Haitian Kids in the Market

Haitians Kids in the Market
Our last day, on the way to the hotel, we stopped by the market. The front side of the market holds the vendors selling souvenirs. They sell paintings, jewelry, trinkets, coffee, machetes(which a few of our group bought!). You can buy food from child vendors such as peanuts or peanut brittle. After buying a few items (100 pesos will feel like a lot but it is about $3 or so) like some wooden cross necklaces, and some trinkets for our family who stayed at home, we wondered down to the group. I did get the chance to wonder over to the other side of the market, which was like the other side of the tracks. It actually stunk, as if someone had sprayed stink all over it. They were selling food items, kind of like the Publix but not. This is the Publix of Puerta Plata for everyday folks. The “WalMart” (LaSerina) where we shopped is for the rich. It is an amusement park. But they sell more American items so we felt comfortable there.
I digress ……. The other side was in stark contrast to the tourist side. As if I crossed an imaginary line, as if I stepped down the hole that Alice stepped into. It was just different, with the faces of the vendors different. We walked back to our side, and rejoined our group who had for the most part completed shopping and were enjoying the brittle that a Haitian boy was selling. He was wearing a bright yellow SpongeBob shirt, carrying a large bowl (kind of like a salad bowl to you and me), and he just had that look. Like a dog that had been kicked. He would receive money, and offer his goods, but he would quickly withdraw from interaction. He did speak some Spanish, enough to get around. But he speaks Creole, so again thanks Mom and Dad and Mme Lewis at BGHS. He is 12, has no family here, lives on the street, and survives by selling the brittle he obtains. I think he is like an employee or contract worker in the loosest form. We were able to buy more items from him. Buy from him peanuts, then give them to Soto to give to people her knows. I am thankful that he is working, as he will be able to eat most days ……. But I cannot belive that I am saying that. His working shows that he has the smarts to go to the right place, and the drive to work to feed himself. But he really has no choice. I was unable to get more of his story as a young girl walked up, full term pregnant. They were together, but not siblings. She (at 15) too has no family here, is from Haiti, and likely became pregnant prostituting herself to obtain food and shelter. She speaks Creole so we could speak as far as my French would carry us. By that time, all my money had been given away short of the 750 pesos we just spent at the market. What a helpless feeling. One of the other women opened her wallet for this child, but $20 is a drop in the bucket literally. Going back into the market, she had disappeard. I really felt a panic, that I had missed the chance, that a drowning child had sunk beneath the ocean waves. A vendor ,who had listened intently to my inept attempts at communicating ,saw that we were looking for her and yelled after me that she found her. We were able to give her the money, which Harry said is useful as American dollars can be used, but it will run out. And she will have her baby, alone. No paid two weeks of a baby nurse. No mother staying with her and caring for her and the baby for a couple of weeks. No showers and the excitement of a new life entering the covenant family. No meals brought by friends. No smocked dresses.
I cling to God’s Word (and as Harry says, He does not break His law) ……. Psalm 146 that He executes justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, gives freedom to the prisoner (and we who are in bondage to sin), opens the eyes of the blind, raises the humble, relieves the fatherless and the widow. It is an emergency to have a facility for girls. I look at that girl, and practically speaking, offer the filthy rag of money that will be consumed. Earnestly pray for the building of the girls’ orphanage.
No photos. I could not see to take a photo. It is just in my mind’s eye.