The growing family: Part 1
Part of my job at the orphanage is investigating prospective children’s current circumstances; to find out if the child really is in need, to see if the story we were told about the child’s circumstance is accurate and to see the condition in which the child is currently living. When I went to investigate Galaxon and Iverson’s story I knew right away that these boys were in need. Their home had been destroyed in the earthquake; all the walls had crumbled, only a few wooden posts and the doorways remained, which amazingly enough were holding up the roof. The children had been living inside the building with a few extended family members. In the front yard was another house, made of cardboard, tarps and sticks where their grandparents, their caregivers, were living.
Their father passed away a few years ago. They had been living with their mother, a faithful member of our church, until just a few weeks ago when she too passed away. From what I have heard of their mother’s illness I highly suspect AIDS was the cause of her death, but cannot be sure. People here don’t like to talk about HIV/AIDS. If someone does have the disease they keep it extremely quiet. It would be very difficult to find anyone willing to admit that they knew someone who had died of the disease, even though Haiti is in 28th place for highest HIV/AIDS population in the world.
There are many degrees of poverty. This is something I never gave much thought to before moving to Haiti. I just assumed if you’re poor you’re poor. This, however, is not the case. In Haiti the degree of poverty can be based on many things, for example; the number of meals one might eat in a week, whether or not a person owns a pair of shoes without holes or the amount of water which leaks into a house when it rains. In our area pretty much everyone is living in poverty, but living amongst the poor are the poorest of the poor. The grandparents of these boys would definitely fall into this category. There is no way they were able to feed the boys on a regular basis, let alone feed themselves.
I knew we needed to take the boys in.
Their father passed away a few years ago. They had been living with their mother, a faithful member of our church, until just a few weeks ago when she too passed away. From what I have heard of their mother’s illness I highly suspect AIDS was the cause of her death, but cannot be sure. People here don’t like to talk about HIV/AIDS. If someone does have the disease they keep it extremely quiet. It would be very difficult to find anyone willing to admit that they knew someone who had died of the disease, even though Haiti is in 28th place for highest HIV/AIDS population in the world.
There are many degrees of poverty. This is something I never gave much thought to before moving to Haiti. I just assumed if you’re poor you’re poor. This, however, is not the case. In Haiti the degree of poverty can be based on many things, for example; the number of meals one might eat in a week, whether or not a person owns a pair of shoes without holes or the amount of water which leaks into a house when it rains. In our area pretty much everyone is living in poverty, but living amongst the poor are the poorest of the poor. The grandparents of these boys would definitely fall into this category. There is no way they were able to feed the boys on a regular basis, let alone feed themselves.
I knew we needed to take the boys in.
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