Leaving Haiti
by Ashley Thompson
(Illinois, USA)
“Ash! GET UP! I am not going to ask you again” my mother whispered. It was four thirty in the morning. Dreading the entirety of the next twenty-four hours, I reluctantly got out of bed. My shirt stuck to my back like paste on paper, the weather was a searing eighty five degrees and it was only four thirty. I had already packed everything the night before, so I was ready to go. I slipped on a pair of sandals, shuffled to the dining room, and sat down. My mom brought me a bowl of cereal with no milk; we had run out of it half way through the week. Picking at my breakfast, I sat in a trance thinking about the past summer in Haiti. The children, the landscape, the heat. I really did not want to leave.
The night before, I had gone down to the girls’ room and played with the children for hours. They had made me promise to come down and wake them before I left. It was still dark out in Haiti, with the sun barely peeking over the houses. Six glowing faces greeted me, and brilliant, gap-toothed smiles seemed to make everything melt away. These children, who have nothing…no mother or father, hand-me-down clothes, and two meals a day, are the happiest kids I have ever seen.
They wrapped their arms around me, and we sat down on the cool cement floor of their bedroom. It had become a tradition to have the girls braid my hair every night. The pain of the yanking and tugging was unheeded when I remembered that I was leaving—not returning for at least a year—and this morning was the last time I would be sitting with the people I had grown so close to. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes but I managed to hold them back momentarily.
Continuing to braid, the girls started singing a Haitian song that they taught me. Tears poured out, tear after tear, like rivers flowing down my cheeks. The girls suddenly stopped, amazed that I was crying. They had not realized I was so upset. Claudine, an eleven year old orphan, walked up and whispered, “Pourquoi est-ce que tu pleures?” Why was I crying? I could barely make out my words, “Parce que je suis très triste. Je ne veux pas partir.” Translated: Because I am very sad. I don’t want to leave.
They understood. Quickly wiping the tears from my face, the girls began to cry as well. They begged me not to leave them and they didn’t believe me when I said that I would come back next summer. I don’t blame them for not believing me; everyone that they have cared about has left them. They are orphans, after all. They are lucky if they have a brother or sister in the orphanage with them. On the floor of their bedroom was our last goodbye. Letting go of their needy hugs was one of the hardest things I have had to do.
Standing in the empty street watching for our shuttle, it was six o’clock in the morning; some of the orphan girls had come out into the courtyard and stood watching us, behind the gates, like they were in prison. They have nothing to look forward to until someone else comes to their aid. They need love in their life and when missionaries come down, as I did, they have love.
It started raining. Rain in Haiti is different than your average drizzle in the United States. It makes me think of weeping: an angry, shattering downpour that mirrors the brokenness of the country itself. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Half the population is illiterate, the economy is crippled and the land–the most important resource of Haiti’s agricultural economy–has been eroded and desertified. Violence and tremendous poverty–poverty so extreme that people literally eat dirt to survive –have ensued. And the children I volunteered with, the orphans, the malnourished youth, are an example of the human cost of these conditions.
But back to my story. We hurried under a tree with all of our belongings to escape the downpour while the orphans just stared in silence. Soon, the bus came to take us to the Port-au-Prince airport. Stepping onto the bus it was the first time I had been in air conditioning in seven days. I picked my seat carefully so I could watch the orphanage get smaller and smaller in the distance. The rain streaked windows made it difficult to see but I could tell the children were still crying. Driving away, I silently promised them I would return. It’s a promise I intend to keep.
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December 24 2008 12:11 am | Uncategorized
