Week One... and Following

The first week of school brings crying three year olds -- because starting preschool is rough, y'all -- but also little people carefully tracing letters into sand trays and wearing the number one on a string around their necks. It brings rainbow colored scarves and watercolor projects that we hang up in the classroom, a dozen stories already read and a 2nd grader who writes that the best thing about flying would be being able to reach all of the mangos.

The PE teacher is teaching them to juggle and jog and toe off their shoes to join him on the mats when it is time to follow a video. The art teacher builds mandalas on the ground and laughs at the three year olds with their armfuls of rocks because, "They are having so much fun!"

Science, History, French, Reading, Writing, and Math fill the rest of the day for the 1st-3rd graders, and they are beginning to be better than I am at knowing what comes next.

Our new ones -- and there are a lot of new ones, 30+ of them -- settle in quickly, and the third graders are all giggles when they get to try their hand at Reader's Theater with a beloved teacher.

It's been two weeks, and, already, our amazing staff have largely worked me out of a job. I help find lost things, occasionally help shell eggs for morning snack, and give out lots and lots of hugs (#dreamlife). The rest, they've got covered.

In fact, they've got it so covered that, on November 30th, I will be bowing out.

I'll take the next six weeks to organize the remnants of summer messes, to train an intern who will keep the papers straight while I am gone, to give out all of the hugs, to walk little people home whenever they ask, and to let the four year old fall asleep on me after school when he simply wants to be held.

And, then, I will be moving back to the States to give everyone the space to fly on their own.

Because, oh my goodness, are they so very, very ready.

The plan is to visit a few times (potentially in January, April, and June) to check in and make sure that the teachers still have everything that they need to be awesome, and, in between time, to jump back in to life in the Tri-Cities.

Which is crazy and exciting and a little bit more crazy, as I begin to look into apartments and super flexible jobs, but also a testament to the volunteer labor of dozens of volunteers; the amazing support that has been given by friends and family in the States; the many, many hours of prayer and years of work that went into this school before I ever showed up; and the teachers who prepare day after day to pour into the "hardest working kids in all of Haiti."

One thousand and ten percent surrounded by rock stars, and excited to see what this next season holds for all of us.

In the meantime, I'll be filing papers, giving out hugs and buying a plane ticket!

God in the Middle

Every few days, my phone buzzes to remind me of another team that was canceled during the unrest in early July, and I am reminded that the way we choose narratives, the way that we tell stories, matters.

"God called me to go to Haiti this summer."

Is it that simple? Or, could it have been, perhaps, that God called you to be a part of a Haiti team? That God called you to be faithful to say yes? That God called you to tie your life together with these other people who bought the same plane tickets but has intentions for you somewhere closer to home? Could this be a part of a long plan and a bigger story?

The nuances in our narratives matter.

It matters that we listen to the "stay" just as much as to the "go." It matters that we do more than simply take these things that we want to do and slap a layer of Christianese over the top. It matters that we are careful in the words that we use and the expectations that we set up for ourselves and others.

It matters that we look for the Grace in all of it.

Grace, that, maybe, when we sat down with the interns at the beginning of the summer and put all of those adventures on the calendar, the One Who Sees knew that our kids needed a quiet month of water fights and morning walks and movie nights instead.

Grace for spending the rest of the year bringing in visitors in intentional groups of twos and threes and fours, rather than the floods of teams that were supposed to define our August. Grace when doing so changes the way that funding comes in, because teams and donors are often one and the same. Grace when teams that had been scheduled find themselves caught in that movie cliche.

"We'll go anywhere you ask. We'll do anything you need."

"We need you not to come."

Grace for a team of teenagers in the Tri-Cities who are using this week to join in as part of a larger family instead, to serve closer to home, to honor the voices that asked them to help by staying. It's disappointing, and it is hard, and it hurts when the thing that you were so excited about get pulled out from under you. This isn't how they thought their summer was going to play out. But, they are choosing to Love enough to listen.

And, really, perhaps, in the layers and nuances of all of this, in the waiting and the watching, in the tug of war between Justice and Order, the best thing that we can do is listen.

Watch. Read. Learn.

Put the time into understanding more than the shallow headlines, into studying history and learning the patterns that are bubbling back up to the surface again. Into understanding debt and occupation and coups and embargoes and revolution. Into coming to grips with this place in the Caribbean where Che Guevara and NBA players occupy the same wall, where other countries have hurt and helped and hurt again, where NGOs have had free reign to do as they please.

Because, in the midst of Grace, as a result of Grace, as those compelled by Grace, we have a sacred duty to be generous with our time, to be generous with our heart space and our head space, to "grow in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man."

The Big Truck That Went By

When Helping Hurts

Travesty in Haiti

Foreign to Familiar

History of Haiti

Haitian Revolution

Ugly History

In Haiti

Divided Island

Geography Now! Haiti

Haiti: Pearl of the Antilles

In Which I Fall for the Beautiful Facade

Dependency: Steve Saint

Recent Events

Recent Events 2

Jubilee USA Network

Because, in the midst of all of the mess and the hard and the confusing, in the midst of individuals and international entities, here, in the middle of our humanity, we find the same God who stepped into the heat and the mess and the politics of 1st century Palestine.

Coups. Debt. Occupation. Revolution. A history of slavery and freedom. A small nation surrounded by a bigger and more powerful world. A mixing of languages and cultures. This is the world in which the Bible was written. This was Jesus' world. This is Jesus' world.

This is where we find Beauty and Light and Healing, right in the middle of everything that is hard. 

Right in the moments where we can most see the need for a Christ who reconciles all things. Right where our brokennesses least fit together. Right where we are the most tired or the most disappointed or the most hurt. Right when it seems like it been too long since we heard the voice of God. Right where it seems the most difficult to see the Holy in anything, let alone everything.

When we come in without knowing the stories and the history, we all too easily miss our chance to see where God is at work in the middle. In the family that is getting a chicken coop for the first time. In the little one who gets to go for a summer visit with her auntie and mama. In the countless people across a beautiful country who are working to balance justice and order, liberation and calm.

The story isn't simple. It never will be. But, that doesn't mean that it isn't worth it.

Let's be careful with our narratives. Let's be humble. Let's learn. And, let's stay flexible.

After all, nothing is certain until it's history -- and, even then, it can be re-written. :)

Year End

 

Some things are the same across cultures, the slowness of the last few days of school, the careful tracking of who is or isn't already done, the stress of finals, and the disorienting excitement of finally making it to summer break – even amongst the ones who are too little to know what we mean by the phrase. 

 We finish off the school year with face paint and pictures in front of wings that they worked together to color. With eggs before the ceremony starts and cookies and pop after, and with thank you's for the teachers and staff. 

 Parents pack onto the school bus with us, and the kids dress in their favorite, cleanest, brightest non-uniform clothes for the occasion, so that we are a riot of color lined up in desks under the mango tree.  

Every kid gets a colorful pencil, an eraser, a sharpener, and two lollipops in a blue and white striped plastic baggie. The little ones get their report cards in folders that their teachers have spent hours coloring and decorating, and a few of the oldest ones are gifted with a beautiful new Jesus Storybook Bible. 

The teachers pin up balloons and streamers in the lower classroom, and a large speaker follows us off of the bus. Because, nothing is a party if there isn't music. 

 "I am the hardest working kid in all of Haiti!" 

They say it a dozen times just on this final morning alone, as we're trying to cement it into their minds before we hand out report cards, just how proud we are of them. Proud of the days that they came to school tired or hungry or worried about something that had happened at home. Proud of the days that they had a bad moment but they made it work anyways. 

Proud of the good days when they were certain of all of the right answers and proud of the days when they took a deep breath and tried again. 

All of them had half a year to try to jump 1-2 grade levels, after almost a full year away. 80% of them pulled it off. 

Let me say that again: 80% of our kids came in behind and still passed their grade in the space between January and June. 

In case you were wondering, that is pretty stinking impressive. We don't tell these kids that they are hard workers just to make them feel better! 

Grade levels aren't tied so much to birthdates here, and kids aren't pushed ahead simply because the rest of their class is moving up. You either pass or you don't, and, if you don't, you try again. 

Our 20% will meld with the kids who were a class below them, they'll take a deep breath, and they'll try again. And, they still will be the hardest working kids in all of Haiti. 

We'll spread out the curriculum, slow it down and insert all of the pieces that we didn't have time for in this year's breakneck schedule. We'll switch up who is teaching what classes and take the time for trainings and workshops that we weren't able to before. 

We'll work our tails off this summer to get it all ready, and we'll start back in the fall, not at a perfect school, but at one that is as good as we can make it. 

One where we continue to give out hugs and bandaids. One where kids come knowing that they will be fed. One where visitors remark on the calm and the peace and the good manners of our children, not because they have been threatened or cajoled into submission, but simply because these kids like it here. Because they feel safe. Because they feel loved. 

Because they are super smart and super kind and good listeners and the hardest working kids in all of Haiti. 

Because, we like good grades, but we celebrate progress. 

Good job, kids. Here's to a hot, sweaty summer of making things happen.

Neptune

"Madam Natacha, how far was Neptune?" 

 Our teachers' meeting starts with the same teasing question that has been asked a dozen times today, because this staff knows that you don't waste a good tease by only using it once. 

 Neptune was far. Out the gate and down the road and around the corner. Carefully counted out with three different classes of children. Three steps between the sun and Mercurcy. Six between Mercury and Venus. Two hundred sixty-nine between Uranus and Neptune. And, for once, we are glad that Pluto is no longer a planet. 

 As they go, they mark each spot with flat orange cones, balancing a rock on top from the planets set that our last set of World Racers painted for us. Counting slowly, carefully, heel to toe, heel to toe, the kindergarten boys running circles around their group and falling to the ground to wrestle somewhere near Mars. 

 We've done coloring pages and watched awesome videos put out by the European Space Agency, spent two weeks talking about stars and planets and convincing them that there is so much more to the story than simply, "God made them." Let's discover together how very incredible this universe is. 

The day that Natacha marks out the solar system with them, we spend our staff meeting talking about planets and orbits and rotations and seasons. How do you get from Earth to Mars? Why are days and years different on different planets? Did you know that they found a planet made of X? Notebooks become planets on the floor, because we have teachers who genuinely love to learn and to discover and to share. 

 And, everyone know how far Neptune is. 

 Because, ya know, why not get super excited about things? Why not trust the five year olds with oil pastels and let the art teacher give watercolors to the three year olds, even though we don't have paint smocks yet? Why not read stories and more stories and more stories? 

 Why not take the time to be gentle with kids who are at an age where so few things are gentle? 

 The 2nd graders start their Mondays with paints and brushes and then move to the other side of the wall to cluster up into tight huddles and take turns reading stories out loud. History means sitting on the cool floor of our largest classroom, and, if they are lucky, being read another story. 

 Recess. Lunch, where yet another teacher reads yet another story. Writing, sprawled out on their stomachs, brand new notebooks in hand. Math with ten students and half as many teachers. French and the hope for a few minutes to play soccer or frisbee before the bus comes. 

 The youngest of this class is eleven. The oldest sixteen. Outside of these walls, they are fully aware of the complications of the world. Inside, even the boys can join in on competitive hopscotch games with their classmates and their teachers. 

 Here, they are kids. 

Sometimes sassy, feisty, impulsive kids. Sometimes super responsible ones. 

 Here, they are artists and readers, jokesters and math magicians. Here, they sometimes have grumpy teachers and sometimes are grumpy themselves. Here, they occasionally have to be reminded that it isn't worth it to fight the nine year old girl. Here, they occasionally have to be reminded that it isn't worth it to fight each other. 

 Here, we circle up each morning to remind each other that we are good listeners, that we are kind, that we are intelligent, and that we are the hardest workers in all of Haiti. 

 And, here, we know that, if the sun were the size of this rock, Neptune would be down the road and around the corner.

Finding our Rhythm

 

We're falling into rhythms at school, things slowly settling out, week by wild week.

Every week, the teachers carry more of the weight, and, every week, the kids are a little more at ease. They laugh and tease and tell me what I am going to say before I even get a chance to say it.

"You are smart."

"You are kind."

"You are a good listener."

"You are one of the hardest working kids in all of Haiti."

"Yes, you can play with the ball."

"Ask your teacher."

"I love you."

"Use your manners."

"Go to class."

Because, just like any other group of kids and teachers, we have good days and bad days, quiet moments and rowdy ones, times when we're the cutest thing on the planet and times when the cutest thing on the planet is flipping off the other kids from his perch on your hip.

"Do you know that I love you?" 

The twelve year old has his arms wrapped around my middle, and, when I tip his chin up to ask the question, he breaks out into a grin, "Wi, I know."

"Good!" 

We're actually looking for something for one of the teachers, a lost bean bag or a handful of pencils, and there are a half dozen little ones on our tail, because, of course, there always are.

"Carry me. Carry me."

It's almost always said softly, sometimes as a pouty lipped command. Six year olds, seven year olds, eight year olds. Kids who are "too big" to be held but clamber up anyways and bury their face in the crook of my neck while I squeeze them gently around the ribs.

Kinders who go on walks around the compound with the co-director, their little fingers hooked in his pockets like a huddle of baby chicks.

First graders who grin and run to their teacher every morning and, sometimes, if they are lucky, get hoisted up onto a shoulder.

Second graders who start each morning with art or science and who watch carefully as a fifteen year old boy draws an intricate flower.

A sixteen year old girl who races the boys through their work so that she can get to the soccer ball first.

A pair of brothers who bring their homework back completed for the very first time all year.

A little girl whose teachers thought that she couldn't learn, but who is rapidly proving everyone wrong.

Middle school aged boys who help me to pass out the lollipops and pencils that come with Friday's homework, because, they've been watching for weeks, and they know how this works. And, because, they are certain now, that they can read well enough to recognize these names.

And, of course, all of the opposites, because we are very, very human, and, sometimes, the fiery grit that allows a little girl living in a restavek situation to have some of the top marks in her class spills over into fights on the playground.

Sometimes the boy with the quick, funny tongue and feisty spirit unthinkingly spits out other people's hurtful, private truths, while carefully guarding his own.

Sometimes we are chests puffed out or rocks picked up to fight. Sometimes we are sassy to our teachers or insistent on climbing shelves just to test if we can get away with it.

Sometimes we run when we don't want to obey and sometimes we throw our little selves, kicking and screaming on the ground.

Sometimes the grown ups yell, and sometimes a teacher puts themselves in timeout with some worship music. Sometimes children are left in timeouts of their own for far longer than intended, and, sometimes, the big people speak truths that would have been better not said out loud.

Sometimes we give out stickers simply because it is harder to be grumpy at a child when there is a cartoon puppy grinning at you from the middle of their forehead.

And, sometimes, you walk around the corner to find nine year old girls singing worship songs while they sit under a table and sort the box of crayons that has been driving you nuts.

Sometimes we find things that we were certain were lost. Sometimes the kids can spend an entire recess passing my phone without a single whine or argument. And, sometimes, when we take exams, a quiet first grader who looks perpetually distracted dumbfounds even his teacher with everything that he knows.

Teachers jump in and help to spread everything in the sun after the rain has soaked one of our classrooms. They crouch in the dirt beneath the mango tree to count pebbles with kindergarteners and sing and dance for hours with our preschoolers. They have Friday dance parties right before lunch and count down the days until break, just like all teachers do.

The yard mamas make sure that little people wash their hands and their faces and that no one falls into the latrine while it is under construction. They shoo children back to their classes and occasionally stand as silent back up for a frustrated teacher.

Our security guard helps the kindergarteners organize themselves into a soccer game and makes sure that the tiniest people get safely onto the bus.

The cooks shake their heads at me and repeat instructions in slow and careful Creole, making me repeat it back until they are certain that I understand. And, every day, like clockwork, each and every child is fed.

Every day, Jessica's job becomes easier and easier. Greet children. Hug them. Tell each day that they are amazing. Give out bandaids and cups of water. Find the soccer ball. Answer questions. Sit and talk while a little person absently plucks grey hairs out of my head. Ride the bus with kids who sing and play and rock my water bottle like it is a baby.

Go home to correct work, to make art samples, to create packets or laminate worksheets, to prepare the curriculum for as far in advance as we can go.

Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

Because, we're forty-five school days in, and, for all that we're still a half to a full school year "behind," we're nearly a full year ahead of where we started.

Making progress. Moving forwards. Some days crawling, some days flying. Some days little people and teachers alike falling asleep on the cool classroom floors.

"Can I play with your phone?" One of the middle school aged boys finishes his work and settles onto the classroom floor beside me, all of us off kilter and over tired from the time change.

"Not today."

"Can I have a hug?"

"Yes."

"Okay," he drops his head to my shoulder, watching our reflection in the laptop screen and leans closer, pointing out the answers to math problems, working the answers in his head, not on his fingers.

And, you would never know that forty-five days ago, he didn't recognize single digit numbers.

Today they're working on expanded form and learning to carry when they add.

By the end of June, they'll be ready for third grade.

Day upon day. Week upon week. Finding our rhythm.

Growing

The first day of school there are eleven kids.

By our third Wednesday, we have fifty-six, and we've capped all but the second grade class with its age range that stretches from eight to sixteen. 

Fifty six blue t-shirts. Almost seventy eggs cooked each day for students and staff. Seventy-five bowls of fortified rice, so that we always have extra when the bigger kids ask for more.

Sixty six pairs of shoes that slip on and off at each doorway, our floors kept clean enough for little people to sprawl out on, their work spread on mats or clipboards out in front of them. 

Because, of course this the kind of school where we work barefoot or in our socks, where we sit on the floor, where we share Jessica's phone and water bottle, and where, when the teachers ask, we say an emphatic, "Yes!" to staff wearing jeans and polos.

We count marbles to practice subtraction and flip over clip cards to see if we got the answer right. The reading teacher hides alphabet rocks and sandpaper letters in the grass and we use our fingers to trace on laminated cards and makeshift sand trays.

We draw and color and begin to let the big kids experiment with paint.

The tinies build the letter D out of foam pieces and rock it on their shoulder like a baby, and the PE teachers chalk lines in the hard packed dirt under the mango tree to play endless games.

Some days they run around with stickers decorating their arms and foreheads or wear rainbow colored scarves like super hero capes, and, on Fridays, we play musical chairs and have dance parties until the lunch supervisor begins looking pointedly at the clock.

Every day, he reads them a story while they eat, and, every morning, we start by gathering together in a circle to let a child choose a song and lead us in a prayer. Some days they choose a church song. Some days we sing the days of the week. Every day we tell them that Ms. Jessica thinks they are the hardest working kids in all of Haiti, and, three weeks in, they have begun to repeat it with confidence.

"I am one of the hardest working kids in all of Haiti!"

They are rewarded with the occasional lollipop, with stickers, with lavender oil rolled onto the backs of their hands, and, when they turn in their homework, with an overly exaggerated handshake ceremony in front of the whole school.

Because, to get from where we are right now to where we need to be by the end of June...they are going to need to some of the hardest workers in all of Haiti.

We have little ones who always want to finish first, always want to have the right answers, and ones who have never been to school before, still mystified by these squiggly lines and shapes that the big people seem to expect them to know.

Teenies who just turned three a few weeks ago, and fourteen year olds working to get each other up to speed. Math and art teachers who tailor lessons for preschoolers who work on one number all week and sixteen year olds who pick up the concept of subtraction in a single forty minute block.

Mix and matching a dozen different kinds of education and brainstorming each day after school as we search for ways to make it better. Ways to combine Haitian and American strengths, to reach all of our kids, to have fun -- and to keep the flies from overtaking.

Some days, there are an awful lot of preschooler tears, and, some days, the tears come from twelve and thirteen year old boys. Some days, half grown humans find themselves sent for a time out, and, some days, we have a lot of conversations about how they have good hearts and they are so smart and they can use good manners at school.

But, most days, the twelve year old helps me to bring lunch from the kitchen, driving his serving tray like a monster truck and making the cooks laugh when he "beep beep's" his way into the kitchen. Most days we give out dozens of hugs and high fives and exclaim over the kindergarteners' straight, quiet line, and the teachers run at 112% until they melt onto a flat surface for their break.

It isn't perfect, and no one is pretending that we don't still have a long ways to go -- or that I'm not still confused by the slight difference in the words for "pencil," "crayon," and "chalk" -- but it is the start of something good.

Something full of giggles and victories and kids who are slowly learning to ask for help when they don't know. Who are learning that we are more proud of their effort than their perfection. Who grin with pride when they ask for the soccer ball in perfect English.

Messy. Goofy. Active. Testing.

Always growing.

Learning Grace.

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