Melinda and Jesula

In April Kay Angel had 2 birthdays to celebrate. On April 11th Jesula turned 4, and on April 28th Melinda turned 9. WOW they are growing up so fast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jesula was only 11 months when she came to live with us and Melinda was 5. Because of all the busyness of our recent move, the break down of our old camp site, preparations for the start of construction on Sacrifice etc, etc we did not really had the time to celebrate either birthday with a real party like we usually do here at Kay Angel.

But a birthday party is a very positive childhood memory for any child, so on Thursday May 5th we found the time to celebrate both birthday’s with a big cake and a special surprise visit.

Singing “Bon Fet” for the birthday chicks

A good friend of Kay Angel, Greg Bennick happened to be in Haiti this week for his charity organization OneHundredforHaiti and luckily for us it worked out perfectly for him to plan his visit with us coinciding with the day of this party, to be an extra surprise for the kids.

Cutting the cake

Greg had visited us for the first time on February 7th 2010,  just after the earthquake ,  and at that time he had surprised the kids already with one of his many talents. Today again he brought a lot of amusement to the party with his juggling skills.

The highlight of his show

Luckson is sitting on Dr Jacques Denis’ lap

Tyson from OneHundredforHaiti had brought a bag full of presents for all the kids of Kay Angel. They all received a big notebook and coloring pencils

Youseline, Melinda and Estania performing

After the beautiful performance of Greg and the presents from Tyson it was up to our “triplets” to perform some songs and dances.

Lia, Greg Bennick, Dr. Jacques Denis, Tyson Sadler

Jesula and Melinda had to wait quite some time for their birthday parties this year, but it turned out to be worth the wait. We all had a great afternoon.

With special thanks to Greg, Tyson and Dr Denis from OneHundredforHaiti

After a lot of preparation and planning we finally really started the work on our new land today.When I woke up at 6 AM this morning I could hardly believe it is finally all really happening. It was a very special feeling of joy, relieve and of-course anticipation as well, since the next 6 to 8 months will be very intense for me.

Our site manager Frantz Pierre Louis, who just finished up a beautiful project for Operation USA, Ecole Nationale Jacob Martin Henriquez, cleared our private access road to Sacrifice with the borrowed backhoe from Calvary Chapel so that the big trucks from “Water for Life” were able to drive directly on the land. Our project, as it happens, starts with drilling our own water-well so that we always will have water, “Water for Life”, “Dlo pou lavi”.

At the same time a team of locally hired workers started to clear our property lines from vegetation, so that we can prepare for placing our locally made fence. The philosophy of Kay Angel is to hire local wherever possible within our project to stimulate the local economy. Our future neighbors are very happy with us, since they found some work with us.

The big truck with the drill drives up Sacrifice. The chosen spot for our first attempt to find water is all the way at the top, so that we will save energy later with pumping the water into our system, gravity will do a lot of the work.

The 2nd truck with all the materials like the big PVC pipes that will go into the ground follows.

Drilling through a layer of white sand

In the distance we see a big rain approaching us. The view at Sacrifice is really breathtaking.

Drilling through a layer of very watery orange mud.

It was a beautiful sight to see this huge drill on our land. The drilling took up to several hours, but at a depth of 140 feet we already found water. And not just a little bit, we found 20 gallons per minute. That really exceeded all our expectations.

As if we were getting a blessing from above it started to pour the moment we found water. Everybody ran for cover in or under the trucks, except for Troy the driller, he continued to work, because in order to insure the quality of your well you always need to drill a little deeper after you find water.

After 20 minutes or so the rain had passed and the PVC pipes were lowered into the well.

For now the pipe will just sit likes this, covered with heavy tape. Now that we know how much water we found we can order the right pump for it. At a later time that pump will be installed.

Today was a beautiful day for me, a successful 1st attempt to find water resulted in a great 20 gallons a minute. The big rain was a beautiful omen to me that this land is truly blessed and that a beautiful future awaits the children of Kay Angel here.

Melinda, Kettia, Youseline, Yakime, Estania, Luckson

We are all super proud of our six kids that go to school
For their 2nd semester AGAIN they came home with beautiful results.
Youseline and Melinda were first in their class for the 2nd time with an average of 9, (10 being the highest!!!!!) and Estania finished 2nd again for the 2nd time with an average of 8.
The 3 little ones Kettia, Luckson and Yakime are still in kindergarden and came home with a “bien” the first semester, in this second semester all 3 went up to a “tres bien”, the highest result in the kindergarden system here.

Specially for the older 3 girls, our “triplets” this is a real triumph. When they first came to live with us Melinda was 5, Youseline 6 and Estania 7. None of them had ever attended school. None of them knew how to count from 1 till 10, A B or C, or the names of any colors. So it was just impossible at that time to find a school for them to go to. In Haiti all kids have to pass an admission exam, even for kindergarden. Obviously the triplets were considerable behind for their age. And besides that they are also all 3 HIV + and schools in Haiti don’t easily except children that are HIV+ So we home-schooled them for the first 3 years with us to get them up to their level. Last July they passed the admission exam at L’Ecole S.O.S. Enfants in Cyvadier, and the directrice of this school even congratulated us for taking care of children infected instead of like other schools to discriminate against them and refuse their admission. She was very happy to open her doors for our kids, which made me very happy because this school ranks high on the national level. Besides that this is also a tuition free school for all their students.

But most importantly: our kids love to go to a “real” school and wear a nice uniform and make new friends so I am just so happy for them they get to live that experience, and well…….. their school results speak for themselves.

An original English gun from the late 1700′s at Fort Jacques

The day after, on Thursday I took the 5 older kids on an excursion to the only Zoo
in Haiti, in Fermathe, Kenskoff and the historical Fort Jacques high in the mountains above Port au Prince.

Very early on in the day this day proved already to be a multi-cultural day.
We had left at 7 AM since Kenskoff is all the way on the other side of Port au Prince high in the mountains, so quite some road to cover.
We had not even crossed the mountain-road coming from Jacmel yet, and roadblocks appeared before us, luckily unmanned.
But as we drove into Leogane we came upon a serious roadblock on Route Nationale 1 and lots of people in the street throwing
rocks at whomever tried to get through.

On our left we just saw some MINUSTAH/UN military take cover in a sugarcane field.
The day before, the final election results had been made public, for President as well as other political functions,
and even though everybody is happy with the new President, apparently
not everybody is happy with the results of their local representatives.

We turned around immediately, but did not want to let this spoil our special day, so we tried to find our way through to Port au Prince anyway
through some back dirt roads. Ofcourse we were not the only ones who tried these roads and soon we found ourselves in a huge traffic jam
for a couple of hours.

Finally we did make it to Kenskoff, clearly not at the planned 10.30 AM but at 1.30 PM
First some sandwiches and French fries with cold, cold cokes in the restaurant to recover from our long road-trip.

Then we visited the Zoo. This Zoo is part of the Centre Evangelique Wallace Turnbull.
This is a Baptist mission in Fermathe founded in the 60′ties by an American missionary Wallace Turnbull.
There is a church, a little hospital, a little museum and the little Zoo.

We were a little disappointed by what we found at the Zoo.
Most animals had died some time ago. We found a goat in a cage, lots of rabbits, some peacocks
and 1 very sad little monkey who appeared very neglected.
We all felt a very strong desire to free this monkey and take him home with us.
All kids agreed that monkeys should eat lots of bananas, but in the monkey’s cage we saw no food, just plastic trash.

There was however also a great playground for the kids, that made up for the disappointment at the Zoo.

Youseline

Melinda

Yakime

Luckson

Estania

The Museum was very interesting for the kids. There were some stuffed animals, lots of fossils, Haitian cultural attributes and a life size wooden Indian.

Estania is very intrigued with the Indian

Tania, Reginald and Youseline posing with the Indian

Overview of Port au Prince and the bay
Then we drove the 12 km further up the mountain to Fort Jacques.
After Haiti gained it’s independence, their forefathers always feared that the French would return in an attempt to retake the colony.
In order to protect the Port-au-Prince and the Cul-de-Sac, two forts were built on top of the mountains near boutilier:

• Fort Jacques (for Jean Jacques Dessalines) and
• Fort Alexandre (for Alexandre Petion).

Mounted on Fort Jacques are original French and English guns from the late 1700′s. Each gun is inscribed with the name of the corresponding king.

Fort Alexandre, the twin battery to Fort Jacques was never finished.

Fort Jacques overlooks the whole of Port au Prince and the bay, and the view from up there is magnificent.

Picking flowers

At 7 PM we left Fort Jacques to start the decent and the long trip home with a beautiful view of the sunset over the mountains.
We came home at 10 PM with 5 very tired, but super happy kids that had the day of their lives.
Another great childhood memory for them.

Well before our move into the new house our kids cribs were starting to get to small for the younger kids, They are really growing up fast. So for the new house we have made bunk-beds for all of them with the help of a group of volunteers from Calvary Chapel

Dave Bird came early with his group and all the materials to put them together directly in their bedrooms.

When the kids came home from school at 1.15 PM a great surprise was waiting for them in their bedroom.

Youseline, Melinda and Estania decided right away that they all 3 were to sleep upstairs and without any hesitation ran up the special made “stairs” at the end of the beds. Just to see the happiness and excitement on their faces made it worth while to have these beds made.

We have 7 girls and so now 1 bed extra, so that Chidlie, a girlfriend from our “old” neighborhood  St Helene can come for sleep overs any time she wants to.

Of-course we had to buy all new big mattresses for all the kids right away.

The boys bedroom has 2 bunk-beds, Yakime and Luckson sleep upstairs, and Sylvaince and Zael who are younger, sleep downstairs. Martin will stay in his crib with extra protective cushioning around for his safety, since he is severely handicapped and not able to sleep in a bunk-bed. Soon we will have to find a special handicapped  bed for him.

We have passed on our old cribs to “Hands And feet”, another orphanage in Cyvadier, Jacmel who still has a lot of young children and could use some extra cribs

Dave was so kind to deliver them for us with the big Calvary Chapel truck.

And then it was time to make nice decorations to dress up the bedroom.

That in itself was a big party for the “triplets”

The painting the girls once had bought together with Martin Schmitt had survived both, the earthquake and move and was given a special place on the new bedroom wall. That made the girls bed-room complete. The ladies promised that they will soon start to work on decorating the younger boys’ bedroom as well.

Last thursday March 31 st we have moved Kay Angel into our new “temporary” home. Dave Bird from Calvary Chapels had chosen the color “Peach” for us, when he painted the house last week with his group of volunteers, but to me it looks totally like the Dutch National color ORANGE The house turned out so beautiful, it feels immediately like a real Home to us.

The kids were so excited when I went to pick them up from school and we did not go back to our campsite anymore, but straight to the new house. After I had brought them to school at 6.30 in the morning we immediately moved all our stuff in 2 trips to the new home, with the great help of yet another group of volunteers from Calvary Chapels and their big truck. So the kids found their new home completely decorated already, and all their toys, beds etc and the group of volunteers to welcome them and spend some playtime together.

By 11 AM our kitchen was already full up and running so that lunch would be ready on time.

Our first weekend in our new home we worked very hard on our garden, we got 3 truckloads of gravel, “sab de mer” so that the kids can play outside without any mud problems.

Youseline and Estania helping out with the gravel.

The rest of the garden was cleaned up and in 2 weeks time we will start the garden project with the kids. The idea is that every child will have it’s own garden to tend to and grow things that we can eat, like carrots, tomatoes,aubergine, squash, persil, cabbage etc etc

There is even a perfect spot for our car to be parked, safely away from the street.

Every evening after dinner Youseline, Estania and Melinda are doing the dishes.

They are very dedicated to this chore and our dishes are spotless

Sunday afternoon memory game

Our front fence is being decorated just about every day with different designs.

It is just so beautiful to see our kids play their little hearts out in the safety of our own front yard, they are beyond happy in their new home, and so am I. Every evening, totally exhausted from all this play they fall asleep right away like little rocks.

And after this first fantastic weekend in our new home came monday morning, quarter to 7, time to go to school.

Fantastic news, we have found a house to rent for Kay Angel. The rainy season is just days away. Our campsite has suffered a lot by the elements, sun, rain, dust. Everybody is really exhausted by the way we have been living for the last 15 months.

Our construction, delayed by all kinds of circumstances, will start in April. But it will take at least 6 to 8 months before Kay Angel will be realized at Sacrifice.

Too long for us to continue living the way we have been living. The solution of course is to find a suitable and affordable house for rent. The availability of houses for rent in Jacmel is very limited. The earthquake has destroyed or severely damaged most houses.

But we got really lucky. I found a great house all the way at the other side of Jacmel, that recently became available for rent again. This house was spared from damage by the earthquake, and came out of the inspection by the city of Jacmel as being totally safe.

The house has a beautiful front-yard, a great space for our kids to play their little hearts out. A big kitchen, a huge living room, enough bedrooms for all of us. The garden is filled with trees, most of them grow something that we can eat, coconuts, bananas, plantains, breadfruit, papaya and almonds.

We are a lot closer to the school of our kids, and won’t have to cross the city of Jacmel anymore while taking them to school and back.

And that is not where our luck is ending. The house could use a fresh coat of paint and some adjustments to our needs. It just so happens that Dave Bird from  Calvary Chapels has all these groups of volunteers these next couple of weeks, and his group of this week has already started with the painting and other home improvements. Next week thursday March 31st Dave and his next team will help us move Kay Angel with their big truck.

In the pictures you see the first coat on the walls in white, the final color will stay a surprise for now.

Our kids are super happy and excited to be living in such a great house soon. It’s all they talk about since I took them to meet the house last friday

Right after the earthquake last year Pacific Domes had donated a 36′ and 44′ dome to Kay Angel for our shelter. Unfortunately, transporting those domes from Oregon to Jacmel via Los Angeles, Miami and Port-au-Prince took over seven months despite the help of some very dedicated people, among them Deanne LaRue from the Meridian Foundation, the folks at Operation USA, Andy Watson and others at Airline Ambassadors, Michael Rettig, and last not least the Haitian Rotary Club.

By the time the domes finally made it to Jakmel we had already constructed a temporary home for our much needed shelter with the help of Dave Bird from Calvary Chapel.

So with no immediate use for these beautiful domes anymore at Kay Angel we recently passed the domes on to 2 other great causes. The first being the school that 6 of our kids attend: S.O.S Enfants in Cyvadier. This is a great school, tuition-free, run and financed by the owners of Hotel Cyvadier Margaret Kohlbrenner and her son Christophe Lang. 4 of their classrooms had been completely destroyed by the earthquake.

Since they don’t have the funds yet to reconstruct these classrooms the school had been teaching their students in 2 shifts in a make-shift space in the court-yard. The 44′ dome now provides enough space for the 4 classrooms and the school hours are back to normal.

The 4 destroyed classrooms

We had called in the help of Grass Roots United, to set up the dome, since they are the official “certified by Pacific domes” dome builders. They have constructed many Pacific domes in Haiti already for various NGO’s GRU came with a team of 18 and under supervision of Chad Walsh the dome was constructed in 2 days on a special concrete platform Christophe had build for it.

Setting up the dome

Setting up the dome

Lifting the whole structure to attach the next row of struts

A moment to rest

A moment for fun

The team of Grass Roots United

It was a beautiful sight to see this geodesic structure erected in just merely 2 days, and how well this team of GRU worked together.  The moment the skin was pulled over it was really breathtaking.

Pulling over the skin

Fitting on the skin

The skin fits perfectly!

Once S.O.S Enfants has rebuild their classrooms the dome will continue to function as a theatre, arts, special events and community space.

Yakime and his class of pre-schoolers

The new classrooms in the dome

The new classrooms in the dome

The public playground at the village square of Jakmel

I can hardly believe it is already one year ago the devastating earthquake of January 12th 2010 hit Haiti. To me it still feels like it just happened. Maybe because we are still so busy with the aftermath. Rebuilding in general has not started yet, even worse most of the rubble has not been cleared yet. Too many people are still living under very difficult circumstances in tent cities, a daily reminder of the earthquake of January 12th. Our own process of rebuilding, even though we are working on it very intensely, is advancing just very slowly due to all kinds of obstacles on the way.

Wednesday January 12th 2011 was a day of remembering and reflection for us. For me personally it was a very emotional day, because I am just so grateful none of our kids or staff got injured or killed in the quake, yet I am very sad at the same time missing the dear friends I have lost this day a year ago.

All churches in Jakmel were filled with people praying. A long procession of praying and singing took the streets going from one church to the next, picking up more people as they went along. Several organizations had handed out free remembrance t-shirts which were worn by the participants of the procession.

A long procession of people praying and singing

In the afternoon I went around Jakmel with the 5 oldest kids, Youseline, Estania, Melinda, Yakime and Luckson to take in several activities that were going on. These are the same kids that I had taken to the playground this day a year ago. We started our outing with a visit to the playground, which still is host to a tent camp.

When Yakime, then 4 years old, saw the playground again he started talking a mile a minute about what a great time he was having there a year ago when that “stupid” earthquake happened which crashed his fun, and how we have never been back there to play. “Lia, Lia, remember how I had climbed all the way to the top of the climbing wall, wasn’t that great” he called out so happy with a big smile. That brought tears to my eyes. The strength and innocence of a child is a beautiful gift.

Before the quake we would go an average of twice a week to the playground, but we haven’t been able to go there since, for obvious reasons.

The swings now serve as extra security to the tents

Yakime’s favorite climbing wall

We visited the memorial Wall at the beach of Jakmel. This is a mosaic project of Art Creation Foundation for Children ( ACFFC ) in remembrance of the earthquake. The children of their program have been working on this wall since June 2010, under direction of several foreign artists.

The result is just beautiful.

Tree of Life

Sea Spirits

Cine Institute: preparing the stage for films to be shown next to the memorial wall

At 4.53 PM, “the time of the earthquake”, a general moment of silence was observed, which we shared with many others on the beach of Jakmel, where a remembrance mass was held. We finished our afternoon with a visit to Jakmel Ekspresyon

This is a new post-earthquake cultural centre in memory of Flo Mc Garrell. Flo, a good friend of mine, was the director of FOSAJ, a cultural center that was destroyed for the most part by the earthquake.

Flo was killed by the earthquake.

The Jakmel artists presented a special art show in memory of Flo.

Art show in memory of Flo Mc Garrell, director FOSAJ

Yakime loves all these statues

The special ‘Vevé” for Flo Mc Garrell

All in all it was a very peaceful day for us

Tonton Noël visiting Kay Angel

We here at Kay Angel have had a great Christmas season. The festivities started already on Tuesday December 21st with the Christmas celebration at Martin’s school PAZAPA, school for the handicapped. There was music, dans, performances and a great meal at noon for all the kids and their parents. In the meantime I had to run out and get Youseline, Estania and Melinda from school so they got to spend some time at this party as well. Martin received a great present from Santa Marika, the director of PAZAPA.

Martin receives present from Marika MacRae, director of PAZAPA

X-mas celebration at PAZAPA

Martin with Youseline, Estania en Melinda at X-mas party PAZAPA

On wednesday december 22nd SOS Enfants had their X-mas party for their students. This is the school that Youseline, Estania, Melinda, Yakime, Luckson and Kettia attend. Every class had prepared a song, poem or dance and performed this for all other classes. The x-mas present from the school to all of their students was a hygiene kit, this in the spirit of the still very present cholera epidemic

The class of Youseline, Estania and Melinda performing at the X-mas party of their school SOS Enfants

Thursday December 23rd Kay Angel received a visit from Santa himself who brought a nice present for each child. Santa arrived in a UN car and was accompanied by several UN police officer who took a lot of pictures. Each kid got to sit on Santa’s lap and received his or her present. The triplets performed their whole Christmas repertoire for Tonton Noël, as Santa is called in Haitian Kreyol.

None of our kids showed any fear for Santa, not even Zael, Nancy or Sophie. A little surprised by that.

I asked the kids afterwards how come they had not been afraid at all, given this was the very first time in their life they met with Santa.

“Well, they said, they had not been afraid at all, because they knew right away this was not the real Tonton Noël, this was just that Canadian UN police guy who had been visiting us a lot over the last 2 weeks dressed up in Santa’s clothes”

Nancy on Tonton Noël’s lap

Zael with Tonton Noël

Youseline with Tonton Noël

Kettia on Tonton Noël’s lap

Singing for Tonton Noël

Martin with Tonton Noël

A big Thank You to Marc Senechal, the Canadian police officer from the UN for the fun visit and all the presents.

On Christmas day Kay Angel held their own traditional Christmas party. This is something we do every year for our kids and all our staff.

Our kitchen-staff prepared a delicious, beautiful lunch. All our staff came with the exception of Frantz, our director who was on his 2 weeks leave.

We had Rochel, our night security agent as DJ Rochel, providing the music.

All the kids performed for us, and even some of our staff. All kids had fun singing in the microphone and in the afternoon they got to open their presents which Santa had left for them during the night before the party.

The Christmas party was a big success, everybody had great fun.

We wish for 2011 to be a great, positive year for every-one

Kay Angel’s Christmas party for all kids and staff