Serving time in Haiti

I haven’t and never care to serve time in jail or prison. Especially here in Haiti. From what I hear I wouldn’t care for the cuisine, the lodging options, or the customer service. But my recent binge-watch of a certain made for Netflix show, Orange Is The New Black, written by the fantastic and amazing Jenji Kohan, has convinced me that we are imprisoned here in Haiti. And really, it makes total sense to draw this comparison.

Prisons hold you inside. Your freedom is withheld. You’re in a cell. You’re in a pod.  Behind chain link fences with barbed wire. And guards with guns. And gates with locks. And walls. Thick concrete walls. And it’s sterile and hollow. And lacking individual charm and comfort.  Your name might be changed, or shortened. And you will likely take on a new identity; foreign to that of the person you were outside of the facility.  Like Crazy Eyes. You go into a survival mode, and you re-design your personality to fit your surroundings. Your rights are restricted. You’re told what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. You’re issued clothing. It’s not your choice. It might not fit. You may not like the texture. It may make you look like an inmate. Oh wait, that’s the point. You’ll be lucky if the stripes face the right direction. You may be too hot. You may be too cold. But it’s not something you can change. You don’t have the choice. Why is someone incarcerated in a prison? Because of a choice or series of choices made by that person. It or they were the wrong ones. And now there is time to serve. The time that you would otherwise spend living your life is now being served. You are doing “time”. In the “Klink”. In the “slammer”.

Cellblock O, otherwise known as an orphanage is not much different. Except that the choice or choices which bring you to an orphanage are not your own. But still, you are in a small room. Behind a gate. Inside of walls with barbed wire and armed guards. It is sterile. It feels hollow. And aside from distressed remnants from mission groups, it is lacking individual charm and comforts of a home. Your freedom is withheld. Your name is usually changed or abbreviated.  You may now be called See-bee-doo, or Bee-doo for short. And in time, you are not the person who entered the orphanage. You assimilate to the surroundings and the other personalities. You realize who the top dog is. You realize who your friends are. And you hope they don’t turn on you. You are issued clothing that has been donated. It’s worn. And left over. And unwanted. And that is what becomes yours. It might fit. It might have holes in it. You don’t even notice the stripes, and could care less which direction they face. Your shoes may be three sizes too small. You may be wearing long sleeves in 100+ degree weather. You might be a boy in girls clothing. But you can’t change any of this.  You don’t have the choice. All choices are made for you. When you eat, what you eat…when you sleep, where you sleep…and you most certainly cannot choose when you will get to leave and who with.  You are serving time. You don’t have the one luxury an inmate in a prison might have, which is the knowledge of how much time you will be serving. Day’s turn into nights, turn into weeks, turn into months, turn into years. And you wait. And you wait some more. The days can be hot; the nights can be long and lonely. Will someone hear you if you cry at night? Do you dare try to go to the bathroom? Or will that huge rat that ran into the bathroom convince that you it’s better to pee in your bed and lie in it all night long? If you fall out of bed, will anyone know? Or will you finish the night sleeping on the concrete?

It’s no wonder that behaviors change when someone is institutionalized. It’s no wonder that growth and brain activity are stunted.  Imagine being kept in a cage for seven years. Closed off from the world, with the exception of what you’re allowed to view, learn, and hear. Ala my friend Kelly, we have come to the conclusion that M. Knight Shyamalan’s The Village is a perfect movie to put that thought into perspective. You don’t know what’s on the outside. You only know what you’re experiencing. And much Lord of the Flies, behaviors conquer emotions. You can block out emotions and let your behaviors run wild. Because then you’ll get attention. Good or bad. You’ll get it. Fortunately, the children are not like those in Flowers in the Attic. Although, a limited play space can eerily reminiscent of the small attic with limits and boundaries that cannot be crossed.

Mental hospitals, rehabilitation centers, half way houses…they’re all an extension of an institution intended to temporarily support someone in a process of recovery or correction. But where is this step in the process of adoption? It’s non-existent. A child is taken directly from the institution, at times by people they barely know who come and shower them with love once and then leave for months or years only to return joyfully to take the child out of what has become their home, their only comfort. And they have no idea how traumatic that experience can be for a child they would otherwise think they are rescuing.

When you strip someone of everything they have, their value system changes. When you have no personal space you learn to appreciate other things. Think of how wide open and free the sky must seem when you are in a small and crowded yard of children who scream and run around all day. The sky is calm. It is big. It is free. And for a moment a child can look up and perhaps see a passing plane and place a little wish on its wings that one day they will be on that plane, leaving all that surrounds them behind. But then that day comes. And it seems abrupt even though it has likely been in process for quite some time. Within days or hours, they are in fact on that plane. And once again, they have left everything behind.

My kids will again have to leave everything behind. Because I’ve come to take them home. I would have personally preferred the aforementioned whisking away of my child. I would have loved to hop off the plane, grab them and hop right back on. But that’s not how it’s happening. And obviously though I came for my kids, I’m meant to be here for a while. We had every reason to believe that we would have the boy’s home by the fall, so it seemed like a perfectly reasonable plan to move to Haiti for the duration of the adoptions of the boys. After all, they are legally our children, and I honestly couldn’t stomach the thought of them sitting in the orphanage all summer while I ran the other two kids around Pittsburgh trying to keep them entertained for the remainder of the summer. So I hatched a plan to do “Haiti summer camp” and on July 12, 2013, I put that plan into action. I spent the first month living in our apartment with four of my five kids. We went to the orphanage a few days a week to spend time with the baby, V. While we were there we watched as a small church was built on the property, and when the roof was put on, we sat on the porch of the orphanage each day and experienced a 2-hour prayer vigil that was designed (I think) to consecrate the new church. Pastors and nannies and all the children would flood the new building, and enjoy time in the open wall-less church and sing and raise their praises for several hours each day.  It was interesting to see more of the day to day that takes place at the orphanage. There were lots of people I had never seen who showed up to pray and sing. And eat lunch. And then they would all leave. And they’d come back the next day to do it again. I could see how the daily schedule repeated day after day after day. It was like watching paint dry. It was the proverbial groundhog day. But here and there we could take a day off from the orphanage and spend it swimming and playing games. Though we couldn’t have V with us, the older four needed this time away from the orphanage and to spend time together to bond. And fight. This is real life, right?

We effectively have been using our apartment as the half way house between the institution that is our orphanage, and our goal…our home. We are in a cell. Behind a gate. Hidden by walls with barbed wire and armed guards. We feel imprisoned and we don’t have a release date.  We only have AC from 6 pm – 6 am. I hope you shed a tear for me. This is HAITI, folks. It’s hot. We have limited supplies, and we have to be very creative in using what we have. Especially now that I am homeschooling, which seriously makes me want to put a gun in my mouth. MAD PROPS to those who stick it out. I’m afraid my children will drag my body off soon and dispose of me in the ocean. Oh…the ocean. I might be willing to let them drag me off and throw me in. Not once in 15 trips here have I had a chance to go to the ocean. But I digress. We have limited transportation, and very few freedoms. The scenery is always the same. And for someone as independent as I am, it is really strange to rely on other people to get us out of here. I am feeling trapped, but I chose to be here. And the boys have chosen to be here with me. I’m sure to them it feels like one huge step toward their better lives. They are out of the orphanage.  They are with me. But I can’t wait to improve their lives even more.

It’s not a bad start being here. The kids have beds. They have their own clothes. And they choose what they want to wear daily. They have their own space. Their own backpacks. Their own cups, and toothbrushes, and shoes. Their own toys. But this is not home. As much as I could do so, I’ve decorated it with our belongings and made it comfortable for our “short” duration. But this is not home.  It’s an in-between. It’s a springboard to the final plan. It is not meant to be home. And I hate that because our “short” stay has become what will be close to half a year living here, it has become home. I even find myself slipping and saying, “we will take this home with us”, and what I mean by that is that we will take it to the apartment. I hate that I’ve referred to this, our halfway house, our indoor tree house, as home. It is not home. Home and its comforts eagerly await us. J and the kids eagerly await us. Friends and family eagerly await us. My elliptical machine eagerly awaits me. Yeah…I miss all of it. Even my daily 8-mile torture that stands across from the TV in the laundry room. But I chose to be here. Because I believe that it is the better option for my children right now.  And I wish that I could do the same for V. I’ve seen how much she has grown in the time that I’ve spent here with her, and I crave to have her with me.

Despite my desire to take them home, we have been sentenced several more months here in Haiti due to the issues with Djedly’s documents. And knowing that we are itching to change the scenery, a friend of mine offered an opportunity to live with him in his house a in the mountains. He has a beautiful house. And though I’m so tempted to trade this small tree house for a REAL house with a REAL kitchen, I’m also afraid that my kids don’t know how to behave in a real house yet. This man has silk furniture.  It’s a rental. I doubt any single twenties or thirty something’s man would opt for refinishing antique furniture with silk on his own. And there’s a REAL Monet hanging on his wall. A real Monet in a rental…but let’s get back to why my kids aren’t ready for a real house. They PUT THEIR FEET ON THE WALL!!! Imagine me trying to explain why the Monet has footprints on it! I shudder at the thought. If there’s going to be inexplicable damage done to priceless items, they should at least be in my ownership, right? As much as the weather, the air, the house and the friendship that comes with it are appealing, my fear outweighs my interest…I think.

So maybe I should continue as is in our halfway house until we can spring the boys for good. We want to make parole so badly. And with fluctuating wifi, Netflix stopped working. Damn! Here goes any remaining sanity I have. Hopefully we will go home before our half-way-tree-house becomes a mental institution.