Home from Haiti, Part 4: Beauty from Ashes

Visiting Haiti is a slightly surreal experience. While there is great beauty in the country, all around there is daily a struggle to survive.

When I travel to Haiti to visit Baby B, I stay at a guesthouse run by my adoption agency. The compound is surrounded by a high wall, topped by barbed wire. A guard is payed to ensure our safety. My room is simple, but clean. There is even a small air conditioner in it to keep me cool. The bathroom that I use has no running water, but I do not have to fear being exposed to cholera when I use it (as I would if I used a public restroom elsewhere in the city). The water from the tap cannot be ingested. You will get sick if you do. No hot showers. Mosquitoes abound. Fashion is waaaay down on my list of priorities.

Kind of like camping.

It's quieter there, detached from my regular life. Although there is a TV, I don't watch it. I think only one of the channels is in English. Much of my time there is spent with people who's primary language is Creole, and I have to rely on my limited French from high school (which is a little similar). I bring a journal and allow myself to process all that is happening around me.

Three amazing meals were prepared for me every day. The meals were larger than I would normally eat, but I ate as much as I could, always cognizant of the fact that thousands were going hungry just outside the walls of the compound where I was staying. 

I had never visited Haiti before March of this year. I wish I had known the country before the tragedy of the earthquake on 12 January 2010. I watched in horror along with the rest of the world as the tragedy unfolded. Most of the world has moved on with their lives, the earthquake a distant memory.

For the people in Haiti, the struggle continues. 

The agency I am working with first tries to come alongside of the birth families, before taking their children in permanently. I was able to witness this first hand while I was in Haiti on this last visit. If the birth family feels that they can no longer take care of their children, they are counseled before the children enter the creche. This part of the process in International adoption is crucial. It's so important to have that helping hand offered to the birth families so that they can decide whether to parent their child or make an adoption plan. It is arrogant to assume that just because we live in a 'first world' country that all children would automatically be 'better off' living in our world. That mindset really bothers me.

Being 'poor' does not mean that you love your child any less. 

But, sadly, it can mean that you are forced to make the ultimate sacrifice of letting your child go, so that they can live.

Click the banner above to vote for Just B. @Top Mommy Blogs! You can vote once a day.