I Want You to Come Again

There is still much to recount from the Rice Run on Friday (more posts on the rice run and what it was can be seen here and here). Now I want to tell you more about the kids from OEBC – the orphanage that organizes and executes these rice runs. They were ages 12-17, and a fairly even mix of boys and girls.

This other orphanage is very different from GLA (as are most in Haiti...) First of all, they don't do adoptions. I know it's not uncommon to find orphanages that don't do adoptions, but still I was crushed for these children. OEBC seems more like a religious training school for neglected children than anything else. The people who run it are from some very small sect of Christianity in Pennsylvania that was started by a Princeton professor in the 1960's. This professor was an avowed atheist, but after having a revelation, he became a Christian and apparently founded his church with a lot of hippies. Perhaps different than what I am used to, but after spending 12 hours of my day with these kids, I think they really do love Jesus. The man who really spearheaded the operation is named Brother Paul, and it definitely felt like he was still perhaps a bit stuck in the hippie stage. He had long, white hair accompanied by a long, white beard, very bushy eyebrows, and an energy that was really somewhat terrifying at times.

Brother Paul dancing in the middle of lots of kids 

(Photo credit: Ashley, another American volunteer)

Like I said before, we were riding in a tap tap together. Lots and lots of us (20 in the back, three in the front part of the tap tap) were jammed in the back of that vehicle. We were informed that the ride would be about 2 hours, but due to traffic and a flat tire, we were in the tap tap from 9:30 until 3:00. So not two hours in the tap tap. More like five and a half. And riding in a tap tap is not like riding in a car. It's more like riding on a rollercoaster without any seatbelts.

I must now pause a moment to thank God with all of my heart for the fact that I did not get carsick at all, not even once, that entire tap tap ride. Nothing short of a miracle. Nothing short of beyond a miracle. Especially since after eating an apple and a tiny bit of cereal that morning for breakfast, I did not eat anything at all until around 2:00 when they passed around little casino cookies, and so I ate a tiny package of strawberry flavored casino cookies at 2:00. And once again God was gracious, because those casino cookies, all 100 calories, filled me right on up and I was not a bit hungry.

You might say that 5 hours in a tap tap can be a really good bonding experience should you chose to seize the opportunity. Well, I tried as hard as ever I could to bond with these kids during those insanely bumpy, painfully hungry, scorchingly hot hours.

Picture of the tap tap we rode in

(Photo credit: Ashley)

OEBC is very good at teaching their kids English, and so I was able to communicate with relative ease with the kids once they warmed up. At first I only talked with the girls, but the boys quickly joined in our conversations as well. I loved those kids a lot. I wish I could remember all of their names, but I don't. I do remember Jessica, though. She sat next to me the entire time we were on the tap tap both there and back again. She reminded me so much of my Detroit girl, Alleyah, in her personality and in her mannerisms. And even in the way she looked sometimes, although Alleyah is hispanic and Jessica is Haitian, but the similarities were quite striking. She was my special little buddy. She was also Alleyah's age – twelve years old.

The way that I tried warming up to them was through Creole lessons. I had them teach me everything I could think of in Creole. We had a “premier leson”, “deuzieme leson”, and then for the “troisieme leson”, I asked them to teach me a song in creole. Well that sure did get them going. We were singing songs in Creole for at least two hours.

Now part of the reason why this ride was 3 hours longer than anticipated was because we busted a tire (it's a miracle that all four didn't go flat considering the obscene bumps and lumps and mounds and bricks and rocks and bottles and debris and curbs that we were constantly charging over. It was a frequent occurrence for me to literally fly all of the way off my seat. So that nothing was touching the ground. At all. Thanks to the force of gravity, I always did come back down again. Also thanks to the force of gravity combined with the rock hard benches in the tap tap, I do believe certain parts of my body were quite black and blue the next day. But I digress...) So anyways, we busted a tire, and conveniently pulled over at a little, side of the road, pit-stop tire changing store with lots of Haitian men loitering all about the tap tap. I wasn't a bit freaked out, or even weirded out, but the other two Americans on the tap tap with me were apparently really freaked out and weirded out. I thought these guys were just trying to be friendly. They thought that we American girls were about to be sold. Who knows. It was probably something in the middle of the spectrum. I guess I was a little freaked out when one of them walked up to me and professed his love for me and asked if I loved him. I told him that I had no way of knowing whether or not I loved him since I didn't exactly know him. But I wasn't weirded out. Though perhaps in retrospect I should have been. I didn't feel threatened, I was just intrigued by the fact that anyone would feel comfortable with walking up to a stranger and confessing love. It was an interesting concept for me to contemplate, and I tried envisioning myself walking up to a complete stranger (who was clearly from a different country no less) and declaring love. It was, like a said, a fascinating thing to contemplate.

Finally finally finally finally after a very, very, very long drive, we arrived at the first orphanage. If it can be called that. It was an orphanage, to be sure, for there were dozens of little orphans running all about the place, but it was a tent. All the kids stayed in a tent. They used to have two tents, but one was severely damaged by Hurricane Isaac. A tent orphanage. It was easy to see that multiple children were suffering from malnourishment. Some didn't wear a full set of clothes. Those that did had clothes that were tattered and filthy. This was the orphanage where the story of Kevin took place. Something that I didn't write about in the other blog post, however, was that this first orphanage was where I really bonded with the kids from OEBC. The girls and I bonded when they did my hair, and the boys and I bonded when I showed them the pictures on my camera from San Francisco. They are fascinated by anything and everything to do with America. They had been taking pictures on my camera of themselves, and they brought it over to me for explanations. One boy in particular who was named John seemed very interested in every picture from the United States. His English was pretty good, and he told me that he had been to the Untied States once before, to Miami, for a month because he needed to be in a hospital and have an operation that they were unable to give him in Haiti. He told me he liked the United States, and hopes he can go back one day when he leaves the orphanage. Another boy named Michael but with a Haitian twist told me that he hoped to be a “mechanition” (mechanic) when he left the orphanage. There were six boys from the OEBC orphanage ages 15 – 17. To have them trust me enough to all come around and talk to me about what they hope to do when they leave the orphanage while all the girls were doing my hair still was a great privilege.

The boys from OEBC:

We stopped at three other orphanages that day, as well as a Catholic hospital that treats lepers – apparently there are several thousand cases of the disease in Haiti. I will tell more stories from those orphanages later. For now I want to focus on the story of my relationship with the kids from OEBC. At the first orphanage, I had sat off to the side while the kids did their Sunday school-esque presentation. But for the rest of the day, I was a part of their group, and so I sat with them during the Bible stories and singing.

We also did not spend much time at this orphanage. By the time we left, it was getting pretty dark. We bumped down the roads once more. At this point in time, I was more than used to flying up in the air every few seconds, and more than used to the rock hard benches, and more than used to being cramped in there with all my new Haitian friends. In fact, I was loving it with all my heart.

After the fourth orphanage, John sat down on my right. He is the one who had to go to Miami for a medical operation. He turned to me and said words that were the sweetest music to my ears and worth the grueling hours of tap tap riding. He said turned to me and said, “I want you to come again.” Those words. Those words meant the world to me. I can't tell you how incredible it made me feel deep down inside to know that these precious, wonderful incredible people wanted me to come again. I told him that there was nothing I would love more than to come again, and that I hoped with all my heart that I would be able to.

Picture of John:

That ride back... It was bliss itself. I could spend every night of my life riding in the back of a tap tap with Haitians and never want for more. They sang the entire way. They wholeheartedly sang the entire way. It was not a five hour drive like how it was on the way, but it was still a hefty 2 hours. At first, I didn't know any of the songs. When I caught on, though, I joined in as best as I could. All of them were in Creole. I marveled at the driver and wondered if he would ever actually be able to get us to our final destination. The roads were so windy, none of them had any kind of markers, there was no highway to catch going East. Homes without electricity had fires burning. We drove past a man burning a huge heap of trash on the side of the road. People were still out and about, walking about every which way. Motorcycles still ducked daringly between the tap taps and the cars and the trucks. It was craziness itself, especially with the kids all hollering their songs in Creole. Many mistook us as a tap tap for public transportation, and hopped on before we kicked them off.

And then and then the best moment of my life happened, for all of a sudden, one of the boys busted out in that wonderful familiar tune, Deep!!!!! It was deep! The staple song of long days of VBS at Military Avenue. That very Deep. That exact same Deep. In English and everything. I could barely believe my ears. Tears instantly stung my eyes. I joined in, yelling with the rest of them...YES I LOVE MY JESUS!!!! deep down in my heart. Their faces all lit up instantly when they realized that I knew that song and could sing with them. All of them were grinning the hugest grins I have ever seen. How can I describe the sheer joy that welled up in my very being at that moment in time? I can't. I long so much for that to happen again. I long so much for the day when every nation, tribe and tongue will come together and sing together to our Lord. It will be the joy of the Haitian tap tap singing Deep magnified infinitely.

Well then they caught on to the fact that if the song was in English, chances were pretty good that I would know it and join in the merriment. We sang Waves of Mercy, we sang Our Good is So Big, we sang Our God is an Awesome God. Each time there was a song that I knew, they all got the hugest smiles on their faces. Singing praises together with God's people of a different nation is an experience I'm not likely to forget any time soon.

That entire day, I had barely eaten anything. After the pack of strawberry casino cookies at around 1:00, I hadn't eaten a bite of food. Strangely, however, I was not hungry. Even more strangely, I was not carsick. I have no idea what was up with that weirdness. I guess it was people praying for me and God listening – that's what was up. I had been drinking buckets upon buckets of water, but I hadn't peed all day long. I hadn't even needed to pee all day long. It wasn't that I hadn't been drinking – I drank up my entire water bottle and got no less than five refills. The reason for this absurd lack of urination? Presumably because I sweated out every single drop of water that I drank. I honestly think that must have been why – there really is no other explanation for it. I was drenched in that salty liquid all the day long. Or perhaps it was because my brain recognized the fact that no toilet would be at all available anywhere, so it did not make peeing an option that day. If that be the case, I can only thank my brain profusely. I don't know what I would have done in a situation necessitating restroom facilities. Actually, I do know. I would have peed in my pants. There were no other alternatives.

Anyways, finally after a day of eating only a pack of casino cookies, in the tap tap at the last stop, the kids pulled out the provisions. I ate a banana; we had picked three or four gigantic clump of bananas a few hours back, and they lay on the floor of the tap tap, tantalizingly plump, for hours. Then the kids started making their sandwiches. At first, I refused their offer for a sandwich for a few reasons: I didn't feel hungry (oddly), and they had given me my sandwich first (presumably out of respect) and I didn't want to eat in front of all of them. Then right after refusing it for the first time, I realized there were other reasons I might not want a sandwich. The meat and the cheese had been sitting in the tap tap all day long. Yes, in a cooler, but still. The meat and the cheese came from some Haitian market. Yes, it was packaged, but still. The meat and the cheese was being assembled into a sandwich by many grimy hands that hadn't been washed all day. Hands that had been to tent orphanages and dirty, filthy places. And the meat and the cheese was now out in the back of the tap tap – so was the bread – and who knows what sort of grease and grossness and grime was blowing into the tap tap from the outside. My eyes and throat were perpetually stinging the entire ride just because dust and fumes fly into your face from the road. They offered me a sandwich again, and I decided it would be downright rude of me to say no. I did not want them to think that I was above them and that I would not eat what they ate. So I ate what they ate. They even gave me a double decker sandwich, and I ate every single grimy bite of it, and you know what, it actually tasted good! And I didn't feel a bit sick the following day. I was fit as a fiddle. So ha to stupid American fears!

When we got back to OEBC, it was softly drizzling. I said goodbye to the kid as best as I could in the dark, and went home with one sentence burning itself in my mind: I want you to come again.