26 Jun 2017
Doing the Wash Laundry day
The washer and dryer at Ms. Sue’s starts early in the morning and ends late at night. With forty two kids, clothes get dirty and, even with throw away diapers, there is hardly time to wash, dry,fold, and hang. Some of the clothes are hand washed in buckets in the front yard and […]
26 Jun 2017
Tree of Life photographs
In a hallway to the tv room, on a wall in front of the boy’s dorm, is a tree with kid’s photos hanging like fruit. These photo’s were taken some years back and the children have long since outgrown their photos, each day becoming something new, their emotions taking them on minute by […]
26 Jun 2017
Haiti Made in the neighborhood
Haiti Made is a local countryside Cafe and Gift Shop. If you walk outside the Christianville front gate, past the security man sitting in a chair with an automatic fully loaded weapon by his side, you make a quick right and follow a single winding lane road into the countryside until you get […]
22 Jun 2017
Which Haiti do you see? perception
There are competing perceptions of Haiti. There is the portrayal, in its art, that Haiti is a rural place of simplicity, order, old ways, peaceful, a collage of beautiful colors, shapes, and sounds. This is the Haiti that Gauguin would have painted had he sailed to Haiti instead of Tahiti. There is the […]
19 Jun 2017
Facts aren’t convenient Quick facts on Haiti
When you travel, you meet reality. Haiti shares its island with the Dominican Republic. Haiti speaks French and the Dominican Republic speaks Spanish. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere while the Dominican Republic is a tourist mecca with white beaches, all inclusive resorts, stunning landscapes. Haiti was discovered […]
19 Jun 2017
Good Water deep well in the countryside
Outside the front gate of Christianville, you take an immediate right to go to Haiti Made, a local cafe, coffee and smoothie shop run by Americans. An eighth of a mile down the rock strewn, bumpy, water puddled lane, that barely makes a foot path, is the landmark Old Well. It is called […]
15 Jun 2017
Trimming Trees machete work
A phone call has been made to get this work started. This workman uses a ladder to climb up into the tree branches,and, with deft strikes, his machete becomes an ax and tree limbs come down with a crash. This crew of four has spent half a day trimming trees and another half […]
15 Jun 2017
Sunday Songs, Christianville singing hymns
It is Sunday morning. Sun squeezes through delicate spider webs by an old stump. Water seeps through screw holes in the tin roof of the guest house. Children sing songs at Ms. Sue’s. When you have little, you are happy with what little you have.
14 Jun 2017
The Kid Meter At breakfast and at Play
The kid meter is shaped like a stop signal with green,yellow, and red lights. When the green light is on there are bursts of positive energy. Kids seek like minded playmates and act out dramas the length of the dining room. They stay out of each others way and, like water, seek paths […]
13 Jun 2017
Tarantula a survivor
In the 1950’s, the world was in a Cold War. Yet, there was hot atomic testing with Pacific atolls being blown into non-existence and school children crawling under their desks at a school bell. Russia and the United States were headbutting and angry rhetoric took the place of missiles. Scientists, and what they […]
13 Jun 2017
Eggs one hundred for breakfast
Eggs come from a local source and are delivered when ordered. There are 30 eggs to a flat and ten flats to this stack which makes three hundred eggs. It sounds like a multiplication word problem from one of the kid’s math workbooks stored in a plastic crate on the back porch. It […]
13 Jun 2017
Haitian Broom and little boy Mich
The crack in this wall began after a contractor built a security grate of ironwork on top of the storage unit so thieves couldn’t slip in at night and help themselves to someone else’s food. The crack has dangerously expanded and weakened the wall, and, in extension, the entire storage room. This morning […]
12 Jun 2017
Lucky Top Dog
Lucky has had two litters. Her first litter was given away and taken at night when no one was paying attention. This second litter of seven is housed in a suitcase under the front porch of the guest house. Besides the banging of mango’s falling on the roof, Scott is serenaded by puppies […]
12 Jun 2017
Tied up in Haiti in the country
Roads, in the Haiti countryside, are mostly dirt,with holes filled with rain water, covered with a sprinkling of rocks. After a strong rain,these roads, leading deep into the bush, become non- negotiable and new paths have to be made through the underbrush so folks can reach their plywood shacks with tin roofs, homes […]
11 Jun 2017
Work Day covering up septic tank and refinishing beds
There are volunteers this week, from Indianapolis, who lend fifty hands. On our work menu is covering up a newly installed septic tank, filling in a washed out area around the clothesline, spreading gravel in areas that get muddy and cause kids to track mud into the home, sanding and refinishing kid’s beds, […]
11 Jun 2017
Gecko on the screen
Gecko’s are ubiquitous, strutting on television commercials, hiking up walls, screens, lounging on tree branches around my Haiti home. This gecko doesn’t stay long enough for introductions and moves away quickly as I approach. In a shutter click he is off the screen and down into the underbrush,his green body lost in thick […]
11 Jun 2017
Scott’s Pad A warm shower whenever I want it
Next to Ms. Sue’s is a house with an upstairs and a downstairs. Upstairs is rented to two east Indian scientists who run the Christianville lab on infectious diseases. Downstairs is a small two bedroom apartment, furnished, for guests at Christianville. Being a solo traveler, this is the place for me and my […]
11 Jun 2017
Volunteering in Haiti In the Country
On customs forms, my destination is spelled – Christianville, Haiti. Christianville is not a town, city or village but a walled, fenced, compound in the Haitian countryside that is a trade school, a co-ordinating point for churches from abroad doing missions in Haiti, a research lab on TB and infectious diseases, an operator […]
Scott’s Haiti Timeline
END
Load More
Recent Comments