Return to Haiti

I spent the night in an orphanage in Port au Prince Thurs. I had first been to this orphanage to ask the director about child trafficking in their area which is known as Delmas. She told me that she would see the trafficked and street children behind the house using the gully there as a path. She would invite some of these children in to play with the orphanage children and give them something to eat before they left. The orphanage is always full so she is not able to keep those children, but is able to feed them when they come. She said it is extremely difficult for children to exist on their own without any help on the street so usually they do have an adult in their life, and often that adult expects them to earn money. They are often taught to beg, steal or prostitute themselves to earn that money.

Many children are given away by their parents in Haiti because they can not afford to provide for them. They may give them up hoping the child is able to find a better life with the person they are being entrusted to, but all too often this is not the case. The orphanage director and other directors told me they were frequently asked to take in children by parents who can not afford to keep them.

This time when I came I found a mattress had been put on the living room floor for a mother and her 2 day old baby. Dominese, the mother, lost her husband in the quake in Haiti. She and their child were spared. Dominese was 6 months pregnant and now had no home to live in. Dominese's sister also died in the quake, but her 2 children lived. So Dominese took in both of her sister's children so she now had to provide for herself and 3 children with no place to go. The orphanage director gave her a tent and allowed her to put it up on the orphanage grounds.

On Tues. night it rained very hard in Port au Prince and Dominese's tent flooded. She went to the clinic that the orphanage maintains and went into labor. Fortunately, a new team of volunteers had just arrived that day and there was a doctor and nurse at the clinic. Although they did not have any medicine to ease the pain of labor for Dominese, the birth was normal and they were able to assist in a successful delivery for the mother and her new daughter.

written by Sandra Kirkpatrick to be continued