Chosen

Before I explain Gertrude’s orphanage I would like to give a quick explanation of this trip so far. My word of the day today is trapped. Initially one might assume that by “trapped” I am referring to the people of Haiti and the poor country that they reside. Any of you reading this who HAVE NOT visited Haiti could sympathize with this statement. These people are struggling and they do not have the option to leave, it seems like a pretty straightforward metaphor, but it is not that simple. Visiting this struggling country is giving me a chance to see deeper and to empathize rather than sympathize with Haitians. They live in some of the poorest slums of the world yet they have the biggest and brightest smiles I have ever seen. It sounds so cliché to say that, but the emotion is impossible to describe. The happiness and sadness that is experienced down here is so contradictory that it overwhelms you and tares your heart apart.

Upon arriving at Gertrude’s we were met by a woman named Lauren who helps care for the 45-55 children that live in the house at any given time. Lauren led us to the back of the house where class was being held. The children ranged from age 3 to 20 and half had visible disabilities. When we walked into the classroom area an older child walked up to me and grabbed my shirt with both hands. Valarie, our Haitian guide, laughed and told me, “uh oh, he chose you!” This thin Haitian boy holding my shirt stood about 4 and a half feet tall to me, but would have easily stood 5 and a half feet tall with the ability to stand up straight. His stance was a crouched position as if he had been holding a 100 pound weight on his shoulders since birth. When he released my shirt, he patted my chest then patted his own and quickly removed his shirt. He handed it over to me and pointed at his chest. I looked over at Valerie and he told me that he wanted me to put the shirt back on him. I delicately put the shirt over his head and helped each of his decrepit arms back into the sleeves and gave him a big smile. He smiled back and then removed his shirt again… That is when I realized what Valerie’s “uh oh” meant. This process repeated itself 7 times over before Lauren led us back over to the entrance where we went into a rehabilitation room. We brought 7 children with us that each had different special needs. Each of the members of our group worked personally with the child that stood out most to us. 

I stuck with the child that chose me. He started screaming with excitement when he realized that we were going into the rehab room because he knew that there were toys to play with in the room. Lauren told me that if abled, he would spend his entire day in that room playing with the Legos. The funny thing is, he did not even understand how to put Legos together. He would just hold them in his hands, put them in piles, dump the bucket out, and clean them up. It was like playing with a 9 month old child when given legos. I tried to help teach him how to put the Legos together, but he just could not comprehend. 

Within this room there was 7 different individual stories going on like this. In this room was a child whose crib was accidentally lit on fire by a candle, a young girl who had almost no physical capability at all, a young girl who knew how to walk but refused to do so in hope that somebody would push her in a wheelchair. All of the volunteers in this room grew a strong attachment to these children over the hour or so that we were there, but the story that stood out to me most was Willie, one of my teammates, and the motionless and emotionless child that he was rubbing lotion onto. Willie was rubbing this child’s muscles for probably 30 minutes with no sight of emotion. None of the toys in the room could conjure a smile from this child. Then I heard a laugh and looked over at the two. Willie was tickling this child to the result of an abundance of smiles and giggles! This moment made me realize that there was hope for these children and also the children of Haiti.

Austin