Hold up, wait a minute!

Serving in Haiti I've come to believe that the hardest part is not being able to completely communicate with any Kreole speaking person (since I don't know it).  I get the most frustrated with myself and life in Haiti when I get trapped in situations where I just want to jump out of the scene and scream, "hold up, wait a minute" and ask for a panel of people who are watching to help me to understand fully what's going on. Most times, I just have to walk away from situations not knowing the full story.

Yesterday was a busy day for me as I needed to run a couple errands in the morning down in Petionville and then needed to be at the Center (Godet) to receive the food that was ordered. Every other Monday we have a delivery of needed supplies to feed the children and staff. I have to order by texting Patrick, our food guy, our order the Friday prior to the Monday we need it.

"Bonswa Patrick! Sa se Madame Jen. Sa se list pou lendi. 2 Apollo, 3 diri, 3 rika, 1 cornmeal, 4 oil, 4 spaghetti, 2 clorox, 1 flour, 1 sugar, and toilet paper." Sent Friday at 5:32 PM

"Ok, mesi" (Patrick) Sent Friday at 5:34 PM

"Mwen ap Godet nan orphelina a nan 1h de temp vin kotem poum ka paye ou." (Me, with the help of Matthew, my translator for the day trying to communicate that I'll be up at the Center in one hour to pay him... trust me, you don't want to use Google Translate to see if he's right...) Sent Monday at 12:42 PM

"Ok mwen pral pote manje yo kunya" (Patrick, telling me he'll bring the food now.) Sent Monday at 12:44 PM

Well, I make it up to the Center and check in quickly with the staff then head down to the school to provide a way to get charcoal, oil, pay the cook and the adult literacy professor. As I'm talking with the principal and director (Gordon and Dominique) at the school through Matthew translating, I ask how everything is in the Godet school. How are the children? Gordon explains that a child in Godet died. My heart broke and a tear made it's way to my eye.

Of course, I asked, "how".

He tells me the child "was sick".

I asked, "with what? a fever?"

"Yes, the parents didn't care for the child," I'm told bluntly.

I'm like, "Hold up. Wait a minute! Time out. Matthew, what's he saying? The child died because the parents didn't care for the child? How does this happen?"

Matthew explained that the parents didn't take good enough care of the child. They didn't have a way to pay for a doctor. They didn't have safe water to drink. They had no electricity. So, they just were waiting and hoping that the child would be better. But, it didn't get any better. It died.

In all of the conversation, I'm not 100% sure that the gender of the child was mentioned, but I know I pictured a little girl. I don't know the age of the child either. I was baffled. I didn't know what else to ask. I walked back to the Center in silence searching the mountainside trying not to imagine the grief that a family knew that day. Because if I thought about it too long, the tears would fall and I didn't want the people in the village to see me crying.

Matthew, Brynna and I made it back up to the Center and we were wondering when Patrick, our food guy would show up. I let Matthew go on home for the day because he had put in a day's work and was flying out in the morning to go to the states for awhile.  So, I used the children to help me form just the right sentence to find out when Patrick would be there.

We agreed on this one, "Eske ou vini?" (Erin, don't laugh!) Which means, "are you coming?" Sent at 2:06 PM

Patrick replied, "Nn mwen preske rive." Which the kids tell me means, "I'm almost there." Sent at 2:13 PM

So, I make myself go sit with the staff and children and try to communicate with them the best I can. But, as I'm nearing the little porch area where usually only one or two staff will be sitting at a time, I realize they are ALL there. Even Madame Jacqueline with her apron on. There's no one busy around the stove cooking. Pastor Justin tells me in plain English, "there's no food to cook for the children." And I realize they are all standing around with nothing to do. The floors are swept, the laundry is hung, but the "food is finished!" That's how they say that something is empty. It's finished.

Pastor Justin proceeds to tell me that "there's a problem with the machine and Patrick is late. There's no food for the children." ("Machine" is a car, auto, vehicle.)

I go back to the classroom and check my phone. Yes, Patrick said he was "almost there!" So, what is going on? I'm thinking, "what would Erin do? What should I do?" as the sun is going down. Now, granted, the sun starts escaping Godet as 3:30 turns to 4:00 because it's so high in elevation. Remember it's where God creates the clouds! And there is NO electric in the Center in Godet. So, when the light is gone they can't see what they are doing.

Thankfully, a team that came last week with a door to hope were able to install two skylights to help them to see in their bedrooms! So, they are able to see much more and much longer than ever before, but still... it was beginning to get cold and dark.

So, I go back out to sit with the staff and kids again and try to solve this problem. I try to communicate with them and feel SO HELPLESS. Completely helpless. The children weren't complaining at all. But, I knew what was about to happen. They were about to go to bed hungry. I knew it was not as horrible to them because many of them had gone to bed hungry before they arrived at the Center night after night. But, I just couldn't go home to my comfy apartment and fix myself dinner in the dark with a flashlight knowing that they hadn't eaten. So, Brynna and I worked together to try to communicate. We used a kid or two and finally agreed that I'd give them some money to go in to town and buy SOMETHING to feed the children. So, I dipped into the pot and gave them a 1,000 goudes bill. I didn't have change and I didn't even know how much they would need to buy beans or rice or pate's or fried chicken from a street vendor. I gave it to Madame Janine and she took Natacha and they went to town. They came back with two bags. One with small packs of crackers and one with something we never saw for sure what it was. But, they lit the gas stove and started cooking as Madame Delcarme passed out the crackers to every child. Madame Janine brought me back 750 goudes change. So, for $5.55 US they fed the 16 children something hot last night.

As we were leaving the Center to come home for the night, Patrick, the food guy shows up. Good grief! So, I went back down and counted all that he brought and asked for a receipt so I could pay him. He gave me the receipt which had a Haitian dollar amount due. (The Haitian dollar doesn't exist. You can't touch it. It's not printed. It's not in circulation!) But, if you take the Haitian dollar amount and times it by 5 it gives you the goudes amount. So, I did that and then added on a little extra for the delivery fee. We exchanged a few words or really gestures... like - me pointing to the amount. Him counting the goudes cash. Me taking my calculator and showing him what it was supposed to be. It wasn't adding up exactly, but we had NO translator anywhere near. So, we finally agreed that it was a fair trade.

So, if you are exhausted from reading this, then surely you can feel our pain... I was completely and whole heartedly exhausted and wished upon every star that I could have communicated better at a million different times during the day. So, when you think of us, when you pray for us, please pray that our brains would be diligent to retain what we have studied of this beautiful language and culture. It will only help us to better know what's truly needed other than the obvious, Jesus.

Thankful that we have the Ultimate Interpreter/Translator: the Holy Spirit!

"Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, 13which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. 14But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.…" 1 Corinthians 2:13