INTO BIREY

     Each day I got on my mountain bike and rode to Birey, a nearby village about a mile away.  The road was long and dusty with a trench about 3 feet deep on one side.  Most of the Leogane Plain, in Haiti, is covered in green lush cane fields.  Cane, is the major crop of this country and is used to produce sugar and rum.  However, on one side of this road was Tony’s farm.  Tony was a wealthy Haitian man from Port-Au-Prince, who grew vegetables for export.  His fields, which stretched for almost a square mile, were filled with squash, tomatoes, carrots, and cabbage.  The Haitians, in their large straw hats, scattered through out the field, labored in the hot sun harvesting the vegetables for market.  Along the way, they stood and called out to me “Bonjour meese, ” “Hello nurse.” 

       To the left of this road was the village of Neply.  Neply was founded by a group of four to five families; these families had inter-married, creating a large village of three to four hundred people.  They had settled beneath a grove of coconut trees.  The trees protected the inhabitant’s tiny mud huts from the rain and wind of Haiti’s tropical storms.  As they swayed in the wind, they also provided a nice cool area to escape the blistering heat of the noon day sun.  The women dressed in rags, hair undone most of the time, worked relentlessly on this side of the road.  They washed, cooked, and swept the dirt floors of their homes, which never came clean.  Their kitchens were outdoors.  Three stones were used to hold the cast iron pots which held their mid-day meal.  They could often be seen this time of day squatting over those pots, their skirts pulled tightly from the back and through their legs upward.  The smell of charcoal filled my nostrils as I passed by.  I could hear the call of the wild crows that lived in the area, “caaaaah, caaaaaahhhh and the chatter of the small yellow birds that infested the coconut trees. 

      My job at this time of day was to oversee NEW Missions’ feeding program in Birey, the village just beyond Neply.  Birey was our newest outpost.  The mission school educated approximately 3000 Haitian children.  Smaller children attended school in one of five village schools.  Three of the villages, LaSalle, Concrab, and Ti Riviere were all on the oceanfront.  The other two, Neply and Birey were inland.  In each of these villages, the mission had purchased land and put up thatch huts. School benches were made by the missionaries and painted red, blue, green, and yellow.  So school began with the promise that as funds came in, a school and church would be built out of cement. 

 Older children walked from their village to the main mission complex at “Bord Mer, or “by the ocean,” to attend school.  The complex had been built at the end of the road, facing the bay of Port-au-Prince.  It was an incredible site to witness all those children in their yellow gingham shirts and khaki pants walking down this same dusty road to school each morning.

 During the two years the mission had existed several buildings had already been built there. The missionary quarters had been built in one section, facing the bay.  The building had seven bedrooms, built in a square to face an inner court yard.  Each bedroom had a single bed and book shelf unit for clothing.  The kitchen had been placed on the right side complete with stove, sink, and a gas refrigerator, as the only electricity was provided by a diesel generator.  The bathroom was built on the left side and had a toilet and sink but no running water as of yet.  A large 50 gallon drum filled with water sat outside to be used for flushing the toilet.  Both these rooms were placed at the entrance of the court yard.  A cement slab was then poured between the kitchen and bathroom. 

      This area was the dining and living area.  It consisted of several hand made tables placed end to end for the missionary group to eat together at each meal.  The entire building including the bedrooms and dining area, were covered by a tin roof that made a thunderous sound when it rained. 

      A school building had been built between the missionary quarters and the bay and lay just to the left, so not to obscure the view of the ocean and mountains that on the other side of the bay.  This school had four classes.  Other thatch buildings were put up to accommodate the other four classes, until buildings could be built.  The entire five years I lived there, NEW Missions was always building.  The area would later have two more school buildings, with four classrooms each; a large kitchen and outdoor canteen; a clinic, an office with two apartments on the second level,  and a house for the founders of the mission Rev. George and Jeanne DeTellis.

 In addition to the school program, the mission also had three mother infant feeding programs.  Children who were not old enough to attend school were fed with their mother at this program.   This was to prevent the irreversible effects of malnutrition: stunted growth and development.  So each day a vegetable or meat sauce and bulgur, or cracked wheat provided by the United States Government, was prepared at the main complex for these 3000 children.  All that food was then split up, put into large pots and pushed out on wheelbarrows by Haitian men sometimes 3-4 miles away to the local village schools.  A missionaries was also sent out to these feeding programs. 

      And that was the reason for my daily trip, to make sure that the children ate, and to prevent the food from being stolen along the way.  I was also there to minister the gospel of Jesus Christ to the mothers of that village.  I wanted them to understand the Christian faith, but it seemed to me all they wanted was my wardrobe as they continually asked me for things.  With little means, or opportunity these women seem to fight for anything they could get, and as a new missionary, I had no understanding of their plight, something God would soon remedy.

     Once, at a Christmas party in this same village, I brought brownies to give out to the mothers.  They had all dressed for this occasion.  Their hair was braided into dozens of little corn rows.  They had also put on the only nice dress they owned.  In a rainbow of colors they sat quietly.  The Haitians particularly like bright colors, hot pink, lime green, bright blue, and lemon yellow.  They also like the silkier fabrics such as polyester and rayon because they are soft and shiny.  These colors literally glow next to their very dark skin.  I noted that even though they were in sitting in chairs, most of them had wrapped their dresses between their legs like they were still squatting next to a pot.  They were uneducated country women.  Many had never been any further from home than the next town over, eight miles away.  They had never seen a toilet, or even a light bulb, much less attended a Christmas party with an American missionary.  

      They probably had never eaten cake either.  Cake is very seldom made or served in Haiti.  With no ovens and only three stones to cook on, it is next to impossible for the average woman to make it. Forty women attended the event that day.  I saw their eyes widen as I presented the large platter of double chocolate brownies.  They were whispering to one another about what gift they might receive as I began speaking.

I explained in my broken Creole that I would pass one brownie to each lady.  I also asked them to remain seated.  As I began passing out the brownies the noise level increased with every piece I gave away.  When they spoke quickly I had difficulty understanding all that was said.  I did however recognize the word “blanc,“ or “white.“  This always made me upset!  I would hear just enough to know that they were talking about me but not enough to understand what they were saying.  Half way through the distribution, some of the women became impatient.  The word “enough,” is not well understood in Haiti.  There is never enough; never enough money, never enough medicine, and never enough food.  One by one, they tried to walk over to me to get their brownie.  I kept insisting they sit down but they paid little attention to me.  Eventually the brownies were all given out.  We enjoyed a few minutes of quiet as the women ate their cake.  I noticed one or two smiled to themselves but for the most part there was little emotion displayed now.  I was pleased and feeling a little proud I had gotten through “my party,” without a riot.  While distributing gifts in Concrab, Yvonne, a young missionary woman from Massachusetts, had not been so fortunate.  The women had literally pushed her and the director’s wife Jeanne against the wall trying to get a better gift for themselves. 

      After I had finished my cake and then my devotion with the women, I realized I had some cake left over.  I didn’t have enough to give each woman a second brownie but I thought I would offer one to those who would like one.  Very naively, I extended the platter again asking if anyone would like a second brownie.  This was my mistake.  All civility disappeared, like a stampede on the Serengeti Plain, all forty women were moving to claim that extra brownie.  Within thirty seconds I was literally pushed to the ground.  They may have been uneducated, but they were smart enough to realize there weren’t enough brownies for two each.  Soft, frilly, feminine dresses and all, they dove on top of me to get a second one.  They were laughing and shoving, the brownies and the missionary long since ground to dust on the floor.  They obviously enjoyed the sheer sport of it.

      This particular day, I was tired, hot, and dusty.  I wasn’t thinking of cake.  I had spent four hours in the clinic that morning seeing over 80 patients.  In addition to this feeding program, I was also the only medical person in the area.  I was a registered nurse.  In Haiti, with so few doctors, I was considered the local physician and therefore responsible for all the medical care in the region.  Administrating the clinic was a tremendous load for me.  Supervising a feeding program as well only made me feel more overwhelmed. 

      Usually I used this travel time to unwind, pray, or sing as I peddled along, but today was different.  There had been a pregnant lady who refused to leave the clinic until she received some baby clothing she wanted.  Jeanne, my director’s wife, had intervened and asked me to give the baby items to the women.  I hated being intimidated and pushed around by the women and I also hated having my decisions over rode.  I found myself reviewing the incident over and over again as I peddled my bike down the dirt road. 

      At the crossroads, a group of three to four women were standing and talking.  Crossroads are spiritually significant for the Haitian people.  In Haitian folk Lore, Papa Legba, is the “gate keeper,” of the spirit world.  He lives in the crossroads and so it is here that the spirits enter and leave the natural world.  After my encounter, I was sure that these women were three such spirits.  ”Meese, nurse” they shouted.  I stopped initially wondering if there was some kind of emergency or perhaps the birth of a baby.  They approached me laughing and surrounded my bike. 

     The women in their sweat stained, dirty clothing were probably just coming in from the fields.  The large one grabbed my skirt.   I knew most of the women in the village but I didn’t know her.  She wore a red bandana on her head, a symbol of her faithfulness to the local Voo Doo cult.  Her face inches from mine; she growled “bum sa!”  “Give me that!”  They began taunting me, laughing and dancing and making fun of me.  The larger woman pinched me.  Somehow “Jesus loves you,” was not on my mind.  I was angry.  From somewhere deep inside me came the sarcastic response,”No, ou tro gro pou sa,”  “No, you’re too fat for this.”  The women began to laugh and dance around.  One of them slapped me on the back.  They weren’t offended; they were surprised by my wit and how easily I too could make an insult.  I later learned that I had in fact complimented her.  To be fat is an honor in a country where people die from hunger everyday. 

       Nothing gained, they soon were on their way with a story to tell their neighbors.  Unfortunately, my anger was not that easily dealt with.  Tears streaming down my face, I continued on to the feeding program to fulfill my commitment.  I didn’t understand what God wanted from me at that moment.  It seemed to me I had sacrificed all to follow Him and yet conflict seemed to engulf me everywhere I went.    Ideally, I came to bring medical aid and comfort to the poor and needy people of Haiti.  It never occurred to me that I would have to fight them to give them what they needed.  It also never occurred to me that they would not always be grateful for what they received.   This woman in the crossroads had found my sore spot.  Not only did she make me feel guilty for having what she could not have.  She made me angry because she was not grateful for my “sacrifice,” to care for her people.  My sarcasm had actually put off some of the tension of that moment but it did not absolve me of the negative emotions within my heart.

       That anger would take many years of difficult situations, many years of prayer and fasting, many years of grace to soften those hard places within me and become a love that only God could give. 

      For me Haiti was a school, a mirror to see myself.  Each interaction, every conflict, the different people God brought into my life, both Haitian and American, were all there to teach me something about myself.   In order for God to use me to balance the scales of injustice, I would first have to brought to "0."  Then and only then would I be able to purely demonstrate His love and His character to people of Haiti.

Chapter One of "Balancing the Scales"                            Kelli Nelson