Why for a School on a Remote Haitian Island?

Just prior to the hurricane season of 2008, and despite travel warnings issued by the U.S. State Department, we sailed Kai Ohana, to the island of Ile a Vache off the southern coast of Haiti to see for ourselves the poverty we have all heard about. While there, we delivered supplies and funds we collected for two elementary schools while traveling through the Caribbean, and for ten days, we helped the people there in any other way we could. (Read more about our adventure).

Hope for Haiti

In the past nine months, we have been on the east coast of the U.S. working to partner with a non-profit to raise money to build two schools for the villages we visited – La Hatte and Grand Barriere. Hope for Haiti, a Maryland based non-profit proved to be the perfect fit. They are currently building a school in the village of Grand Sable, Ile a Vache, and agreed to help us achieve our goals elsewhere on the Island.

NOW WE NEED YOUR HELP…

Without funds, nothing can be accomplished, but they don’t need much relative to our standards to provide a decent learning environment. The budget for the five room school house currently being built in Grand Sable plus two years of salaries, supplies and operating expenses is $20,000! Our Goal is to raise enough funds to build the school in Grand Barriere, then focus on the one in La Hatte.

FUNDS RAISED AS OF MARCH 15, 2009

Please take a moment and click on the Paypal Button below to contribute to the future of the children of Ile a Vache, Haiti. Then send your friends and family members an email to do the same. Thanks!

Because so much of the world is in such need, it didn’t take long for us to find our first project. 115 miles into our journey, we met Captain Beans, an entertainer on Marina Cay. Captain Beans had been marooned for some time on the island of Ile a Vache off the southern coast of Haiti, and after falling in love with its children, he committed to do for them whatever he could for the rest of his life. With a local from the fishing village of La Hatte, Jean Phelix Joesph, he co-founded the Good Samaritan Foundation that educates and cares for the underprivileged children on the small island. And after we got to know the good captain, heard his story, and felt his passion toward the children, we knew we had “been called” to help them in any way we could.

After the news of three hurricanes decimating Haiti during the 2008 season, Haiti’s plight should be well known to those throughout the world. But Haiti has been a country in severe poverty since its independence from France over 200 years ago. Though it appears the numbers are not quite as bad for the population of Ile a Vache, the Mercy and Sharing Foundation (www.HaitiChildren.com) who works extensively in the poorest neighborhoods of Port au Prince, claims that the statistics for the 9,000,000 inhabitants of Haiti are alarming:

• 10% of the child population in Haiti will die before the age of 4.
• 7% of the children in Haiti are enslaved. That’s 300,000 children as young as 3 years old who often suffer sexual, emotional and physical abuse.
• 45% of the Haitian population is illiterate.
• 70% of the population lives below poverty level
• 30% of the population is either ill and or underweight

With these kinds of statistics in mind coupled with Captain Bean’s descriptions of the grating poverty the islander’s experience, we really found ourselves with no other choice but to help these folks in any way we could. So despite travel warnings issued by the State Department for Haiti ten days prior to our departure from St. Thomas, the family decided to sail to Haiti to specifically help the future of the country, its children, starting with those on Ile a Vache.

After a couple of weeks of preparation, we sailed nine days to Port Morgan Bay on the Northeast corner of Ile a Vache and met up with our contact, Mr. Joseph. He acted as our tour guide while we were there and scheduled several outings for us including a trip to meet the children of his village, the fishing community of La Hatte.

On our first full day there, we didn’t quite know what to expect, so we packed the dinghy with everything we thought we would need to document the journey and motored our way down the western coast of the island to La Hatte. As we anticipated, the villagers were very gracious and after introductions with the village elders, they led us up the trail through town to the school.

We were surprised to see that there was only one classroom for the kindergarteners and another small building that housed the “library”, which was a stack of books on the floor, but no others. There was a foundation of a building they had started, but they had run out of money before erecting the walls and a roof. The older children sat and worked on rough-sawn benches and desks and were sheltered from the sun and weather by rusted tin sheets laid over rickety pole lean-to structures. While watching these children focusing on the instructor at the chalkboard, we couldn’t help but mentally compare our schools back home with these.

After we observed the students at work and received a beautiful welcome song from each class, we asked Phelix to assemble all the students in the courtyard; we wanted to observe how they were in their most comfortable environment – the playground. We broke the ice by producing a couple of hula-hoops and some jump ropes and after our few lame demonstration attempts at the hula-hoops, they showed us their innate talents. No demonstration was necessary, however, for the jump rope, as these kids had obviously been jumping rope since they could stand up. The biggest curiosity unexpectedly ended up being the little flip screen on the video cameras. These children had obviously never seen a TV and to see themselves in a moving picture was truly a treat.

The following day, Phelix had arranged for us to travel thirteen miles east of our anchorage to the other school he serves. There is absolutely no infrastructure on Ile a Vache – no roads, running water, sewer systems, or electricity – so the only way to travel is by walking, or by horseback. Since it had rained the night before and the trails were nothing but mud, we were happy to have access to the local transportation.

We rode about three hours to the school, which ended up being a lean-to constructed on the north side of a home. Phelix had leased one room in the home for the kindergarten and the space at the back of the home, but the owner wanted to have his property back and was in the process of evicting him at the time we arrived. The superintended of the school was obviously upset at the prospect of having to close the school, and after we visited with the administration and completely distracted the students, he took us to a piece of property that they hoped to one day purchase for the school.

We were very impressed with Phelix and the work he has done for the children of Ile A Vache with such precious few resources. His schools are ill equipped and most of the classes are held outdoors. Not only do the students need uniforms and lack the bare essentials like books and supplies, many of them show up for classes without having eaten a morning meal.

For those of us who have been privileged enough to be raised and educated in the first world, it is hard to imagine the hardships these people endure just to feed themselves, much less to get a basic education. We traveled to Ile a Vache to help the children on the island, yet we cannot do it alone. We need your help. Won’t you please help Phelix and the children of Ile a Vache by donating $5, $10, or $20 to their schools? If we can get a lot of people to each donate a little, it will make all the difference in the world to these young lives (to read the full article on our adventures in Haiti, click here). To make your small contribution, please click here.

Read the full article here and the short article here.

It’s not that our bottom paint was that old, it was time to raise the water line and do some other things to the hull that required the boat to be out of the water. When I first struck the water line on the hull in June 2006, I did it in the yard with a laser, but I was only able to get about a boat width away, so my line didn’t quite match the water’s level once she had been splashed. Also adding another several tons to the boat between the point when we first splashed her in July of 2006 and completed her in November 2007 required us to raise the waterline (about four inches in some places) to where she would normally sit. And since we had arrived in Nanny Cay without an operable transmission (see Captain’s Log – Marina Cay to Nanny Cay), I had another major project to add to the “To Do List.”

The hauling experience at Nanny Cay was different than anything I had experienced before in boatyard life. Not that the actual equipment operators in JMC Marina were bad (in spite of JC’s sabotaging demeanor), Keith and his crew were actually friendly, professional and courteous, and they had all the proper and meticulously maintained equipment to do any job at hand. They had us out of the water and placed in the middle of the yard within minutes.

Life on a boat out of the water is hard. Unless there are pump out facilities at your boat, forget doing anything that has anything to do with water — cooking, cleaning, dishes, showers, toilet, brushing your teeth, nothing. Every time any bodily function requires water, it’s down the twelve foot ladder, a trek across the yard to the bathroom, do your business and back — at least a twenty minute operation.

Luckily the hotel in the marina had a vacancy during my mom’s portion of the stay. She got a room for her and Cole for the ten remaining days she’d be with us, but Tracy took Cole’s place “in the AC” as it was a perfect environment to work on the web site, besides Cole had more fun working on the boat with his cousins than sitting around in a hotel room all day.

The room also had a kitchenette so we would be there at the crack of dawn with the breakfast fixings, then back to work, then back at lunch, then back to work, and then back again at dinner. There was no need to use the restroom in her hotel room, however, as the new shower/bathroom complex that the marina had just completed next door to her building was so luxurious that any spa in the world would have been proud to showcase them. The end-of-the-day-shower after twelve hours of work in a dirty boatyard was the highlight of the day; sounds weird, but they really were that good. Or maybe it was just that we had just lived in the boatyard from hell for the last two years and forgot what civilization was like.

We’d hauled to redo (raise) the waterline and the bottom paint, and to add some deflector pieces under the chainwales to divert the occasional wave that would catch the ninety-degree angle under the chainwale just right (or just wrong) and shake the whole of her structure from stem to stern. But what we didn’t count on was having to jerk the transmission and replace the seals. A daunting task indeed as my engineer, Chad, was gone and I had no idea on how to even approach the ordeal.

Well, I had met a new friend through Martin and Leslie in Trellis Bay (that’s the best part about sailing — all the new friends) who, unknown to me prior to our chance meeting, had a boat brokerage business in the marina. When I saw him walking through the yard, I told him of my problem, and he recommended Lincoln with Aquadoc, a guy from Guyana who had a mechanic shop in the yard. I had many friends from Guyana in St. Martin and I was optimistic at the prospect of working with this one. I liked him from my first meeting and our relationship only got better as the project progressed.

From the beginning, he was absolutely the most professional mechanic I have ever had the pleasure to work alongside. He and his helper, Edward (also from Guyana), were calm and patient during the whole project. Not one time did either of them lose their patience; I never heard a cuss word nor a negative remark made even though it had probably been decades since the transmission had been removed from the engine, and because of the rust, it proved to be one of the most challenging projects we performed on the boat.

I honestly couldn’t see how removing the transmission could have been accomplished without taking out the engine first, but they assured me it could be done. After Preston and I removed the exhaust pipes, the heat exchangers, water pump, alternator, and at least a dozen hoses, cables and wires, Edward went to work. I have never seen anyone get into such tight places as Edward had when he first removed the 150 pound drive shaft with its two universal joints, then unbolted the aft engine mounts, jacked up the rear of the engine several inches to expose the bolts fastening the transmission to the engine, then prepared the transmission to be lifted out using the mizzen throat halyard.

I think that my mechanics were skeptical that I could get the transmission out through the ceiling and up on the deck using the throat halyards; they were accustomed to hiring a crane for these projects. But I assured them that I had already used the same technique and equipment to get the 700-pound genset (which was the identical weight of, yet much larger than, the transmission) into the engine room just a few months prior. We attached the mizzen throat halyard to the eye on the transmission and pulled it through the salon floor and up to the ceiling. Then we attached the main throat halyard to the same eye to guide it forward up to the mid-ship coach roof. Once exposed, they took it apart and confirmed the main rear seal was gone as well as several other components. We quickly got a list together and called one of the suppliers on the island that said he could get the parts. So we waited, and called to leave messages and waited some more, and after three days of no response (very typically Caribbean), I called Twindisc in Jacksonville, Florida who had the parts in stock (even though the transmission is 45 years old) and could overnight them to me. I had them the next day (on a Friday), and by Monday, the transmission was back in the engine room.

The most enjoyable part of the project, however, was ridding the bilge of many gallons of SAE 40 engine oil (used as the transmission hydraulic oil) that had sloshed all over the engine room along with many gallons of black stinky water and who knows what else. As any responsible marina and boatyard possesses, Nanny Cay had a large oil-recycling container near the dumpster so we could pump the bilge into buckets and carry them across the driveway to the container. Preston, as always, was a good sport and volunteered for the worst part of the job: scrubbing the interior planking under the engine with a brush Bilge Cleaner, while I was the bucket hauler.

And of course, every time we had passed the dumpster we had to look inside to see what treasures awaited the discerning eye. You can always tell how wealthy the folks are who have boats in a marina by what they throw away. We would find tools of all types and condition, pieces of exotic wood and occume (marine plywood), cabinets, sail material, canvas, paint, epoxy, fiberglass, fittings and fasteners, rigging, stainless steel, everything you could want to help your project along.

Though checking the dumpster was fun, it certainly wasn’t reliable for what we needed. I guess that’s why they had a well-equipped chandlery that I was pleased to frequent, especially after they opened an account for me. They also had many different shops, stores, bars and restaurants in the marina complex. I was particularly impressed with the grocery store that had the same prices as the large grocers in Tortola (an unheard of practice among the yacht provisioning community – if they can charge more because of location, they usually do). Yes, Nanny Cay is certainly a full-service marina that truly knows how to take care of the yachting community.

We had only intended to stay in Nanny Cay for two weeks, but another of our new friends (who also happened to be managing partner of the marina), Cameron, encouraged us to stay for Race Week (the BVI Spring Regatta). He learned that Preston and Sara had a keen interest in racing, and he wanted them to experience Nanny Cay at the pinnacle of their season. I was only too happy to accept his invitation, as the more I got to know him the more I appreciated who he was and what he had accomplished.

Obviously, Cameron had been a successful businessman in his homeland of Scotland, but even more impressive, he was successful at doing business in the Caribbean (read Herman Wouk’s, Don’t Stop the Carnival for insight on attempting to make a business work in these latitudes). He also proved to have a great heart because when he heard we were going to Haiti to do a fundraiser for two elementary schools, he donated $2,800 of our fee to his marina to our Haiti project and the balance of our fee to be used to help us get there. I have only on very rare occasions met anyone who has been so gracious and generous.

But before we left for Haiti, we had a blast during Race week. Sara turned out to be the hardcore racer/sailor of the group (read of her experience in her article on the subject), yet Preston and Tracy didn’t show so much enthusiasm. The skipper of the boat they crewed on got a case of the dreaded Caribbean flu and after the first day of racing in 30 knot winds, the skipper forfeited, and instead of finding a different boat to race on, they went with the rest of the crew on the race boat up to the Bubbly Pool on Jost Van Dyke. It also happened to be Tracy’s birthday, which she said was the best one she had ever had.

The parties were as spectacular as the racing. Every night there were bands and dancing and lots of Mount Gay Rum flowing and food from all over the islands. As Cameron warned me as the week was approaching, “This place is going to heave.” And heave it did. There were people who came in from all over the world who chartered racing boats along with those that sailed their own in from all over the Caribbean, and after an intense day of competition, the captains and their crew were ready to put the gloves away for a hard night of partying.

Other than working and racing and partying, Tracy got to tour the island with a friend, Johnny the Irishman, in a borrowed pickup while Lauren and I took a separate island excursion with Edward in the Aquadoc Land Rover. Preston, however, got the opportunity to bolt over to St. John in a Sun Seeker with Captain Tommy Gonzales.

Seeing the islands by sea is a luxury we have gotten used to, but touring them by car is always an unexpected treat. The western portion of Tortola was particularly gorgeous, with its high mountainous spine that runs the length of it clouded in fog and blanketed in a dense jungle that occasionally opens up to magnificent views of quiet bays, little villages, waves wrapping around point breaks, and all the other British Virgins laying about (the islands, that is…).