To be honest, stepping back into "civilisation" now, I feel more like I'm temporarily visiting, and in no time, I'll be back home: Haiti.
Haiti, as a country, is beautiful. No wonder it used to have so many tourists. The mountains in Fond Verrettes were remarkable. Haitians, as a population, are honestly just a pleasure. They are festive and happy, always singing and dancing. They treat you like family. During my visit, my Haitian mum offered to wash my bag, my shoes and more. She said she wanted everything that I have to be clean. On top of that, she also boiled my shower water when I had a cold because she said she didn't want me to get more sick. Another example is the community youth who came and stayed outside my door the morning I was sick in case I needed anything, or at the conference, when one of the cooks made me my own juice when all they were serving was chocolate milk and she found out I was lactose intolerant. From the youth to the parents, everyone was welcoming and took me in like I was family.
Their community, I think, represents the true definition of the word. They all know each other, help one another and work together. It's just a bonus that they included me in that.
Yes, it's true, food was tough for me. But everything else was fine; I was well accommodated. I think that the one-on-one home stay (where each Global Potential participant stays with a different host family) is extremely effective. We all faced our own family challenges and learned to overcome them. It gave us a chance to experience true Haitian life: we weren't just a group of visitors who went and did things our own way, the way we were used to.
On top of just the local community, everyone from Global Potential was nice and welcoming, and that was great. We had some amazing staff who were always making us think about things in a different, interesting way. I can't even tell you how much I learned from that.
I think the set up of our program was also very solid. We got to experience Haiti in three different ways: Port-au-Prince (the city), Terre Froide (the village) and Forêt des Pins (the conference). It's great that we got to live through all three ways of Haitian life even though we were only in the country for such a short time. The actual Global Potential system was additionally well set up. We had a good balance of physical work in the morning, to interesting internships as well as some very though-provoking workshops in the afternoon. I enjoyed internships because it gave us the opportunity to come up with and work on our own projects, along with the ones we were obligated to do. For the workshops, I liked the fact that we were the ones leading them, and the same goes for the English classes. I also appreciate the weekend structure of our schedule. Having Saturday as an activity day gave us a chance to bond with each other and with the Terre Froide youth, while doing something fun. Sunday as a church/chores day was great for bonding with our Haitian families and for further understanding local life. During the weekdays, I found all our breaks to be the right length; we had a chance to eat, talk with our families, visit other houses, finish any work we still had, get started on our third phase projects and more.
As for the mandatory projects that we did (/the morning work), I really did think they would be harder. We could've worked more, but I think that the reason we didn't was because there were so many of us; each person had to do less. Obviously, if it was just the Global Potential participants who did the work, it would've been much harder. Regardless, it's not like we didn't accomplish anything, so it's fine.
As for the conference, I think that was also a very good experience, because it gave me the chance to meet more Haitian youth, to learn about the culture, to understand more about the problems they face as a country as well as discover how hopeful and enthused to better their country the youth are. The fact that we chose the topics we talked about was additionally very important. The idea of having the Forêt des Pins conference participants come back and stay in Terre Froide with us, was a very enjoyable experience; it gave us a chance to bond further in different environments. I would have liked to stay longer, so that I could have gone to the second conference down in Cité Soley.
All in all, even though there were moments when group moral was way down, and regardless of the fact that I was sick for most of it, I really did have a great time. I learned a lot and I am already starting to see how much it led me to grow as a person. I hope I will come back to Haiti soon, but more importantly back to my extended family in Terre Froide. I know for sure that I'm not done with them. Not yet.
LM
Haiti, as a country, is beautiful. No wonder it used to have so many tourists. The mountains in Fond Verrettes were remarkable. Haitians, as a population, are honestly just a pleasure. They are festive and happy, always singing and dancing. They treat you like family. During my visit, my Haitian mum offered to wash my bag, my shoes and more. She said she wanted everything that I have to be clean. On top of that, she also boiled my shower water when I had a cold because she said she didn't want me to get more sick. Another example is the community youth who came and stayed outside my door the morning I was sick in case I needed anything, or at the conference, when one of the cooks made me my own juice when all they were serving was chocolate milk and she found out I was lactose intolerant. From the youth to the parents, everyone was welcoming and took me in like I was family.
Their community, I think, represents the true definition of the word. They all know each other, help one another and work together. It's just a bonus that they included me in that.
Yes, it's true, food was tough for me. But everything else was fine; I was well accommodated. I think that the one-on-one home stay (where each Global Potential participant stays with a different host family) is extremely effective. We all faced our own family challenges and learned to overcome them. It gave us a chance to experience true Haitian life: we weren't just a group of visitors who went and did things our own way, the way we were used to.
On top of just the local community, everyone from Global Potential was nice and welcoming, and that was great. We had some amazing staff who were always making us think about things in a different, interesting way. I can't even tell you how much I learned from that.
I think the set up of our program was also very solid. We got to experience Haiti in three different ways: Port-au-Prince (the city), Terre Froide (the village) and Forêt des Pins (the conference). It's great that we got to live through all three ways of Haitian life even though we were only in the country for such a short time. The actual Global Potential system was additionally well set up. We had a good balance of physical work in the morning, to interesting internships as well as some very though-provoking workshops in the afternoon. I enjoyed internships because it gave us the opportunity to come up with and work on our own projects, along with the ones we were obligated to do. For the workshops, I liked the fact that we were the ones leading them, and the same goes for the English classes. I also appreciate the weekend structure of our schedule. Having Saturday as an activity day gave us a chance to bond with each other and with the Terre Froide youth, while doing something fun. Sunday as a church/chores day was great for bonding with our Haitian families and for further understanding local life. During the weekdays, I found all our breaks to be the right length; we had a chance to eat, talk with our families, visit other houses, finish any work we still had, get started on our third phase projects and more.
As for the mandatory projects that we did (/the morning work), I really did think they would be harder. We could've worked more, but I think that the reason we didn't was because there were so many of us; each person had to do less. Obviously, if it was just the Global Potential participants who did the work, it would've been much harder. Regardless, it's not like we didn't accomplish anything, so it's fine.
As for the conference, I think that was also a very good experience, because it gave me the chance to meet more Haitian youth, to learn about the culture, to understand more about the problems they face as a country as well as discover how hopeful and enthused to better their country the youth are. The fact that we chose the topics we talked about was additionally very important. The idea of having the Forêt des Pins conference participants come back and stay in Terre Froide with us, was a very enjoyable experience; it gave us a chance to bond further in different environments. I would have liked to stay longer, so that I could have gone to the second conference down in Cité Soley.
All in all, even though there were moments when group moral was way down, and regardless of the fact that I was sick for most of it, I really did have a great time. I learned a lot and I am already starting to see how much it led me to grow as a person. I hope I will come back to Haiti soon, but more importantly back to my extended family in Terre Froide. I know for sure that I'm not done with them. Not yet.
LM
