e-mail from Haiti.

[greatauntoftriplets]

This was sent to me from the family of a young 20-something-year-old daughter of friends who is a teacher in Haiti. With hell breaking loose there, I hope that she is safe. Her heart is in the right place -- with helping the people.

And, yes, I intend to send her some money over the weekend.

Good Morning,

Was running a couple of weeks ago, and passed by the house that usually hands me an egg or an avocado on my way back. It is a family of 6: husband, wife, 4 kids. The husband reminds me of a coach. He always says,"keep it up, keep going strong, keep it hot!!!" It is great. His loud voice resonates in my head, and just when I feel like I want to quite, he inspires me a bit. Well, this time on my way back they had a large chicken upside down, ready to pass off to me. I stopped my running, and asked if they were planning to give it to me. They said yes. I asked if I could run with it in my hands. They said, "no problem." so there I was, running on the rocky roads of Haiti, on an island which has 100,000 people on it, with a chicken in my arms. I ran with a chicken. MAde me think of the movie "Chicken Run." But I was doing the running, not the chicken. This time when it was killed, I got to see it. Made me not want to eat it. I gave most of it away.

Things at the school where I am working here in Haiti are bouncing along. I have created a few books which are basic English and then they have the Haitian Kreyol translated at the bottom. The kids get a kick out of my artistry. Yeah, they think I am pretty good for not being an artist. I get to feel all proud of my malformed people, and donkeys and chickens because they don't have the practice of drawing on paper and coloring and therefore aren't as good at it. It makes me a little down when I ask them to draw something for a book that we made together and a few of them respond with "but I can't. I don't know how to draw people." It isn't all of the students, but some get all uptight because they want their work to be really beautiful because this is their chance to use paper and markers. They don't want to make a mistake. (gosh, don't we all feel like that?) They don't want to make something that is ugly. Some of the students have gotten over this bit of perfectionism, but it isn't all of them, and it is so hard to encourage them when they have their minds set.

The school has really been focusing on becoming a leader in the community by offering seminars for the two other local schools to come and join in on. We have people who have been coming to give seminars on science, and computers, and gardening. It has been wonderful.

Our garden is developing quite quickly with the help of seeds provided by an organization called ECHO. The students took about 2 months to remove all the rocks and gravelly parts in order to find some dirt we could use to grow the stuff. They also went on daily hunts for donkey and cow poop. It was quite entertaining to see the kids walking around with plastic bags of poop.

The water situation is pretty intense, although not as bad as last year. Last year, the springs were drying up, and people were standing in line for hours. Not to mention the horrible arguements that can arise as a result of loosing patience after standing in the sun for 6 hours just to get water to cook your dinner. The students agreed to each carry a gallon of water to school in order to help water the garden, and continue the construction we are doing on the school.

We are adding a two rooms for the first grade. The rooms are necessary because right now we have all 6 grades in one big room, and the noise can get pretty out of control if there is singing, and discussions all going on at the same time.

So, the school wants to continue to be a model school, and help other schools learn the alternative techniques to teach students and discipline them. We want to expose other teachers to the idea that talking to the kids the whole time doesn't help them as much as letting them work together to find the answer, or even come up with a question. The school has a teacher named Benaja who used to walk 10 hours to come to our school for seminars. He has been a teacher in our school for a year and a half now, and has been an asset to both implenting different teaching and discipline skills. He is also really interesting in community development, and as a result doesn't forget where he comes from. Pwent Latanye is the name of his community, and it is a village that is right on the shore. Lots of fish, seafood, coconuts, and white sand, but little or no water. An organization came and dug a well, but the well isn't very big, and as a result sometimes they have water rationing that allows for two cups of water for your bath.

The staff at a school in his community has expressed tremendous interest in coming and learning the techniques that we use at our school. Sometimes the director finds some cash to make it up here for a seminar, but not often enough to really get things going at his school. Our staff has been talking things over and would like to work with them. Our problem, like most people's problems in the world, stems from money. We don't have the money to fund their trip up to our school. They can't walk the 10 hours. Although Benaja has done it, he was younger, and more fit than some of them. Plus, he was exhausted by the time he got here. The staff here has discussed this problem round and round, and we know that we would be happy to give them food once they arrived, but the transport is still an issue.

I know this is a bit uncomfortable, but I am asking if it is possible for you to consider donating a dollar or more to this cause. It would be $60 dollars a month to transport 6 people here and back. The distance is a 6 hour trip because of the horrible roads. We would like them to come once a month, but we don't have any money to even get them here once. If you contributed one dollar, or even two, heck, that would be great. If we can get them here once, then they would see the school,and how we work, and it would at least give them a base. We would get them a basic training, and perhaps work from there. You know that dollar or two you spend for that cup of coffe, well, that can be at least a one way trip to our school to help a teacher help a classroom of at least 20 kids educate themselves and help a country develop.

I can't twist your arm, and I know being asked for money can bring up a certain feeling of discomfort at times, but please consider helping us. It is a great cause. Of course that is my opinion.

Thanks for listening.
Sarah
Teacher
Lekol Kominote Matenwa, Lagonav, Haiti