We had an interesting thing happen yesterday and it's another peek inside the Haitian culture, particularly when Americans are around. Yesterday, Dan brought a ten year old student into the office around break time (10:15 AM). She was quiet and I had to pull out of her what the problem was. As she began to tell me big tears began to drop from her eyes. She said she had a stomach ache. So, I proceeded with my twenty questions, where? what kind of pain? when did it start? do you have diarrhea? did you eat over the weekend? did you eat anything today? Nothing was adding up. I proceeded to press on different parts of her abdomen (really pressed) to see if she reacted in pain. Nothing. (Later, Dan said that I had pressed so hard I probably could feel her backbone :0).
She didn't want to go home, so I gave her Pepto Bismal (yuck) which she drank hesitantly and didn't finish all of it. Later, she laid down in the hall saying her stomach hurt but we made her get up. (Drama is a good clue that nothing is wrong physically but something wrong). She lined up for lunch right after that, and I asked her how she felt, she said, "Not good." Stomach hurting .......and you are going to eat lunch?? Still not adding up.
After we got home that evening, Dan said she came to him at the end of school and asked for "money for medicine." He answered the right way, "No, if you need medicine you must ask Pastor Gary or Miss Carolyn." He proceeded to tell us that the first thing in the morning before the bell rang, she came in and began using his calculator saying she needed to calculate the cost of tin. Tin is used for roofs. When she saw the price she groaned and then the rest of the day she had a stomach ache (supposedly) . How do you translate all this to what is really going on? The parents put her up to getting money from Dan and the only way she could figure out how to do it was to have a stomach ache. We believe the tears in my office were dread at having to manipulate and conive this whole thing. Why would she follow through on it? To keep from being beaten. This child is very, very smart, lives in a terrible home situation and is used and abused by her parents.
Another situation, one little boy met me last week (my first day back) and asked for shoes. His shoes were tight and worn out. I don't have a problem buying shoes for kids, that's a reasonable service. But, I forgot and yet I remembered that we'd bought several pairs of shoes and these shoes were at least two years old, no wonder they don't fit. This week he has reminded me three times about his shoes. I began my questions. Don't you have tennis shoes? Yes, but I don't have shoe laces. Aha! Mom and Dad are sending him to me to manipulate a situation. He has shoes that fit but they want money for "something" so they put the oldest pair of shoes that don't fit on him. Been here too long, maybe, know most of the moves that are used to get money.
The bottom line is there are always people who think we cannot think. You can pray that in some way we can teach those who use their children in negative ways will realize they are keeping a big problem in this country going. How much easier it would be on a child for the parents to simply face us and tell us they have a financial need. I suppose they figure we won't believe their story either.......we probably won't.
A standard is that their father or their mother or their aunt died and they need money to go to wherever the deceased person is. One time, a man's father died four times. Hello? Didn't your father die two months ago? six months ago? a year ago? Of course we were supposed to have forgotten the request for money the first, second and third time.
Yet, it's what makes life interesting and makes for a lot of praying, a lot of laughs, and a few tears along the way. You know God has called you to a people when you don't give up. You also know you've been called when you love the people enough to say NO without feeling guilty. You know when you've been called when you are praying for their greater good.
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