Hello All,
In this update we will write about three siblings, Alesandra, Alexander, and Luis Miguel, that moved to Haiti with the JRF without their parents. Their mother has eight children, seven of which used to be in the JRF. They were highly neglected, and while their mother sometimes seemed to genuinely love her children, she never made taking care of them a priority. From bathing, to providing food, to washing their clothes, to showing and telling them they were loved, she failed.
From left, Alesandra, Luis Miguel, Alexander hang out on the Jacmel boardwalk.
When the two boys first got to us in 2012 they were on the path to becoming gangsters. In their time at the JRF, both have been violent towards Catherine, me, and our staff, throwing rocks, biting, or punching us in the face. Although they both still have a dark side to them, they are now two of the sweetest boys in the Foundation. Luis Miguel is the oldest of the three, and he is currently living with one of our families with a mother and father, who are religious, strict and great parents. He is around twelve years but developmentally is closer to seven years old. He got to the Foundation in early 2012 and couldn’t even articulate words enough to form a sentence. Children like him that have experienced severe trauma can get to a place, without being pushed much, in which they lose their short term memory and all control. They stop thinking, they don’t remember what they do or are told, and, for all intents and purposes, stop being functional people. If you try to talk to them about their behavior in one of these states they generally won’t even remember it. When Luis Miguel got to this point, he would have the most serious case of dead eyes we have ever seen on a child.
He is tough as nails and has always been one of my favorite boys to roughhouse with. He packs a lot of power in his punch, considering how big he is. When we talked to him about moving and what he preferred, one of his greatest concerns was food. He asked Catherine if he would get fat, and asked if she would get fat, too, because eating a lot of food was a thing that wealthy people do. While at the Foundation, he has learned numbers and math, how to write his name, and the alphabet. The family he lives with has played a big role in his new-found tranquility due to their stability, love, and discipline.
Luis Miguel hanging out at the JRF land in Bois Boeuf.
Luis Miguel calls Catherine his mother and me his father. He has been obsessed with getting a bicycle for a while now and has been working on me to get one. He offered to make ten belts for a bike, which could buy about 20 of the bike he wants, but my man is still working on math. I offered to buy him the bike if he picks up every piece of trash in the community for ten days. It is now all he talks about.
Alexander is about eleven and is the most difficult child in the family. He was not quite as violent as Luis Miguel, but when he blew up it was worse. Luis Miguel would get violent but once he chilled out, he would go home or at least leave the Foundation. When Alexander got suspended, he would spend the rest of the day chucking rocks into the Foundation from the street and then running away as soon as we went outside to get him. Let me tell you that deciding what to do when a child stands in the street and starts raining rocks down on the Foundation is pretty tricky. You can’t just let them keep lobbing rocks into your playground but chasing a ten year old street kid through the hood is, first of all, a bit undignified, embarrassing when you don’t catch the kid (they fit through barbed wire fences and other crannies way better than an adult), and if you do get lucky and catch them you think, “What now?” As soon as you let go of them they are going to bolt. They are so worked up that they won’t remember anything you say to them, and while the base impulse might be to turn their behind beet-red, we don’t know that beating a child for being violent is a great solution.
Alexander feeling good in some new clothes.
While Luis Miguel is less developed for his age and a bit more primal, Alexander is a total street kid. From about age six, he has been wandering the streets by himself and going home at all hours of the night, a time in which most kids are afraid to be out. When he was eight or so he came to the Foundation wasted, because some old alcoholic had gotten him drunk on Haitian moonshine. We had to take him to a hospital an hour away to make sure he didn’t die of alcohol poisoning. He is extremely strong-willed and intelligent. He had been wanting to come live with Catherine and me after moving to Jacmel, but we insisted he live with a family. He had issues with his first family placement and rejected the second. Around the same time, Neri died and her boys came to live with us, and Alexander made his move. He would walk to our house at night, not knock or say anything and just sleep in the backyard. We couldn’t just let him become homeless, so after a couple of nights, we started letting him stay with us “temporarily.” He is very helpful around the house and is a great and happy child.
Lastly, Alesandra is their younger, eight year old sister. Alesandra is a bit of a tomboy. She desperately wanted to enroll in Karate class with her brothers, likes to roughhouse and is pretty silly. She also loves dancing, dressing up and putting makeup on. She is currently living with a woman named Krisian, who has two other daughters and a son. Alesandra is happier than she was before, although leaving her mother and older sisters behind was hard for her. She loves the camera and has a repertoire of poses. When Alesandra first joined the JRF, she was just four years old and she was impressingly independent, although not always by her own will. She would walk back and forth a long distance to the Foundation alone and helped take care of her baby brother. She is also developmentally pretty behind. Just in the last several months she has stopped making baby noises and uses full sentences. She is a total sweetheart and loves attention and affection.
Alesandra strikes a pose on her first day of school.
Of the children we left behind in the family, one was an infant and not ready to leave, two were older girls, and the last was little Enrique, a heartbreaking case. He was very close to Alexandra, Luis Miguel and Alexander. He was a miserable baby. He literally never smiled and his needs were not met. By 2014, he had totally changed and was very happy. We pray that the mom decides to bring him to us one day and we can help him again.
As always thank you for your support, we are making a real difference in our children and families’ lives.
