The final school in Haiti that the Mona Foundation has been lending support to is the Georges Marcellus school in Guerot – about a four hour drive north of Port au Prince. A daylong expedition took us to this small oasis of learning situated literally in the middle of rice fields near a tiny village. Getting there was a lesson in patience, prayer and gratitude…Driving through Port au Prince at nearly any time of day or night is a tension and traffic filled affair.  I thought that once we’d get to the outskirts of the big city that things would somehow be less oppressive, more pastoral.  Oh that it were true.

Simply put, the road of poverty in Haiti never ends.  As we passed through village after village it was the very same scene…animals, cars, children, bikes, wheelbarrows and huge trucks sharing the same cobbled and potholed throughways (dark humor had us cheering when we would hit a kilometer or two of semi-paved roadway).  People living in what would best be described as shanties – one room stucco structures, some tin lean-tos, others half-finished concrete foundation plus half walls with no roof. 

Some of the villages had constructed irrigation ditches running along the main road through the village, presumably to catch torrential run off from tropical storms.  That was the original purpose but in this relatively dry season the ditch was being used to wash clothes, take baths, rinse raw rice and other foods, and wash motor bikes.

With little real commerce or employment to keep people engaged, most of the villages we passed through were like a sea of humanity in the streets – women carrying goods on their heads for sale or barter, children trying to make a few dollars washing windows on passing cars, men doing construction, driving tap taps, or simply sitting around, and just too many people trying to live in too small a space.  Even in the smallest of villages many properties were surrounded by high iron gates or concrete walls with barbed wire or broken embedded glass shards o top to keep looters out.  This is not a way for people to live.

Amidst all of this, two incredible things stood out for me – when we saw children going to school (and there were many in Port au Prince and in neighboring towns) – they were always neatly dressed in bright, clean and pressed uniforms (obligatory in Haiti), their hair neatly combed (young girls wear the most beautiful braids and bows all over their heads), and they look washed and focused on getting to school – backpacks and all.  Weaving in and out of the traffic and mayhem, these kids walk with purpose, often in groups holding hands or the little ones clinging to their mom or dad’s hand.  This was beautiful.

Also,  the kindness of the Haitian people didn’t seem to end.  Without much detail, a few of our party really needed to "use facilities" and that condition became mission critial without a gas station or well secluded brush areas in sight.  Our driver stopped at a tiny village, at a simple house where he spotted a woman bathing a man in the yard.  Quite a sight to begin with…but he asked her if some of our party might use their bathroom – or whatever the arrangement in their home was.  She was gracious as can be.  She led people to her bedroom where she had a small bucket on the floor.  She indicated this was the place and gave privacy to the guests with a swish of a makeshift curtain.  And so it went.

After a four hour bumpy ride we came to a small turn off to the school.  We had to drive over some rice drying mats of nearby villagers, dodge donkeys and ducklings, to end up at the end of a narrow lane where the school sits, nestles among mahogany trees and rice patties.

The school has about 125 students in primary and secondary grades, three small classrooms built of bare concrete blocks, a “kitchen” composed of a fire pit for cooking, an outhouse of the primitive sort, and a lush green open field for the children to play on at their recess time. 

When we arrived we were greeted by members of the school’s educational council and a handmade sign in French welcomed us as the Mona Foundation delegation.  We got to peek in at the classes in session, greet the children, and the kindergarten even sang a song for us that was heart-melting.