Haiti – A RetrospectiveJuly 11-18,, 2014

Chets Creek Church – Mission Group

Haiti and Population• Haiti and Population• Republic of Haiti - located on western third of the island of Hispanola. • Remainder of island occupied by the Dominican Republic. • Hispanola sits between the Caribbean Sea and North Atlantic Ocean.• Population: just shy of 10 million people. • 95% of Haiti's people of Haiti are black• 5% registering as white• 2.1 million in Port au Prince• Extremely congested city.

Haiti Language and Religion• Haiti Language• Haiti has two official languages: French and Haitian Creole. • French is language of the government and most businesses. • Many of Haiti's poorer residents speak only Creole.• Haiti Religion• Haiti's population is about 80% Roman Catholic, 16% Protestant

(Baptist 10%, Pentecostal 4%, Adventist 1%, other 1%), 1% of the population registers no religion, and 3% categorize their religion as “other”.• About half of Haiti's population also practices some form of voodoo.

Haiti Poverty

• Poverty: • Poorest country in the Western Hemisphere• 80% of Haiti's population below international poverty line of $2 a day • 54% are defined as living in abject poverty surviving on just $1.25 • Poverty levels reflected in a very high infant mortality rate• Poverty levels are also reflected in literacy statistics• Over 47% of Haiti's population is illiterate• Not enough public schools to accommodate Haiti's children • Most of Haiti's kids are forced to attend private schools which charge

between $100 and $200 a year per student

Observations and Facts Offered to Me**

• 60% unemployment rate; 95% of people have 5% of wealth and conversely.• Power:• At Christian Light School: commercial power is turned off around 3:30 – 4pm • NO power until around 9pm, (totally dark) at which time the CLT turns on its

inverters. • 9pm: inverter power is turned on - fans and some plugs available. • Power cut off around 3:30-4am; • Commercial power resumes around 6am, at which time one could get up and

take a cold shower.

• ** I do not know if all this is true, but generally, I heard these facts repeatedly.

Observations and Facts Offered to Me•Water: • No hot water. Showers consisted of a ¾” pvc pipe extending from the wall. • Get wet, turn off water, soap up/down, turn on water, and quickly rinse.

• A/C:• There is no air conditioning in much of Haiti except for the wealthy who live up in the

mountain.• Could see lights and power in mountains; knew there was air conditioning. • No A/C or anything closely resembling any kind of paved roads at/near CLS.• When power cut around 3:30am, one would best simply lie still on bed, as it was dark,

quite humid.• Sounds of the night were pervasive: (Roosters, dogs, occasional screams, and voodoo

drums.)

Observations and Facts Offered to Me•Water (revisited).• Nearly daily, water was delivered into a cistern, at which time most

was pumped up onto large holding tanks. • Some water for showering; some for cooking and consumption.

• Drinking water had a terrible taste in it – much calcium. • Used Mia to flavor the water so it was drinkable. • Ice was a scarce commodity, and was closely rationed. • Used to chill drinks, when available. Otherwise, the water was tepid.

Observations and Facts Offered to Me• Sanitation.• This is a difficult subject to convey. Toilets (but there were western

toilets, thank God) were (at least at CLS) available. • Emphatically told to not flush the toilets. • ‘If it is yellow, let it mellow; if it is brown, flush it down.’ • As unsettling as this is, much more unsettling was the fact that toilet

tissue could not be flushed down the toilet; rather, upon use, it was put into a small bucket along side the toilet to gather during the day.• Once a day (we were told), a house attendant would gather up the

contents of these buckets and ‘take care’ of them, only to restart the next day.

Observations and Facts Offered to Me• Poverty:• Poverty was as bad as I have seen it, and I have seen some. • Living facilities consisted of some lean tos, tarps, corrugated

materials, sheets, and similar materials constituted ‘walls’ on huts in the ‘baby-feeding’ area, called the ravine or tent city. • Pictures shout volumes.• Will show pictures of CLS and surrounding area.

Observations and Facts Offered to Me• Education. • Most feel that this is the key to the future – at least those who care. • CLS feeds the very small five days a week with peanut butter and baby

formula mixture brought to the ravine by CLS volunteers. (Pix coming) • Babies weighed one a week and tracked. • Goal: enable learning biologically; • Children so dramatically undernourished no learning could take place.• For the last several years, CLS has been making a real difference, and the

small kids we saw were not too bad, although there were major exceptions. (see website)

Observations and Facts Offered to Me• Women are discriminated upon in countless ways, ranging from their place to

raise children and serve the man and little encouragement for education. Expectations for women are nearly non-existent these regions. • They live to have babies and serve the man. Period. • Women have little / no recourse to complain should they be beaten or otherwise

mistreated. • The police are very corrupt as is the government, and the woman has no place to

go – although I have heard that this is changing very slowly.

• If a man beats a woman, then it is clearly deserved. • Similarly, if the woman fails to bear a child within a year of marriage, the man

may annul the marriage and the woman is persona-no-grata and has little (no) chance to remarry, since she is barren. • These often turn to prostitution for survival.

Observations and Facts Offered to Me• VooDoo I am told that when the French colonized Haiti, they essentially

exterminated the indigenous Indians and then brought slaves over from French Africa. • These were exploited savagely. • I am told (needs to be verified…) that the black made a pact with the devil

that if he, Satan, delivered them from the French, that they would serve him. He did and they do.

• Every night the very distinctive drums of voodoo are clearly heard, especially when power is turned off during the wee early hours of the morning. • I am told that many are Christian on Sundays but practice vudo during the

rest of the week…

Observations and Facts Offered to Me• People.• The individual people we met were wonderful and cheerful. • Children and mothers (saw few fathers) in the tent city were so grateful that

we brought them food, nourishment, vitamins, soup, etc..

• They smiled and were a delight. • The little children are also precious. It is very easy to see how one could

become so involved in trying to help their plight. • This may be attributable to their not knowing any other kind of existence and

realizing that there are some who wish to help.

Observations and Facts Offered to Me•Missions.• Many groups sending individuals many places in Haiti to assist in

many ways. • Port Au Prince, I am told, was one of the more advanced areas, and

that there were other missions in the mountains that were much more desolate and deprived than we saw.

• The population density in Port Au Prince was high. • Several other mission locations and schools in Haiti.• See website for more information.