March 28th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Amber thank you for your post!!! I am so jealous you get to travel so much!!! I am trying to appease my jealousy by traveling myself!!! I went to Nicaragua last year on the sponsor tour and it was AMAZING!!! Why? b/c I actually got talk with, play, run, and eat with Osmari. It was interesting for me to meet her mom and even the project director!!! I am happy they were a little surprised I actually visited!!! I am going to the Philippines in June and am not trying to compete with you in visiting Compassion places. I just wanted to visit all the kids I sponsor once while they are young (under 10) and once while they are older maybe around 15. I read some of your book and really learned a lot. I believe I will get to meet and hear Olive speak at our SW Regional Advocates conference in Breckenridge!!! I read a little about her amazing story in your book. Keep up the GREAT work!!!