A visit to the waterfall at Bassin Zim

We visited the Whitney Clinic in Hinche, where Champagne is the manager.  Champagne if you read my previous blogs, has been one of our translators for a number of years, and when I was in Cerca a year ago, he was my Kreyol tutor.  This year, St. Monica parish from Atlanta is visiting their twin, the Whitney Clinic during our visit so Champagne wasn't able to be with us.  At any rate, we got to talk with some of the doctors and nurses who were volunteering their services at the Whitney Clinic.  One of them suggested that we visit Bassin Zim, a waterfall perhaps a 15 minute drive from Hinche.  I needed to meet with Richard Joseph, the director of the Catholic Bureau of Education (BDE) to discuss some Haitian Education Fund business, so I decided to have them drop me off at Sacred Heart School in Papaye on their way to Bassin Zim.  I had visited the waterfall before so decided it would be ok for me to miss the opportunity.  I met with Richard, and then he offered to take me to Bassin Zim.  On the way there, we met the jeep with Thimothe and the rest of our group.  They continued on to visit Maison Fortune and we went to visit the waterfall.  The government has made a lot of improvements since my last visit.  They now have a little house to welcome people which has restrooms in it and the steep path up to the top of the falls is now a stairway made from rocks.  I was still a little hesitant to walk to the top of the falls.  I remember slipping and nearly falling on the path the last time.  Two teenage boys encouraged me, took my hands and led me up the path.  When the going was steep or slippery, they offered my their forearms so I would have a better grip.  I had to stop and catch my breath halfway up.  When we got to the top, they took us into a large cave.  They told me that there were hives for honeybees nestled in the rock at the side of the cave.  Now that made me a little nervous, because when I have been stung in the past, whatever appendage was stung got very swollen.  But I continued in the hope that I would not be stung.  It was such a beautiful sight both looking down from the top of the falls into a pool there and also from the bottom of the falls.  Here are some photos taken by Richard Joseph.  I didn't have my camera!

Thursday 2-20-14

My name Theresa and this is my first time in Haiti and following is a story about “Crazy Americans.”

Our journey began today with a trip to Hinche and the group decided to visit the Cathedral.    Regrettably the gate to the Cathedral was locked.  Disappointed we walked around Hinche and passing by the Cathedral on our return to the Rectory, we noticed the Cathedral’s gate was unlocked and open.  We seized the opportunity and entered.   The interior was simple but beautiful.  After taking pictures and spending a few moments in prayer, we exited.  To our surprise the gate was locked and in walking the perimeter found no other exit or anyone to assist us.  Finally, after knocking on a door someone answered and seemed perturbed to find us in our predicament but he did unlock the back gate and freed us.  He probably thought “those crazy Americans”.  I guess no trip should be without at least one misadventure.

Note: Gates were originally locked.

I have written before about an elderly man named Josias Bien Aime.  I interviewed him again in the hopes that we can produce a short video about him.  He is 88 years old and has worked most of his life for Holy Family parish.  His mother also worked for the parish. A little of his life story:  He was married (His wife died a year ago.)and had 7 children. Three have died, one as a child, the others as adults.  He gave his house to his widowed daughter-in-law who lives there with her 5 children and second husband.  He sent his children to Holy Family School because it is the best in the area, but he has no means to send his grandchildren there so they go to the public school.  He shares a room with some other parish staff and with occasional visitors. 

He has done many things during his time working at the parish.  He has prepared the altar for mass.  He sweeps the dirt yard every morning.  He sometimes helps to shuck beans.  He feeds and cares for the parish rabbits.  Fr. KeKe has told him to stop working, to “retire”, but he loves helping in any way he can.  What I think his greatest contribution to the parish is the way he radiates his spirituality.  He is always joyful, always greets us with such pleasure, like we have made his day by greeting him.  He laughs frequently.  He truly lives his faith, as we are all called to live.  His only regret is that he has nothing to give us in return for what we have done for the parish.  I try to explain how much he has given us by his very being.  I am again reminded that it is difficult for people who always are on the receiving end of things (or at least think they are).  Imagine, if you were given gifts, but did not have the means to reciprocate.  Part of me would love to bring Josias some new shirts because many of his have holes in them.  Yet I realize that, in a way, that imposes a burden on him because he cannot reciprocate.  I asked him if he thought Haiti was getting better.  He replied no, that governments come and go, but that God is always here helping him.  We asked if he taught his grandchildren about his faith.  He said “of course!” and that they love to be with him because he acts like a child.  I am sure he is a wonderful grandfather.   I know that he blesses us with his presence every time we visit.  Here is a photo of him dancing with the primary school principal, Sr. Oxilia or Sr. Oxi for short.

My name is Max Turkaly, I am thirteen years old. I go to Midlothian Middle School. This is my first time in Haiti. During the middle of our trip we went to the Fortune Maison (which is an orphanage). Troy and I played basketball with two Haitians, Haitian style (barefoot on pavement).  The Haitians we played with loved to do basketball tricks. Playing basketball with them was a great experience.  This pilgrimage to Haiti has been very exciting and fun.

Notice the bare feet!

Hi, my name is Lydia Turkaly.  This is my second trip to Haiti.  I first traveled to Haiti in 2010, shortly after the earthquake, with my daughter, Sarah.  This trip I am traveling with my son, Max.

It has been 4 years since my last visit to Cerca and I am amazed at the progress in the town.  For example, the streets in the town are now paved and have street lights.  Many of the residents now have power as well.  There is a beautiful park in the center of town as well as a large monument.

Of course the most impressive improvement, for me, is the new church.  The new church is the gem of the town.  It is spacious and beautiful with 3 large stained glass windows. The inside of the church now has sturdy benches and wooden kneelers, which is a huge improvement. The floors are tiled and the altar is attractive.  But the most important improvement is that the people of Cera now have a safe place to worship and a real sense of pride.

I am thrilled to be back in Cerca!

Back to the Lab!

{Posted by Troy Rysedorph}  Tuesday afternoon the team was back in the computer lab, this time with 11 teachers from the Holy Family School.  The idea of the session was “train the trainer”.  While it is somewhat unclear when the teachers will be in the role of trainer, we set out to educate them in the use of computer hardware and software.  During the needs assessment that we conducted following introductions, we learned some significant things.  Practically, we learned that 5 of the 11 had some experience with computers and 6 others had none at all and wanted to start with the very basics.  More importantly, we heard from some of the students that they would need more time, more training, more practice than the two hour session that had not yet even started.  This point was unarguable.  We were struck by the fact that this additional was not provided for in any master plan that we’ve conceived or are aware of.  That said, rather than throwing in the towel on the basis that they would forget everything they learned before their next time in the lab, we decided to proceed nonetheless.

I assigned myself to lead the exercises for the completely inexperienced.  I quizzed the group to identify the names of the key pieces of hardware—monitor, keyboard, mouse, CPU.  I showed them the necessary connections on the back and how the monitor and CPU needed to be plugged in to a power source for the computer to turn on.  Then I demonstrated how to turn the computer on.  Then it was their turn to do it—there were enough desktops for each student to have one.  As expected, each successfully turned on the computer.  I decided to throw one student a curveball by unplugging his monitor and CPU.  It took him a while, but with some assistance from my trusty translator, Joseph, he was able to get it running.  Soon everybody was wanting me to mess up their computer so that they could try to fix it and get it up and running.  Launching a piece of software was the next challenge.  But first, I had to teach the importance of the “left click”.  Did you know that not everybody knows how to point and click with a mouse?  It took about ten minutes to demonstrate launching Microsoft Word (there was no icon on the desktop for it) and another twenty minutes for the students to demonstrate competency in performing this.  I was struck by how much of my own skill I take for granted, and also how many steps are truly strung together to accomplish things that are reasonably simple.  There’s a temptation to go fast and cover the most ground.  But there’s a need to go at a confidence building speed to prevent discouragement, which we were flirting with all afternoon.

For the last 10 minutes we demonstrated some educational games that were loaded onto the laptops.  A series of volunteers got a kick out of clicking and dragging puzzle pieces to form simple pictures (2x2).  They got a taste of what they could, someday, share with their students from the Primary School.  But then the time expired.  It was clear the teachers wanted more.  They said this before the lesson started, and nothing changed that viewpoint.  I don’t know how it is all going to come together.  But I have faith that it will.

Hello my name is Vicki Brooke and this is my first time blogging and my first visit to Haiti.  Both my husband and daughter have visited Haiti so I have heard many beautiful stories of this land and the people of Cerca.  Despite these stories I was not prepared to be greeted so warmly by a massive mountain range that surrounded us as we began the drive to our village.  Although I have heard that there are still tent cities, we have not yet seen any evidience.  In fact, we saw multiple examples of new housing construction.

Today was spent with the children.  They are lively and fun and truely excited to have visitors.  The little ones hold hands, skip and sing.  In fact everyone sings, old and young alike.  Nowhere was the singing more beautiful then the voices that we hear at daily mass.  This is a spirtual treat to look forward to each day.

Computer Lab at Cerca Holy Family School

{Posted by Troy Rysedorph}

As a group, we spent a fair amount of time the second half of Monday in the new computer lab at the Holy Family School.  [A brief summary for those who are not aware of the backstory:  St. Edward the Confessor Haiti Ministry was fortunate enough to link up with two different outfits distributing computers to places in Haiti in need of them.  In August of 2013, St. Edward funded a project to make significant security improvements to an existing building as well as wire it for electricity.  As part of the same effort, 24 desks were purchased and installed.  In September, 23 computers (half laptops, half desktops) were installed and the lab became operational.]  Three of us from the group attended what would best be expressed as an “adult education” computer class being held in the lab.  The instructor, Sony, delivered an engaging and informative session helping the students to understand and practice key elements of word processing including shapes, lines, text boxes with practical applications in depicting processes, marketing materials, and organizational charts.  The young adults in attendance are paying for this class on the belief that mastery of some computer skills will substantially improve their chances of succeeding in the brutal job market that is seemingly eternal in Haiti.  As far as I could tell, the young adults, roughly 24 of them, signed up for and are taking this class that meets 4 times per week over a 6 month period.  This intensive training has the potential to leave the students with substantial expertise.  It is unclear how much it has cost them to receive this training.

Sony, the skilled instructor, has had to overcome significant challenges to deliver the learning experience.  The quantity of electrical power is limited.  By all reports and appearances, when all the computers in the lab are up and running and the instructor then turns on his laptop and projector, the electrical system cannot handle the load.  This is overcome by Sony negotiating with Father KK to turn on the generator.  When the generator is up and running they switch over the power source of the computer lab from Government power to generator power.  The laptops make the transition gracefully, while the desktops go down and need to be restarted.  Another technical challenge is that the donated computers came with different operating systems—the laptops arrived with Linux, the desktops with Microsoft Windows 7.  In order to ensure that the students are all working on the application he is teaching, Sony has had to “level the playing field”.  His solution has been to equip each of the laptops with a Windows virtual machine within which Microsoft Office applications are run. 

One of the biggest questions coming out of this experience is, “How do the students of the Holy Family School benefit from the existence of the new computer lab?”  An honest answer would be that so far, the students of Holy Family School do not benefit very much.  Some Holy Family School students, key word being some, receive 1 hour of computer familiarization training per week.  It is safe to say that this quantity of training, while better than nothing at all, is insufficient in building computer skills.  It familiarizes—students will be able to say they’ve seen and touched a computer.  It can stimulate an interest that can be acted upon later.  Not much beyond this is accomplished.  All of that said, the computer lab is a mere 6 months old.  The opportunities and possibilities are substantial.  Much more needs to be done to turn these into realities for the students of the Holy Family School.

Hello.  My name is Troy Rysedorph and this is my 3rd trip to Cerca Carvajal, Haiti.  On the first full day of this visit, right after breakfast, our group of 7 visitors set out to visit all of the classrooms of the Holy Family School.  We were warmly welcomed by the school children who in most cases sung us songs which touched our hearts.  We had three translators with us, Joseph, Laprade, and Fednel--they of course, helped us to understand what the children were singing.  We would thank them for their warm greetings and ask what they were studying.  They answered with the subject, and so we would probe deeper.  We were thrilled to have youngsters working out math problems on the chalkboard and reading passages from their Catholic education class.  We were not the only ones asking the questions.  The students were curious about us, too!  Many students asked about our interests and our purpose in visiting them. One brave soul in the English language class asked me if I knew how to conjugate a verb.  The class got a good laugh when they saw that I was stumped.  They did not know that I am more of a math guy.
In the older grades, some very open discussions broke out.  The students were very curious about the drastic tuition increase that their families had experienced from one year to the next.  The students were curious why they did not have an English Teacher.  The students vocalized their dreams to have a science lab for chemistry and other experiments.  They dream of having a library.  They dream of having more computers in the computer lab.  They asked about scholarships.  We encountered some classrooms without a teacher present--just students diligently doing their work (until we arrived to disrupt and distract.)  All told, we were left with the distinct feeling that the student highly value their educational opportunity and want to make the very most of it.  And even though we were not in a position to promise them any of the things they were dreaming of, we were consistently given boisterous appreciation as we departed for the next classroom.

Eight pilgrims from St. Edward in Richmond, Virginia will be traveling to visit our twin parish in Cerca Carvajal, Haiti beginning on Sunday, February 16th.  We hope to record our thoughts on our journey on this blog.  Our group has met for orientation three times and we wait with expectant hearts for God's grace to help us on the way.  But first I am hoping that each person can introduce themselves.

I am Kathy Gross and have traveled and led groups to Haiti many times.  Yet each time is filled with its own unique grace.  As I told the group, I always plan what we will do and when, but trust that the Holy Spirit has her own plans for our journey.  We hope you enjoy this blog!