Bernard has
a really nice fishing boat that is only a few minutes’ drive from the hotel. We
had to take one that was big enough to hold 15 of us! We were also bringing with us an
entire suitcase full of radios, batteries, candy, toothbrushes, and toothpaste.
The ride to Gros Mangle should have taken an hour, but was only about 45 minutes with Bernard behind the
wheel. The ocean was a beautiful glassy blue and the mountains set a stunning
backdrop. One thing that struck me though was the amount of garbage floating
everywhere. In the States, there would be activists all over that with “green”
initiatives and such. Here, no one is really concerned about it… they have a
few other priorities. There is no trash service in most areas, so if you need
to throw something away it either goes on the ground or into the ocean.
The girls
got to ride on the front of the boat while Dad, Jim, and Ben sat up top. At one
point, dozens of dolphins began jumping around our boat, swimming in the wake
or along the front. Even the Haitians who were helping out on the boat were
ecstatic!
As Gros
Mangle came into view, three of our FFP fishing boats came speeding out to
greet us and escort us to shore. There were school children, villagers, and a
priest ready to greet us as we got off the boats. They led us to a small
makeshift shelter where the inauguration ceremony was to be held. The local
Catholic priest gave thanks to us and to Bernard for all we had done for them.
He also addressed the urgent needs the village still has. As it turns out, Gros
Mangle has no clean water, or even fresh water to drink. They collect what they
can from the rain, but it is not nearly enough. On top of that, the sanitation
conditions are horrible. The only sanitation units they have are the two stalls
that we built on the backside of their gear shed. In a town with hundreds of
families, that is nowhere near sufficient. They essentially have to go in the
woods. This exposed waste puts them at a high risk for Cholera- a disease that
is easily treated if you have access to a hospital, but can be deadly if you do
not.
The mayor
of the town told us that there was a huge Cholera outbreak soon after our fishing
boats were delivered to the island. The mainland (where the nearest hospital is
located) is 50 miles away, and none of the old boats are really equipped to
travel that distance across the ocean. He said that the fishermen who were
given FFP boats went around the entire island picking up anyone who was ill and shuttling
them to the hospital in the mainland. The four boats had to make multiple
trips, but they were able to save 130 lives! Once again, I am just astounded by
the grace of God. It continues to amaze me how He can take our relatively small contribution and
use it for a plan that is 1,000 times better than anything I could have imagined. Our mission was to provide food, jobs, and hope with these fishing
boats. We never dreamed that the boats would save so many lives in this unforeseen way!
After
hearing that story, I think just about anything could have happened and the day
still would have a success. Once the priest blessed the boats and everyone said
a few words, they showed us around the village a bit. There was a boy named
Wycliffe who had clung to my side when we first got off the boats. He stuck
with me as we went on our tour. He was probably eleven or twelve years old, but
he was the sweetest boy ever! I am literally in love with this kid! I even gave
him my colorful floral sunglasses and he wore them with pride… what a stud! Anyway,
the first place we toured was the new gear shed. As expected, it was filled
with fishing supplies, lifejackets, coolers, and freezers. On the backside are two
stalls- one is a shower and the other a toilet- and a large cistern for collecting
rain water. A solar panel nearby powers the freezers and a streetlight.
While we
were in the gear shed, we figured that that was the best place to distribute all of the items we had brought. We dumped the contents of our suitcase into an empty
cooler. All of the hygiene items were left there for the mayor to distribute,
but we handed out the radios ourselves. The extra batteries were divided into
groups of 15 and put in baggies. Seeing as we couldn’t give a radio to
everyone, each of us was told to grab one child and bring him or her in. I
chose Wycliffe, of course. He was thrilled to have that new radio to bring home!
The rest, I believe were given to the captains of our FFP boats. Overall this may not
have been the best way to handle it, because naturally everyone was begging us
for radios, even when we had run out of them. In hindsight, we probably should
have left everything with the mayor to distribute after we were gone.
The same
was true with the loads of candy we brought- breaking it out in front of a
crowd of children was probably not the greatest idea. Lets just say that Lainey
was completely swarmed! All the while, the rest of us stood back laughing and
taking pictures. She is used to handling a lot of kids, coming from a family of
11, but this may have been a tad bit overwhelming. However, the amazing thing
was that after pushing and shoving to get their Smarties, they all went out and
shared with other kids, keeping only one or two little pieces for themselves. I
was struck by how similar and different they were from American kids like me.
We too would have swarmed and fought for the best candies, but I don’t remember
ever willingly sharing the majority of it with others.
Next, the
kids led us down the dirt road to see their school building. Although I didn’t
get to see much of it, I was very impressed and it was obvious that the kids
were incredibly proud to be attending school.
There was a little girl who crawled into Lainey’s lap in one of the
classrooms that was probably the sickest child we saw there. She was skinny
with filmy, glazed-looking eyes. She didn’t talk or laugh or really have much
energy at all. I noticed some other signs of malnutrition among the children
there, although not as obvious as in other villages. Common indicators include
bloated bellies, protruding belly buttons, orange-ish hair, open sores, thin
arms and legs, and filmy or yellowed eyes. It is heartbreaking to play with these sweet kids and see noticeable signs of malnutrition. I cannot imagine the excruciating pain
they have to go through on a daily basis.
The mayor
showed us a well near the school that we had seen children drinking from. The
first thing I noticed was that the water was very dirty and there was trash in
at the bottom of the well. But even worse was the fact that the water was
brackish, or salty. Although they had tried to dig away from the ocean, they
were unable to find fresh water. I could not believe that this was what those
tiny bodies were consuming every day. Water is the most basic necessity for survival,
and theirs is not only dirty but salty too! Jim and I both knew right away that
we had stumbled upon “Casting Hope, Phase II.” We had to get these people
drinkable water.
Eventually,
the time came to say goodbye and hop back on our boat. It was so difficult to
part and I wished we could have stayed longer! But we took a few last photos
with the fishing boats, said our sad goodbyes, and headed off. On the boat ride home,
Bernard took us to see one of his FADs. It stands for “Fish Attracting Device" and is an important part of the fishing village project. The device is an original invention of Bernard's, which he has built and stationed in FFP fishing villages all
over Haiti. I won’t get into how it is made, but essentially it creates
vegetation, which attracts small sea creatures, which attract small fish, which
attract bigger and bigger fish. The FAD itself floats near the surface, but is
anchored to a 50-gallon drum that is sunk to the bottom of the ocean. It
circulates in a ½ mile to a mile radius. The fishermen in our village have a
GPS that can locate it and tell them where the best fish will be. As we passed
by it, I spotted a Mahi-Mahi and Bernard saw a shark. The men on the boat made the unanimous
decision to drop a line and troll for a bit. They wanted to “make sure this FAD
was functioning correctly.” Seeing as Jim and my dad are huge fishing fanatics,
I highly doubt that was their motivation. Before we knew it, there was a fish
on the line. Jim was strapped into the fighting chair in a matter of seconds
and reeled in his 15-pound (or 1,000-pound if you ask him) Mahi-Mahi. He could not have been more proud of that fish! Once the
excitement of the fish died down, we crawled back up on the front of the boat
and sped toward shore at a gentle 55 mph.
^The FAD
It was really difficult to fall asleep tonight. I had so much racing through my head. I was
so full of joy and excitement from seeing all that our donations had done for
the people of Gros Mangle! But at the same time, I was too disturbed to sleep. My mind kept going back to my little buddy, Wycliffe. I wanted so badly to
protect him and give him a good life, but there was so much I did not even know
about him. I wondered if he would fall asleep tonight with hunger pains. I
wondered if his parents were abusive, or if they were even alive. It kills me
to imagine that this precious boy has to put his life at risk every day just to go to the
bathroom or drink water. It breaks my heart to think that he might go days
without a good meal or a loving kiss on the forehead. I feel like a mother
constantly worrying about him like this! But I can’t help it; I fell in love
with a village and with a sweet little boy today.
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