Repeat Ron’s Ramble Centre Vie Thursday March 10, 2011 to go with pictures posted March 22 2011.

Repeat Ron’s Ramble Centre Vie Thursday March 10, 2011 to go with pictures posted March 22 2011.

Pick up time 8 am …….I am ready after a small breakfast of boiled eggs (lol…that is all they had), didn’t try the wieners, fruit or other stuff.………I am ready………I am ready.

O.K., so it is just hurry up and wait…….no problem I am ready………………….. I will wait.

9:06 am the driver arrives to pick me up….no problem……………

Off we go continuing at high speed on good road for 15 minutes till we enter under the arches which reads “ Beinvenue St.Marc’s” and into the congestion of the city. It isn’t long till we are on narrow crowded streets teeming with people, cars, brilliantly multi colored trucks and buses overloaded with passengers and merchandize, horses and riders, donkeys and huge loads, rubble and garbage strewn everywhere.

I usually like to write of the beauty in the countries I am involved in mission in and the beauty in the faces of the people I meet. I am having difficulty with that in Haiti. If anyone reading this is taken offence to my description of Haiti, I want to apologize right now, however, when I came over that border I entered a different country, island, continent, world and universe.

The sparkle in the eyes of the people is not here; the beauty of the flowers is not here; the rubble and garbage and smell are overwhelming. There must be flowers there must be smiles, but where are they? My mind and my camera are only picking up the sadness of this ‘very dark’ country. It is not the visible darkness of the “voodoo stories” of the jungle chanting, dancing and drums beating that you see in the movies. I saw that more in the “voodoo village “right across the creek from Ascension Village near Puerto Plata where LaTienda and Rachel are in the Dominican Republic……..and even that voodoo village has flowers and laughter and kids playing ball and running around being happy.

Here in Haiti even though the sun is shining very brilliantly and hot, it feels dark and cold and unfriendly.

HOWEVER………….that does not mean I (we) shouldn’t be here………………it probably means we need even more help here.

Out of the city up into mountain non roads, no less people, vehicles, animals, etc. we climb closer to our destination. Centre Vie Orphanage, at Barbe. Although we are (I think) out of the city, there are still houses everywhere including right beside the 10-12 foot rusted sheet steel gate and walled with barb wire topped concrete blocks of the Centre Vie compound. So, we are remote, but packed with people and traffic.

The gate squeaks open for us as we drive in. It is 10:30 am or so and it is already smothering hot. My first really, really hot day.

As we climb up the very steep rough terrain to the first of 3 main buildings, I can hear DD speaking loudly in French, giving the children some coaching, I believe, on how to behave/perform today for the guest from Canada.

The Centre is an orphanage developed from many sets of ‘miraculous’ partnerships after the January 12, 2010 Haitian earthquake.
If, I have understood DD correctly, the buildings here were originally another school, (St. Patricks’, for older children) which moved to a more convenient location down in the city in Pont Tambour across the street from the Rayjon Offices, after the earthquake and also to make room for the orphanage to take over.

With earthquake relief funding the small two room dormitory was built, a storeroom was turned into a kitchen, and two latrines and two showers were built as well.

The 3 main buildings on the site are

1. The school comprised of two open rooms, a chapel, storage, pharmacy, and office and clothing and food rooms.
2. The dormitory comprised of two rooms with 7 and 5 wooden bunk beds and mattresses and sheets. A night person room is built with wood sheeting in the girls’ side. Some smaller children (who might wet the bed still) sleep on mattresses on the floor, which now are drying in the sun on the steel roof of the dorm. (Total children 29 at the present time).
3. The dining hall with tables covered in sheets for table clothes seats twenty nine tiny bodies to enjoy their meals at and the kitchen is in an adjoining room accessed from the outside.
The latrines and showers are in separate small buildings further up the rugged hill dusty dirt and rock behind the side of the dorm building. The only flowers I see growing are some plants and bushes in front of the Dorm building in the partial shade.

The site is small but gives the impression it is massive, because it is literally built into the hill and each building has many multiples levels with high steps between some of the rooms as the room grows further up the hill. Everything is built of grey concrete. The roofs are metal sheeting held up with wood beams and wooden top sills.

After the tour of the facilities the “program” begins for me to video tape.

When you look for the Centre Vie pictures in this blog, I am not adding the children’s pictures out of respect for their dignity and privacy. This blog is an open blog and can be seen by anyone in the world who finds it. So I am not showing any identifiable pictures of the the Centre Vie children on this blog.

The purpose of my mission to Centre Vie is to bring greeting to the children from some of the sponsors in Canada (Via DVD – they loved it) and to make a DVD documentary for Centre Vie and the sponsors. If you want more information on the sponsorship program please contact the Sponsorship Coordination Breanna at bremic@hotmail.com or check out the link to the Centre Vie Sponsorship Website. http://lifecentre.weebly.com

If you want just general inquiries or information or anything in my blog you can contact me at ronwferguson@hotmail.com. If you want me to not delete you from my junk box, insert in the subject line something about “Ron’s Rambles”…so I might open if you are a stranger to me………..lol.

O.K……………………… the program.

The children all dressed in their pristine uninforms with six girls and on boy dressed in performance costumes, sing songs (in French for me) and do some dance routines for me.

Then for the sponsors DVD I attempt to get a new up to date March 10, 2011 photo of each child. Somehow 3 of them “got away” on me, but we are working on identifying them from the group photos……lol.

After the photo shoot and some thank you greetings to me for coming I have an opportunity through the miracle of laptop and DVD to show the children the greetings some of the personal greetings their sponsors have sent them.

It is lunch time.

Lunch, which I had privilege of seeing and smelling and videoing/picturing them cooking was a large bowl of beans and rice and chicken, as well as cooked diced carrots and beets. And special for me to help settle my stomach a coke. DD says that “coke” has some rehydration qualities in it. It was cold and sure tasted good with my spoonful of rice and beans and carrots and beets.

That kept me going for the afternoon.

The school at Centre Vie teaches 13 of the children who are younger and need more individual coaching.

14 children walk a kilometer or so each day into the local “Dorval” village school.

After lunch we headed out for a second school (and health clinic), where two of the oldest children attend during the week and return “home” on the weekends.

On the road again higher and lower into and over and down the mountains on gravel roads/paths having theological discussions between DD & I as we and several others travel to “Centre ‘Sante Michael’ Gilbert” in partnership with “Rayjon Share Care Canada-Haiti”, where the second school and medical clinic are located. There is lots of laughter and teasing in our discussions and our hope of all denominations working together to sow Christ’s true message of love and compassion for “His” people throughout the world.

The orphanage is an offshoot od DD’s many years of her labors of love and compassion in Haiti trying to make(and accomplishing) a difference. This clinic at Gilbert established in 1995 is an example of this. There is a village somewhere below the clinic which I did not have time to see. Without seeing the village the clinic appears to really be “in the middle “of everywhere and remote from all. It was crucial and all beds filled when the earthquake hit.

Finally, along with Centre Vie, I see rays of hope as the hot sun beams down on Centre St Michael’s. the rays of hope are also captured on the rooftop solar panels which provides the electricity for the several ‘immaculately clean” and well equipped clinical buildings on the site.

Here again we show via laptop and DVD the sponsors greetings, receive a song and snap pictures of the last two children. There are several classes of children attending this school for the village of Gilbert.

After Gilbert, we retrace our bumpy dusty hot ride back past Centre Vie and the down into the city (St. Marc’s) to the Rayjon Offices at Pont Tambour burrow.

We arrived just in time for me to video the closing song in the courtyard of St. Patrick’s School.
It was a long hot wonderful day for me and after some discussions with DD at the offices about various
Sponsorship processes; we said our good byes and the driver took me back to the beach Resort.

First stop bed for ½ hr. then a rinse in the pool and a walk on the beach and video and pictures of the
accommodations in case a sponsorship team might ever want to come to further assist at Centre Vie (if we are invited) to do some painting, decorating, planting, teaching or just hugging of the kids in the future.

I only walked along the beach, not in it because even the coastline was litter with trash. The beach sand was fine and the accommodations were modest but exceptionally clean. It was I assume just trash drifting along the coastline form????????????

As we drove into the complex each time there was a check point which was a basin of about 6 inches of water 30 feet long. As we stopped an attendant approached with a pressure washer and sprayed all of the tires and undercarriage. In the dining room there was an attendant with hand sanitizer and you had to wash your hands after wiping your shoes on special foot matts. So the accommodations are clean and safe. And the Caribbean view and sunset is amazing in the cooling air as the coconut palms wave in the breeze.

Supper (after the shoe wipe and hand wash) a fried tomato, some mousaka, and French fries, and several glasses of water.

A few minutes on the internet and early bed for 5 am wake up for 6am departure for bus station.

1:30 am I am using my bucket wondering why I ate the musaka???????????????….lol

5a m my phone alarm going off for 5:30 am pick up.

5:30am waiting at lobby
5:55am calling DDD because no driver and we won’t get to bus on time.

DD from her sleep informs me it is only 5 am………I got up at 4 am………………………..no one ever told me there was a time change in Haiti…………..so yesterday the driver was on time at 8am………lol

NO Problem driver arrives at 5:23 and we are on the road again back to Port Au Prince and al the same sights as on the way out.

By now I am a little accustomed to the culture shock/differences/contrasts and I am thinking I will see more of the same back in the DR.

The second we crossed the mountain passage border the sun’s brilliance changed back to less “rubbagged” streets, the homes were painted, streets paved and the flowers came back. I was in shock again.

I had taken the time to find the starfish story on the web because it keeps entering my mind. Here is maybe a more accurate version:

“Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young man paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean.”

“I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?” asked the somewhat startled wise man.

To this, the young man replied, “The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.”

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, “But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can’t possibly make a difference!”

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, “I made a difference to that one!”

As impossible as it may seem can we make a difference to one in Haiti? I think we have made a big difference for 29 “starfish” in Haiti.

Ron (old camera guy in Haiti for 48 hours).

(remember only for 48 hours ….so don’t judge Haiti by my short visit comments……I really did not want to leave…….honest!)