by Veronique Parages, Skills-Based Volunteer Program Director, HandsOn Network

Père Jean Juste created the foundation and the feeding center where I am volunteering in Haiti years ago.

More than 1000 meals are served once a day from Monday to Friday to the kids and young adults of a poor part of Port-Au-Prince. What an efficient and really helpful place!!!

After applying to be a volunteer, filing up 20 pages of skills and competencies, I received a confirmation saying that I would help in a kitchen.

I was quite disappointed at the beginning – would I see the kids? Would I be cooped up inside somewhere?

I decided to be quiet and wait and see… as a good Haitian would do!

I am so happy I did it.

Let me explain .

In the front, there’s a waiting area, the line area and the eating place.

In the back, there’s the food preparation, the cooking and the organization of the plates.

The feeding center is placed on a hill, located in a empty field with some goats, chickens and one or two cows.

This hill is covered with tent camps and of small houses, half destroyed or half finished.

On top of the hill sits the church of Pere Jean Juste – who unfortunately passed away one year ago. He was well loved and he is well missed.  Huge signs written on the walls in all the surroundings witness how much Pere Jean Juste held everybody’s heart and mind.

The front of the church features a large covered porch where the kids and young adults wait until the feeding center opens its doors.

Step by step, minute by minute, kids come and hang out on the benches.

Some young guys organize Christian songs.

The ambiance is fun and the kids play together in a nice way.

A small front yard is closes for a moment just before it becomes a place to pass on plates full of food.

In the backstage things run smoothly and efficiently.

At 7am, cooks and helpers come through the back yard, surrounded by high walls.

Fresh vegetables, small pieces of meats are cooked together with spices in huge metal heavy buckets.

Rice and beans are cooked in the same heavy recipients.

Fumes, smells, vapors, laughs and songs mingle during the cooking hours.

During various down times, women rest on low chairs in the back yard protected from the sun by an USAid  plastic tent.

Two showers and a restroom are available for all the feeding center’s employees and helpers, a great privilege in this country where most of the people don’t have regular water.

Around 1pm, everything is usually ready for the ball.

Young helpers without hot mitts take two of the huge burning pots full of rice and place them inside the central building where the plates will be passed on.

These two big pots are placed along a large rectangular table.

Huge soup tureens full of meat and sauce and vegetables are also placed on the table.

The ballet of the plates begins!

Along with the other volunteers, I sit around the burning rice pot on law chairs with a metal plate that serves as large serving spoon in one hand and an empty plastic plate in the other one.

We fill the plates – we give more or less depending on the age – and give it to a person who places it on the table.

Two women stand at the table pour sauce and veggies on each plate and organize pyramids of full plates on the rectangular table.

When the table is piled up, “Jean-Claude” one of the feeding center supervisors monitoring the food delivery, opens the window facing the front stage area.

While the preparations occurred, the front yard was opened and kids and adults lined up, at first in a quiet way and more and more noisily after the crowd of young adults crowd arrived.

Whenever Jean-Claude opens the window, the passing of the plates begins.

It is always fast and efficient with clear monitoring of who is getting what, with secret codes and rules for people arriving with their own bucket to fill in for families in distress  who are not able to come to the window.

Outside, additional helpers put spoons on the plates and finalize the process.

As the rectangular table empties quickly, our plates’ dance behind the table doesn’t stop.

Each time we take a full plate of rice, the next layer of rice steams up, burning me.  Who needs a sauna? Here you are… so natural!

I am red, also steaming, sweaty and tired.  My shoulders and hands ache, each plate is heavy, rice is stocked.

I am laughing and smiling, trying to understand everybody talking so fast in Creole around me. No need for music!

The rice bucket is empty? Let’s bring a new one.

Young boys bring a new one, even hotter.

(How is that possible?)

Before they return, I breathe a minute, trying to recover, drinking these little plastic bags full of good water that we can find every where through out the county.

After two hours of work and more than 1,000 meals served, I feel glad that the children will have had a solid meal at least once today.

I am so happy to have been accepted to be part of this!

I am so proud of the feeding center’s members.

I am thankful for all their extraordinary good work and this helpful exercise, repeated every day of the school week, every week of the month, and every month of the year!!!!

I will never ever forget you and will do all I possibly can to help you the most I can in the future.

Be prepared to participate!!!!!

by Veronique Parages, Skills-Based Volunteer Program Director, HandsOn Network

The “tap-tap” is the common system of transportation.

One trip is 5 gouds, one goud is a Haitian dollar, a $ dollar is 40 gouds.

It sounds easy but you try learning to pay for your rides in Haiti.

Trips around Port Au Prince are not expensive, but they are always interesting.

No one uses signals and most of the drivers don’t actually have a license to drive because it is too expensive.

The streets are colorful with Christian messages in orange, yellow, red, looking as old as the many pick up trucks with low tires.

Many of the pick ups have a make-shift roof to protect the passengers from the sun, wind and dust.

“Tap-tap” is the noise of the passengers’ heads knocking on the roof, the sound of their shoulders and arms hitting the metal borders of the truck bed or their neighbor’s body.  It is also the noise of knocking on the roof or the window of the front seats to let the driver know that one of the passengers wants to stop.

The two benches along the back of the pick up can fit 6 people each… o0ps sorry make that 7… no 8! (and sometimes more).

Just squeeze, squeeze, squeeze!

I see kids in uniforms, people dressed up to go to work, women going to sell or to buy at flea market with huge bags full of chicken (some live) or vegetables or water to cook.

Everyone travels using the tap-tap system! And so do we… a 1 to 2 hours commute time every day back and forth to our volunteer project.

We have to take three consecutive tap-taps to arrive at the feeding center where we volunteer — and it is so worth it!!!

A tap-tap ride is a colorful piece of Haiti. Everyone helps everyone else.

People give you a hand to catch a moving tap-tap still, find places for the pregnant women to sit, hold children on laps, hold a neighbor’s bag, pass on the money and the change, hold you and catch you if you are standing half bent over in between seated people under the low roof losing your balance at each pothole.

The Haitian people have been welcoming and friendly to the strange animals that we are, especially the white skin ones like me, look funny and stand out here.

Sometimes very young children show me to their parents.

I find that a smile and a big” Bonjour” get’s all the passengers smiling back.  They begin to talk, shy first and then more, in French or trying in English.  It’s a perfect way to discover the Haitian’s day today’s lives.

Christian messages are everywhere, on the tap-taps as decoration, as well as in the names of shops and in Haitian’s hearts.

Some passengers read the bible in the tap-taps.

Children in uniforms go to private religious schools when they can afford it. –70 to 80% of public schools have been destroyed by the earth quake around Port-Au-Prince.

The poorest accept their misery and the earthquake as the will of God.

But is it?

Can all the small church networks help people create local projects and local jobs instead of organizing long days of prayers? Or can they do both?

I know it is easy to say and not to do, but talking to the kids, to the students, to the youth in the tap-taps gives me the feeling that if somebody believes in their country and its resources, the Haitians may believe in it again too… How can we help?

If Rwanda has been able to rebuild their country, to reunify two populations with respect and solidarity to each other despite years of horrible genocide, maybe Haiti can take the earth quake as a catalyst to reunify rich and poor, to create synergy and actions plans, to re-launch agriculture and exports and begin tourism?

I really hope so.

We need to continue to help them do it…

by Veronique Parages, Skills-Based Volunteer Program Director, HandsOn Network

When I told HandsOn Network folks that I would be volunteering in Port Au Prince, I was asked to share my journey with you all.

“It’ll be easy,” I was told.

I should be personal, funny and not really worried about creating great English literature.

For a French emigrant, as I am, this put me at ease and I said Yes!

So here we are…

Enjoy and share! Haiti needs us, all of us…

I have traveled a lot but I forget how different airports can be from country to country.

Departure Atlanta, arrival Port-Au-Prince…  from fresh and quiet with strict rules, it became alive, hot, busy, and noisy going through customs.

Good memories from trips in Africa came back to me.

When I arrived, so did many planes from the United States.

A bunch of volunteers grouped by colors of tee-shirts arrived from faith organizations along with Haitians coming back home or visiting family.

As early as on my plane ride, my  help was  needed -  to fill in customs forms -a good way to begin to help and talk!

I am so happy to be French today it will help me so much all along the journey!

My contact, Warner, from God’s Children Inc, the organization I am volunteering with, was supposed to pick me up.

I had no idea where I would be living but I knew it would be fine.

Warner wasn’t there when I came out of customs, but it gave me time to find my luggage full of supplies for a new school and for the orphanages.

Crossing each other, pushing each other to find luggage… it is really up to you to find it!  Got it!

(At least, I found one…the other will come later.)

Warner was still not there.

I wondered if I could continue by myself.

I followed the flow, passed the customs, people every where and arrived outside where more people are waited, under the burning sun, the hot wind brought dust… and more people but not Warner!

I wisely decided to wait in the  shade outside of the airport fence.

The concept of time is so different here, and nothing ever happens as we think it will… still, it happens  anyway… you just have to learn to wait and be patient, keep faith, find shade, smile, and say “Bonjour” to everybody.

That’s the key.

I felt so visible with my white skin, my straight, light hair turning as a bunch of straws on the top of my head, impossible to hide and stay still!

Everybody wanted to help me.

And suddenly, coming from I don’t know where, Warner arrived, welcoming and friendly.

We took a car with a driver – who, I discovered later on,  is one of our neighbors who will help us from time to time, and began my first ride across Port-au Prince, impossible to ever forget.

I was going to the volunteer housing and could grab a shower, but no…  nothing will happen the way I thought it would….

I quickly learned that not one single day in Haiti happens the way we – the volunteers- think it might.

“Are you arriving? Yes in 2 min.”  Translation? Arriving in 2 hours.  Staying cool and relaxing is key!

Still, the days often turn out  better than expected, despite the different concept of time.

After my arrival to the airport I had an incredible journey in the town.

I was lucky to get a ride in a nice car with air conditioning, a real luxury in the hot and dusty air of Haiti.

Dust flies everywhere because the roads are pitted with deep holes.

Was it like it before the earthquake? or is it because of the earthquake? I wonder.

Maybe both…

As soon as we left the airport I watched, absorbed, discovered.

Immediately outside the airport exit, I saw camps and tents full of people.

They were so close to each other.

The camps were mainly set up by USAID and the Red Cross after the earthquake in order to give a roof to people without houses.

How hot is it inside? Do they have schools? I wondered.

There were so many kids in the camps…

What about security?  Is it safe during the day? I heard that at night there are a high number of rapes.

The camps and tents were everywhere, in each and every available space, both public and private, in between destroyed houses.

USAID and Red Cross mobile showers, restrooms, and containers for potable water were also visible everywhere.

All of this was set up to be temporary, but is it?

After 6 months it all seems to have become permanent.

Hatian lives seem organized around the relief efforts.

Small businesses have opened around each camp to sale various small items, but is it enough to feed everybody?

I couldn’t help but wonder – along with all my fellow volunteers – six months after the earthquake, where has all the money the entire world gave to Haiti gone?

What kind of projects are on the way? Who is doing what? Whenever I meet Haitians I will ask these questions.