Day 14: Sweet Manny

After two weeks, one thing I can safety say about this country is that it's mysterious. Let's start with the architecture. As I flew into Port-au-Prince I was so intrigued by the huge houses sprawled out across the countryside. I could see columns hold up awnings over large front porches, backyards that could have been intended to be tropical orchards, home to hundreds of papaya and mango trees, and rooms that seemed as though they were big enough to host parties for royalty.

I could see that the rooms were so big because these houses didn't have roofs. It appeared that they had fallen in some time ago, years before the earthquake. In place of the roofs were the tops of trees. I couldn't help but think about the juxtaposition between what was supposed to be, and what actually is. Some time ago, wealthy people hired architects who thought over plans, hired builders, and constructed houses that could have been nestled in comfortably with the houses in Palos Verdes or Rancho Santa Fe. People had ambitious dreams and were seemingly optimistic for the future. It makes sense though, I think big dreams run in their blood here. Haiti is the only country in the history of the world to have gained its independence via slave rebellion. For over a decade the slaves brought from Africa fought against the French (and Spanish and English) in Saint Domingue for their independence. Finally in 1804 they earned their independence from France and changed the name from Saint Domingue to Haiti. I wonder how a country with such a heroic beginning has fallen to be the most needy country in the world.

Now warp yourself back to present time. In a small town outside of Port-au-Prince, something else mysterious happened. A little boy got shot in the arm and taken to Doctors Without Borders. Besides knowing his name, no one really knows where he came from or who he is. DWB passed him off to UNICEF, who then contacted Child Hope. On Monday, exactly six months after the earthquake, he was dropped off at Maison de Lumiere's boys' home with only a notebook, rubber ball, and two packages of UNICEF cookies (the kind that have thousands of calories and carbohydrates and are intended for starving children) to, get this, share with the other boys in the orphanage. He said nothing, except when asked where his parents are, he said he hasn't seen them since the earthquake.

Tuesday morning Emmanuel Gerard shows up at school and as students walk toward their respective classrooms he grabbed my hand, lifted up his sleeve and showed me a three-inch incision that had been haphazardly stitched up with ten or so stitches. I gave him the “I'm-so-sorry-poor-baby” face and he reached up, pulled my head down, kissed me on the cheek, and then walked away.

He spent most of the morning following Principal Kamala around the school, until he discovered the computer lab. During my prep period, I walked into the lab to make copies (I know this makes our school sound tech-y, but believe me, it's not) and saw him staring at a computer screen. He was using the program “Paint” and on the screen were some orange scribbles. His hand was on the mouse, and his eyes were huge. I sat down with him and showed him how to use the mouse to make boxes and stars, and then we “painted” a house. Eventually I had to leave to go teach, but he spent the entire day in the computer lab, staring at the screen. It didn't take long to figure out that he had never even seen a computer before.

On Wednesday morning, Sweet Manny (that's what I like to call him now.... the kid is seriously just SO SWEET) learned the color red. On Thursday he learned the color yellow and how to write the letter “E.” He is between eight and ten years old (he doesn't know how old he is or what year he was born) and he doesn't know his colors, letters, and we haven't even touched upon numbers yet. It seems as though he doesn't have any significant language skills, as he points and grunts or screeches at things. However, we know that he doesn't have any vision or hearing problems; he sees things that are close up and far away, and we have heard him say a few things in Creole. He has simply never been taught.

Friday school was canceled because a visiting team wanted to take everyone-kids, teachers, staff- to the beach. Going to the beach is a big deal here because if you go to a public beach you could get shot, so when we go to the beach we have to go to a resort where it costs $35USD to enter. All the teachers were worried about taking Sweet Manny to the beach. He shook his head “no” when he was asked if he had ever been to the beach before, and he's had so many new experiences that we weren't sure if he'd hit a breaking point and freak out. Thursday night Sweet Manny got the hiccups and kept taking either my or Kamala's hand and putting it on his chest and giving up this really scared look, like he didn't know what he should do with the hiccups. Let it be known that I did try to scare him and he just stared at my with those huge eyes of his.

Anyway...beach. He had the most amazing day. He can't swim (duh), so he spent the entire day with a Finding Nemo inner tube in his armpits. The beach was beautiful, one of those Caribbean beaches with clear water and palm trees and gazebos. A grip of kids and some of us teachers swam out to this floating raft maybe 300 feet from the shore. We were jumping off and fooling around when I looked over and saw my Sweet Manny wading along the shoreline with some of the younger kids and Jessica, our teacher for the second graders. He was waving his hands for someone to come in and get him and bring him out. So that's what I did, against some of the other teachers' (possibly better) judgment. As I swam him out to the raft, he didn't have the language to say that he was excited, so he just shrieked and laughed.

Side note: The last time I saw anyone that excited, it was when Tegan was 2. She, as well as every other toddler in the Western world, was obsessed with Dora the Explorer. We were walking through Albertson's or Stater Bros, or whatever that store is at the bottom of my parents' hill, and she saw one of those huge balloons that they have at supermarket check-outs. It was a three foot Dora balloon, and as she held Dora's Mylar hands in her own, she shrieked, laughed, and jumped up and down in circles. Like my Sweet Manny, she didn't have the words to express how excited she was either. But she was only two.

While watching my Sweet Manny discover that hues have names, and that the hiccups aren't nearly as scary as they seem to be, I began to think of how mysterious it is that he doesn't have language, that he had been shot, that he had survived by himself for the past six months.

Watching Brendan and Anna raise Topher and Ryan and Melissa raise Tegan, and, well, Odie and Anja raise Harvey, even though I'm not a parent I can see that parents have big dreams for their kids or their pets that they treat as their own children. I imagine that Emmanuel's parents had big dreams for him, too.

The slaves who led the rebellion against their captors had to have had ambitious dreams. Haiti is just sort of mysterious like that. How could a country with such a heroic conception have become the poorest country in the Western hemisphere? There is an unsettling disparity between what was intended and reality. We could talk forever about the freed slaves perpetuating the slave mentality. More importantly though, I wonder if the earthquake is going to be the catalyst for change here. Does any of this make sense?