19th Tzu Chi Haiti Earthquake Relief Team

So today was the day that the 19th Tzu Chi Haiti Relief Team was going back to the States' side. Pierrot, Lesley, and I took Curtis SB and Kathy SG to the airport this afternoon. All morning we were getting all the last minute things done before they were heading back to HQ in California. I was busy writing up the Food proposal for my orphanage, Fondation Enfant Jesus. We are lacking food and having budget strains, so I was hoping that Tzu Chi could help out with some continuous food distributions here in Haiti. I finally got all the food prices in USD and Gourdes for the food items that we have normally at the orphanage. I got it all written up and now it is on its way to Tzu Chi USA HQ. Hopefully, by next month, Tzu Chi will be able to provide on-going food distributions to my orphanages. That would be an awesome outcome!!!! I can't wait! Keep our fingers crossed and keep praying!

All of us said goodbye to Curtis SB and Kathy SG at the AA terminal. It was weird to see them leaving and not myself! Usually, it has been just the Haitian volunteers saying goodbye to us, but this time, I guess I was in the position of a local Haitian volunteer, as well. What a different feeling? Right after the airport drop-off, we headed straight for CEJ orphanage. We stopped by Manmie's house to look at how the Moringa plants were growing. Tzu Chi had given around 400 plants of Moringa seedlings to CEJ couple weeks ago and now they are all growing rapidly. The leafs were looking very nicely and it was blossoming for sure. I was very happy to see this result. It seemed that pretty soon the children could be eating the plants and getting all the nutrients that it provides. Combating malnutrition is definitely the main goal here!

I said goodbye to Pierrot and Lesley and got back to the children at the orphanage. I was very happy to see them! As of matter of fact, all of them were taking naps!!!!! WHAT! THIS NEVER HAPPENS! Turns out the two kids that don't take naps well and makes the most noises have been transferred up to Kenscoff because their adoptive parents were coming to visit. That was the only reason why we had total silence at the Lamardelle creche when I was back! What a breather for the nannies! We all whispered and went on with our things with giant smiles! Silence was definitely golden for those couple of precious hours!

Brazilian Flag Day & Happy Campus Home Visits

Today was, once again, a very productive day with Tzu Chi Foundation! In the morning, we went over to BRABATT II (Brazilian Peacekeepers' Base) in Port-au-Prince. It is Brazilian's Flag Day today, so they had a small ceremony on base. All the soldiers lined up in perfect formation. It was beautiful. I stood there in awe in the neatness of the whole. Major Roland met up with us and explained that once every year, they will switch their flag. The will lower the old flag, fold it, and then raise the new flag for the new year to come. After the ceremony was all done, they will burn the old flag and start the celebrations. 

Look how orderly they are! This is why I love the military! So uniformed and organized! 

In the afternoon, we went and did a whole bunch of Happy Campus Home Visits. All 13 of them to be exact!!! Happy Campus is the Back-to-School Program Tzu Chi has in Haiti for four of the local schools in four different zones. We have around 500 children that Tzu Chi is supporting through school supplies, hot meals and yearly school tuition scholarships. It was really good to meet all the kids that we are supporting and meet the behind-the-scene parents, as well. All the families live in really bad conditions. The zones that we targeted were the zones in Port-au-Prince that were the poorest. Especially the charcoal zones, where the children are always covered in black charcoal marks, from head to toe. 

All the kids were super excited to see us! They all shouted "Tzu Chi! Tzu Chi! Tzu Chi!" The father vowed to be a Tzu Chi volunteer from now on! What a great example of the circle of giving! The seed of love has been spread from Tzu Chi to the child, to the parent, and now to Haiti as a whole! 

This mother was so grateful for Tzu Chi's help that she kept on bowing down to us. This little guy is 4 years old and in 2nd year Kindergarten class in EUDEC. He is a total sweetheart! 

She was showing me all her books and grades she got! I was so proud of her! 

This is a 12 year old girl in 4th grade at EUDEC school. She is very intelligent and works very diligently in school. She gets all 10/10 on all her homework assignments. She loves Tzu Chi and really cherishes her chances at getting an education! She is real bundle of joy! 

This 6 year old boy was showing me how he can write all his numbers from 1 to 20. He recited them in French for me. He was super shy and didn't speak to anyone. I was super surprised when he grabbed me over to the door and started to interact with me. What a precious little boy! 

His birth mother disappeared after the 2010 earthquake, so he was officially "adopted" by one of his mother's friends. He has been under her care and out of the kindness of her heart opened her home to him. She treats him like her own son and now he is blossoming so bright! Love and compassion is all over!


I hope this Happy Campus Program will keep on evolving and get better as we support more children back to school in Haiti! 

Home visits and Haitian Volunteers Training

This morning we had a dedicated volunteer's meeting and training session for the 20 local volunteers who have Tzu Chi uniforms. We talked about how much work we have done over the 20 months since the January 12th, 2010 earthquake. We watched videos on individual volunteer's stories and different projects that are going on in Haiti. We told them that everything that they do is never lost. It is always documented and showed to the world. Literally, through Tzu Chi Media, the world is watching over Tzu Chi Haitian Volunteers and cheering them on every step of the way. We went over Master's philosophy and what it means to be a Tzu Chi volunteer. We also distributed more Bamboo Banks to the volunteers and told them to have good thoughts everyday. It is not about the money amount, but the actually good thought and the heart that goes into praying for no more disasters in the world, world harmony, and purifying our hearts to do better for others. We also went over how to properly bow to pay respect to Master Cheng Yen (Founder of Tzu Chi) and the Buddha. It was very nice to see all the volunteers again today and once again, I was the one translating everything to French/Creole. 

Curtis SB and I showed each of the volunteers how to properly sign their hands at the end of the third bow to Master and Buddha. I went around each one of them to correct the positioning of their fingers. 

We always need to round our fingers, so we do not poke others sharply and have a window of space to see out to the world. 

In the afternoon, we went out to the Stadium and Saint Alexandre areas in Port-au-Prince to do some home visits. I was especially excited to be able to go visit little Jennifer, Angel, and Mme. Rene this afternoon. I have not seen them for two months now and miss them dearly. For those of you who do not know the story of little Jennifer, she was 10 years old when I first met her back in February 2010, at our Tzu Chi Free Clinic in the National Soccer Stadium. She was carried in by two Haitian volunteers, unconscious and epileptic. She had a heat stroke and in turn caused her to have a seizure. About 15 minutes in, we see Mme. Rene, then a super pregnant woman run into the Free Clinic tent. She was inconsolable, just sobbing and yelling in French. I was the only person that could speak French at the time, so I ran over to console her. She told me that she already lost a daughter, she cannot lose another one. It turns out that little Jennifer was under the rubble of the earthquake for three days with a little sister. Little Jennifer later told me that she was holding onto her little sister's hand when the earthquake hit. She felt her little sister's hand grab on really tight the first day and as the days went on, the grip got looser and looser, until the third day they were dug out, but her little sister had already passed away. It was an heartbreaking story. In order for me to distract the mother from her sadness, I started to ask about the baby in her stomach. I casually asked how many months have she been pregnant. She responded with 10 months!!! I thought that I heard wrong and kept asking, using fingers now. It was indeed 10 months! At the time, I called over for three doctors to look at her baby. You can see the facial features imprinted on her stomach and no matter how hard the doctors pushed the baby had no response. No movement what-so-ever! We all know that if the baby was alive, there would be a lot of movement in the belly. The mother told me that the baby had not moved since the day of the earthquake, because she fell at the hospital. Long story short, she later got an ultrasound stating that her baby was healthy and 28 weeks along. I didn't know what to believe! I left Haiti at the end of March and in June I got an email from the Haitian volunteers stating that Mme. Rene gave birth to a healthy baby boy. I deemed him the miracle baby! 

The little girl is Jennifer. She is now 12 years old and a very smart little girl! The GIANT baby that you see in the picture is the miracle baby! He is 1 year and 5 months old now! Look how much he's grown!!!! 

Mme. Rene originally wanted to name the baby after me and I told her that it wasn't a good idea. So she  settled on Angel Lori Rene in the end. He is definitely an Angel through and through. 

We ended our day at one of the volunteer's, Jean Dennis', house. We visited his family and I got to see Patrick SB's God-daughter, Harmony! She is getting so big now and super cute! She is pretty like her mother for sure. It was nice to do home visits at all the volunteer's houses. It was good to know what conditions they were living in at the moment. 

Little Harmony. She says a giant hello to Godfather Patrick! 

What a super productive day! I am so grateful for all the opportunities and awesome people that I am surrounded by! 

Adventures with Tzu Chi Con't

This whole week has been extremely hectic. Every week is super busy, but this week was even more since Internet decided to go out all together. It started already being super rocky last week, but this week was just like "Hey! I'm tired. I'm going to the beach! See ya!" Usually it wouldn't be that big of a deal, since Internet is always rocky in Haiti, but this week I had to send out all the monthly reports to agencies, families, and team members! All 53 of them!!! Oh boy! When the internet would decide to work, it would only let me write email messages and couldn't attach any files! It would load for like two hours and then when the loading bar finally gets to the very last step it was come out with bold red letters "Attachment Failed!" That wasn't very nice! So thankfully that I have been working with Tzu Chi on the weekends, so I can use their internet to send things out! Reports are late, but there was not much I can do. I tried to compress many of the photo files to smaller sizes, but only a couple worked to attach itself. Anyways, now that I have internet here in OECC, I am definitely sending out as many as I can.

So tomorrow (11/18) is Haiti's Independence Day, so there is no work. This is the first time that I actually feel like I have a vacation day in Haiti, since I will be leaving the orphanage and going to meet up with Tzu Chi again. The Tzu Chi team is leaving this Sunday, so it was nice that they can come and pick me up at the orphanage to work with them again. I was super excited to be able to have good food, hot showers, and meeting with all my Haitian Tzu Chi Family. I feel very grateful for every one of them. So Kathy SG came with Pierrot and Lesley to come get me at the orphanage at around 5:30pm. I said goodbye to the children for the weekend and went on my weekend adventures with Tzu Chi once again. It was nice to talk to Lesley and Pierrot in the car on the way back to OECC. The traffic was horrible but it didn't matter. We were all used to the traffic in Haiti, it's a normal thing. Car coming from all different directions and people walking in between all the different spaces that formed with all the cars. It was just...normal occurrence now.

We got back to OECC at around 7:45pm and ate dinner! Yummy dinner once again! We talked about what we were going to do this weekend and it is once again fully packed. Tomorrow we will have a volunteer meeting and training for all the volunteers who have uniforms. I am so excited! I can't wait to see my Haitian Tzu Chi Family bright and early tomorrow!

Have a good night! I got a hot shower waiting for me! YAY!

Brazilian Troop and Haitian Doctors

Yesterday we went back and visited the Brazilian Peacekeeper (BRABATT II) Base. I was super excited to get to go back and see Major Roland again! He is someone with a giant heart and is in charge of the G9 department (Civil Affairs/Military Coordination) for the Brazilian Troops here in Haiti. The last time that I met him, it was only his second day here in Haiti, so pretty much clueless. We filled him in on all the projects Tzu Chi is doing in Haiti and also told him that we have worked with many troops before on orphanage feedings and support projects. Now it has been over two months and he has already found other different projects for us to collaborate on. It was great to see him and working out details on newer projects. There is a brand new school and two other orphanages in the Bel Air areas, which is a pretty high crime area in Haiti. They are in great need of support! 

Military Police Chief at BRABATT II! He was hilarious! He showed us around to the newer parts of the camp. He is staying here for an 8 months assignment. He said that it was super hard. He misses his family very much! 

Many strategic meetings took place at BRABATT II G9 department! Oh how I've missed this office! I still remember back in the distribution days, we would be here every other day planning and going out doing Reconnaissance with the troops. Good times! 

Major Roland gave us BRABATT II souvenirs before we bid our goodbyes. It was so nice of him! He was in normal casual wear yesterday, because it was a Sunday. He looked so different without his uniform on! 

We also met with two Haitian doctors yesterday morning. They are actually Haitian exchange students that studied in Taiwan for two years. They were scholarship recipients with the Haitian and Taiwanese Government. They both studied Medical Administration work, but they had already licenses to practice medicine in Haiti before they went. It was more like a PhD program in Haiti. The girl doctor studied in Taipei, while the other doctor studies in Kaoshong! His mandarin is a lot better than the girl doctor since in Kaoshong there weren't that many people who could speak English with him. It was quite weird to see that the doctors conversing in Mandarin and understanding when we speak Mandarin. I hope my Creole can be as good as their mandarin in a year. That would be awesome. 

We showed them videos on our recycling program and they were super excited about it. We gave them both a bag made out recycled goods, such as plastic bottles. They were in awe about the quality of the product. 

Simple Action, Big Difference! 

Tzu Chi Family Weekend Con't

My Tzu Chi Family weekend continues. Yesterday, we conducted a volunteer training for the Haitian volunteers in the St. Alexandre area. The biggest group that was included were the long time volunteers from OVRP in the National Soccer Stadium. They have been with us since the very beginning when Tzu Chi was doing large scale distributions and free clinics in the stadium back in March 2010. I was so happy to see them back doing more training. 

Austin SB and I hosting the volunteer session. I translated everything from Mandarin to French for the attendees.  We talked about Guatemala, Thailand, and El Salvador victims. 

We distributed many Bamboo Banks to the volunteers, wishing them best of luck in starting to foster good thoughts everyday and to help the less fortunate in Haiti. 

Picture with my Haitian Tzu Chi Family! Oh how I've missed you guys so!!!!

Weekend With Tzu Chi Family

So I was so excited this weekend, because Tzu Chi is back! They Tzu Chi International Relief Team will be back in Haiti, this time, for about two weeks. I met them in town (downtown Port-au-Prince) when we were finished with the funeral services for little Precious*. It was so nice of the foundation's driver to drop me off in town. This saved Tzu Chi a lot of traveling down toward Lamardelle. So this time Austin SB, Curtis SB, and Kathy SG, who can speak French, came down to Haiti. I was so excited to see them. I haven't spoken Mandarin in a long while and it was so nice to see familiar faces in Haiti. Most of all, I was super excited that I get to take a hot shower and get to eat nice CHINESE FOOD at OECC! Super excited. So when I got in the car, Kathy SG immediatly handed me some peanut butter crackers. Oh my goodness, that was like heaven in my mouth. I was so hungry from running around all day.

After picking me up, we immediately went on route to Judy's orphanage. Judy is someone who has a huge heart. She is a single woman who believes that her duty to be on this earth is to serve others. She believes that God has given her the grace to use all her talents and will to help orphaned children. She does not have any children of her own, but she does take care of 43 orphaned children 24/7 plus 100 more that goes to a free school that she offers during the day on her compound. She feeds the children two meals a day plus offer them a free education. That is great love right there! Her and I are really close, because we met back in 2010, right after the earthquake. Tzu Chi did many small scaled distributions for Judy's orphanage and they also have a very special relationship with the Jordanian troops and Jordanian Tzu Chi Family, as well. All the children still remembers Tzu Chi and they remember all the Mandarin and French sign language songs that we sang to them. They will repeat what they've learned all throughout the year. Judy was very happy to see us back to care for her and the children. We recently gave a batch of mattresses for the children at the orphanage, because the children were all sleeping on the floors and the humidity of the floors was causing many of the children lung and other health problems. We went back to see how they were all doing. All the children were happy to see us and we distributed some candy to them. They really understand and embody the philosophy of love, respect, and gratitude. We taught the children to not throw the candy wrappers on the floor, but in the garbage can instead. We also taught them to give the candy to the adults first before having it for themselves, as a sign of respect for our elders. We played with them and bid our farewell for the next visit.

When we got back to OECC I literally wolfed down all the food that was in front of me! Oh my goodness. I haven't had such delicious food in months! Recently we have been lacking food at the orphanage and they always want to make special food for me, but I always tell them no, that I will just eat what the kids eat. I don't want them to spend extra money on me, while the children are lacking food and nutrient. I cannot let them do that. So I will just eat what the children eat. And yes honestly, it's not much, but it is still food. The older children complain a lot about the food, but when you are hungry, food is still food, you eat it. The normal breakdown has been spaghetti with ketchup in the mornings, rice with bean sauce/corn meal with vegetables for lunch, and flour/corn porridge or bread and tea/hot chocolate for dinner. This is already wayyyy better than all the other orphanages in Haiti, so I am very grateful. I am actually working with Tzu Chi to donate food on a regular basis for the orphanage, because we are definitely running into food shortage and budget problems. I hope that it will work out in the end! Let's keep praying together!

I was so happy to have tofu again! It's been four months my friend....I was literally so happy to taste it that I was smiling so big when I was eating. I couldn't help it! I was SOOOOO HAPPY! So grateful to have all this delicious food in front of me. Literally, every single cell in my body was smiling! I guess this is what pure happiness felt like. All the SG and SB were like, "Wow, she is eating like she has been starving for months!" They said that even if they tried to enjoy their food like that, they couldn't. And apparently I was making a lot of high pitched noises. I kept saying how happy I was. I was, SUPER HAPPY!

I am so grateful for Tzu Chi coming back and to OECC for providing the delicious food and hot showers. I am such a lucky girl!!!!!!