Reflection: Keaton Linberg

Being that this was my third trip to Haiti, I thought that I had a pretty good idea of what the country is like.  I was wrong.  From staying at EBAC enough I had come to realize that orphanages were often the “Taj Mahal” of Haiti.  Unlike people living in the streets, being an orphanage kid meant that you would get fed everyday and have a roof to sleep under every night.  Apparently though, this is not true.  Peace and Joy showed me a new type of poverty.  At this orphanage you are lucky to get a meal everyday and even if they get a shipment of food it doesn’t mean that the leaders will feed the children.  The children spend their days sitting in a circle underneath a tree.  I’m sure that the days we were able to entertain these kids are something that they will remember and dream about for a long time.

This new view of poverty smacked me in the face even harder when a few of us “blancs” made a trip into the city for rice and beans.  Riding on the back of the truck through the streets gives you a pretty good feel of what the city is like.  Or at least this is what I thought until I put my feet on the ground and walked through the streets of a crowded inner-city market.  Only four of us Americans yet we drew the attention of hundreds of Haitians solely because they knew we had money that they didn’t.  There are no words that can truly describe an experience like that. 

All of this gave me a new view of the poverty and need in this country while also making me cherish my friendships with the Haitians at EBAC even more.  While I do feel that I am in Haiti to serve and help out as much as I can… I now feel like I’m also here to visit and reconnect with friends, just as any of us would do with long distance friends that live in the states.