Struggles and Triumphs

There is certainly no shortage of struggle in Haiti. We see it every day, whether it is the thousands of people who still live in tents and temporary shelters, people suffering from easily prevented or easily cured illness, or in the eyes of malnourished children we meet on a regular basis while determining whether or not they are able to be brought in to Be Like Brit. When the people have had enough, they often take to the streets in the form of protest referred to locally as a manifestation.

Sometimes, those struggles involve dealing with the government of Haiti itself. We here at Be Like Brit laugh about the fact that it took me more than a year to get my permis de sejour (residence permit) and more than 15 separate trips to the office of immigration and emigration – one of which I was denied entry for wearing shorts. Once my papers were submitted and received, I was told it would take 45 days to process and prepare my permis. One the 105^th day, it was finally in my hands.

Many of you have followed along while we have navigated the bureaucratic process that involves obtaining our authorization to operate – a license, essentially, formally recognizing Be Like Brit as an orphanage, registered with the government, in Haiti. Less than 10% of orphanages are registered, and it seems there is no consequence for not following that law. Mindful of the fact that Be Like Brit exists because of a very personal loss for the Gengel family and so many of Brit’s friends, the pursuit of this license has been just another way in which we as an organization are trying to do things the right way – to follow the rules, even when we know that we could bypass them with relative ease, or offer someone a bit of money to speed up a process for us or ignore a rule altogether.

We don’t do these things because Brit’s name is on this building – right above the door – and we know that this building is a testament to her legacy and exists because of her vision of helping in Haiti. While we certainly could take advantage of and “grease the wheels” when it comes to navigating the bureaucracy, we don’t. We don’t do these things because it isn’t right to complain about the corruption in the government of Haiti while simultaneously taking advantage of that corruption. We are legitimate, we are honest, and we will operate with the utmost respect of law and integrity in all that we do.

Because of these principles, often processes that could be “sped along” take months and months – in many cases, years. Last week, the government entity responsible for the management and oversight of orphanages came by with the Swiss NGO Terre des Hommes. Their purpose was to document and register all of the children living at Brit’s Orphanage. A part of the licensing process includes an inspection, which seems reasonable enough. Until I sat down with the representative from the government, I would not realize how frustrating the process would be.

Of course, she started with some standard and reasonable questions: How many square feet are we? How many employees do we have? How many bedrooms and how many bathrooms. Things like that. It was when we turned to other, less straightforward questions where the problems started.

Government:

“What is your policy if one of your children becomes pregnant? What will you do with the child that lives here and the child that is born?”

Me:

“Fortunately, our children are all very young and we don’t have to worry about that at the moment. But I imagine that we would ensure that the child received all of the financial and emotional support she would need to protect her health and the health of her child. And if she were to have the child, I imagine as an organization we would support that and encourage her to stay here with us and allow us to help her continue school and be sure the baby was taken care of.”

A fair response? I thought so. Not according to her. Nope. According to the government representative, allowing a teenager to stay in the orphanage if she were to become pregnant and then ensuring medical and proper prenatal care would only encourage the other girls to get pregnant and is an irresponsible policy. She then told me that we had to remove that “article” from our Guiding Principles and Program Manual.

I decided to challenge her. When I asked her if that position was Haitian law or her own opinion, she replied that it was her opinion but that it was very important that I take it under consideration. I expressed my appreciation for her opinion, and then proceeded to tell her that our time was far too valuable to sit and discuss her opinions – that I’d prefer to stick to the laws and legal requirements, not waste time with hypothetical situations which are years away from even being a possibility.

Back to standard questions: How many chairs, how many forks, how many spoons, how many plates, how many etc. etc. etc. I told her I really didn’t know – I hadn’t counted them. But that if she’d like to stay for lunch, she will see that every child does, in fact, use utensils and we even had piles of extras. She was welcome to count them if that was an important piece of information. She declined.

Do you remember back in the early-mid 1980s when HIV and AIDS exploded around the world and nobody knew what it was or how it was spread? Remember the “4H” club – that HIV came from homosexuals, hemophiliacs, heroin users, and, yup, you guessed it – Haitians. Fortunately for us, science has made great strides and advances in understanding the origins of HIV and how to prevent transmitting the virus, so if you believe you may have HIV it is of importance to go to the doctor and have yourself tested. It seems that our government representative visiting me last week hadn’t yet heard about them, though. When she instructed me that an HIV positive child must not be permitted to live in the same orphanage as HIV negative children, I lost it. Shortly after that exchange, I kindly asked her to leave. And I have an early morning appointment tomorrow with the Director General to discuss reassigning a representative for our organization.

I tell you this so that you understand – This is what we deal with on a regular basis. How do you begin to respond to government requests that are quite literally based on knowledge and information from more than 30 years ago?

While we had some frustrating times with our government friends, we also had a wonderful blessing by way of two families who came to Haiti last week. The Terzi and the Pugliese Families were here with us, along with Len, Cherylann, and their youngest son Richie, who just turned 19 yesterday! Tony and Vinny were Len’s best friends in college – and the dynamics of having them all here together with their children was such a wonderful thing to be a part of. While they did build a house in their short week, they built many more memories together.

It was wonderful to sit around the table with these three families, The Gengels, The Terzis, and The Puglieses – with Amanda and I included. The stories they told about Brit – their favorite memories, their favorite stories of getting caught sneaking out or getting into the kinds of trouble that teenagers do – made me feel very much like a part of their family – and made me miss my own, too. Hearing these stories in many ways allowed me to better understand the family dynamics, and in some ways made me understand and “know” Britney better – even though I never knew her…

Our swimming lessons are going great – 6 days a week for the past three weeks! Our Britsionarys love the activity, too – and the time in the water and in the sun tires our children out just enough for a great night’s sleep! It’s incredible that we are less than a month away from the next school year starting, and we’re busy getting materials together and systems in place to prepare! Imagine the work it takes to coordinate uniforms, school supplies, ribbons, socks, shoes, backpacks, lunch boxes, and more – for 45 children!

We’re working hard on enrollment and we expect to bring more children in soon. With my leaving for a month, we will continue to assess and locate, but will wait on officially enrolling. We do hope to have two girls join us in the next week or so, but are waiting on paperwork to come through in order to do so legally.

It’s been without a doubt a busy, busy summer – but one filled with laughter, joy, and countless blessings and gifts.

Thank you for helping us help the children of Haiti at Be Like Brit!