promises are yes: Grand Goave, southern Haiti, part 4

Those of us staying in the village (three trainers and two interns) were given a “first breakfast” of boiled plantains and yams. This was served with a different sauce each day, sometimes with fish or hot dogs in it. Our “second breakfast” was later in the day with the Training of Trainers (TOT) participants, and was spaghetti nearly every day. This is a traditional Haitian breakfast, and we were offered canned tomato paste, ketchup, Tobasco, and mayonnaise for toppings. Lunch was rice and beans with either fried chicken legs or a meat and vegetable sauce.

After the participants went back to their mountain homes, we would pack up from the day (we emptied out the training center, a local church, each night), discuss the day, walk down the back of the mountain to get water, bathe.

Above is one of our master trainers, Erigeur, with the indefatigable Gena.

Here is the local watering hole: kids collecting water in buckets on the left, people of all ages bathing on the right (including me the day before -- every other day I elected to bucket bathe on top of the mountain).

Then we were served my favorite meal of the day: labouyi. This is a porridge made of plantains, milk, and sugar. Mmmm..... They turned on a generator for an hour or so, then it was bedtime.

Above you can see an intense game of dominos being played (center) and a girl having her hair done (left). The guys are wearing hats because it's cold.

We stayed in a one-room cabin which was normally used as a meeting room and which, as you can see, allowed all the cool air to blow in. It wasn't so bad at 8 pm (the time of this picture), but got really chilly as the night wore on. The first night none of us really slept due to the cold and pain -- most of us were sleeping almost directly on the concrete. And have I mentioned the donkeys and their bizarre, loud braying? The second night we hung up extra sheets to block the wind, and we were loaned hooded sweatshirts and more blankets and padding. I should have taken an early morning pic of my fellow trainers looking like mummies -- covered from head to toe to block out the cold.

At the end of one of the days I used up my laptop battery correcting one of the supplements we use. A lot of our materials need revision, and this one was difficult to read due to several translation and spelling errors. I could have revised materials every evening if I would have charged up my laptop while the generator was running each night. (One night I did request to charge my cell phone – they had to remove one of the 13 cell phones that were plugged in at the house with the generator to make room for mine.)

I didn't ever re-charge my computer, though. Our days were already long, and I was really tired at the end of every day – when I wasn't facilitating a lesson I was interpreting everything (both what the facilitators said and all of the participants' comments) for our Canadian interns.

So, I thought I might end up here (one of many tiny cemeteries dotting the landscape) due to my rigorous schedule of late. However, the mountain air and walks were so refreshing -- God is gracious and his love is never ending!

There were lots of challenges with this training. Several of the participants had a hard time grasping the volunteer nature of our program. In addition, I think a lot of them went away thinking that Community Health Evangelism (CHE) is exclusively spiritual. This happens a lot – people either think that all we do is community health and development, or all we do is evangelism. It takes a mental shift for people to see that, in a kingdom of God mindset, they can all happen together. This mental shift can happen during a TOT, and many of our lessons are about the holistic nature of the gospel and examples of how CHE works practically.