Day 2 Shada

We arrived in Shada at about noon yesterday and spent most of the day there. The children painted the inside of their new community center. There were at least 35 children there and they did a fantastic job of sharing the brushes. The children’s center is a collaboration between Madame Bwa, the unofficial matriarch of Shada, an SOIL/SOL. (I will describe the difference and connection between these two organizations at a later date or please see www.oursoil.org). Madam Bwa is incredible! She created a women’s development organization and a children’s organization with over 100 youngsters involved. The community center consists of a single second floor room that is about 12’ by 12’. The steps to the room are narrow, steep and there is no railing (and that’s a generous description). Next to the steps and doorway into the center is a rooftop used as overflow. The rooftop is concrete (most things in Shada are made of concrete or an amalgamation of cast-off materials) and it has no railing, no walls around its edges. I know many parents in the States who would send their young child across a busy street alone before sending them up these stairs to this small room and its rooftop patio. But this is how everyone in Shada lives. People’s homes are literally smashed up against each other (and I don’t mean like in New Orleans, San Francisco, Philadelphia), most families live in one or two rooms. No one has electricity or running water- no one. Shada is near what used to be a mangrove swamp; now the water is filled with garbage. And still I saw boys fishing from the shore.

I met a 14 year old girl who speaks some Spanish. How excited I was to speak to someone beyond Hello! Happy New Year! How are you? What is your name? How old are you? Thank you! She is learning Spanish in school, she told me. I believe this really changed the course of my day. One thing she said, however, hurt me very badly. She said, “Yo quiero agua,” as I hold a cold water in my hand. I tell her I can not give her water and not the other children and that there is not enough for everyone. I hate this. I hate this more than I have ever hated anything. I want to give her my water. Of course, I do. But I don’t. I can’t.

In fact, I want to give everything and anything to these children. But I know that small things and a little money will not drastically change things for the people of Shada. I am glad that Shada is the worst slum in Cap Haitien… because I can not imagine a more distressing place. I heard a Haitian saying yesterday: There are two flowers in Haiti, the flower of misery and the flower of dust.