29226: Hermantin(News) Children in the hands of god (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sat, Sep. 23, 2006



Children in the hands of god

By NANCY SAN MARTIN
nsanmartin@MiamiHerald.com

SIMONETTE, Haiti - IN A TINY ISLAND NATION WITH THOUSANDS OF ORPHANS,

THE YOUNG ARE A SYMBOL OF TRAGEDY AND HOPE.

On a balmy summer night, as a group of armed thugs paddled a boat toward this 
fishing village, 26 orphans slept through an ordeal that would make their 
already tragic lives more difficult.

In the morning, as the sun heated the sand, one of the children noticed a 
shattered window at the home of the director of the orphanage, a man they 
regard as a father and fondly call ``Tytoo.''

''There was a rock through the window. We called out for him twice, but he 
didn't respond,'' recalled Lorca Masenat, 19, who has lived at the orphanage 
for five years. ``When we went inside the house . . . Tytoo was gone.''

Ed Hughes, a Canadian who runs the Tytoo Gardens orphanage, had been abducted 
by kidnappers operating from across the water in the capital city of 
Port-au-Prince. For more than a month, children as young as 1 would have to 
rely on each other -- children caring for children in a country with the 
highest rate of orphans in the Western Hemisphere.

Hughes was released after paying a ransom and has since returned to his 
orphanage. But the case shed a heart-breaking light on Haiti's most fragile and 
innocent victims.

In a nation of 8.5 million, where one of eight children dies before age 5, 
orphanages often are the last refuge of hope. Some 610,000 Haitian children are 
orphans, according to U.N. estimates. Port-au-Prince alone has an estimated 
2,000 street children, many of them orphans.

While Hughes was gone, the nearby Mission of Hope orphanage -- home to 44 boys 
and girls -- arranged to have food delivered, and a cook stopped by daily to 
prepare meals. But most of the time, the kids at Tytoo Gardens were alone.

''We did everything we could to help Tytoo's kids,'' said Travis Smith, 
co-director of Mission of Hope. ``But the older ones really stepped in to take 
care of the younger children. They looked out for each other.''

At the time of the kidnapping, school was out for the summer, so the children 
spent their days much like most kids on a school break, except without 
supervision.

''We sleep, we watch TV, sometimes we go swimming in the sea,'' said Lorca, who 
was left at the orphanage by her father when she was 14. ``My father could not 
care for me. He was not working. So Tytoo took me in.''.

It is not known exactly how many of Haiti's children are housed in orphanages, 
but a government agency known by the French acronym CENH has estimated that 
some 200 orphanages serve about 200,000 children.

''If this orphanage wasn't here to help the children, things could be worse, 
they would probably be on the streets,'' said Paula LaRose, 52, a neighbor and 
frequent visitor to Tytoo Gardens.

Thony Durand, now 21, could have been among the street kids. He and his 
brothers Rony, 16, and Berthony, 13, were taken in by the Mission of Hope after 
their mother died in 2000. Their father had died two years earlier.

''It was kind of hopeless for me because in Haiti even when you have your 
family to take care of you, life is very hard,'' said Thony, who learned 
English at the orphanage. ``Sometimes [parents] don't have jobs, but at least 
they are with you.''

The Mission of Hope, run by an evangelical organization headquartered in 
Oklahoma, is regarded as among the most professional in Haiti. Founded in the 
late 1990s, it is dedicated not only to housing orphans but also to providing a 
K-12 education to children from several surrounding villages.

''The attempt was to get only kids who are truly orphans, but we have some kids 
whose parents could not afford to take care of them,'' said Smith. ``We've 
found kids in the ditch, beaten. Sometimes, parents come to the gate and try to 
drop off their children.''

The gated compound sits on 75 acres and educates some 1,200 children, including 
those from Tytoo Gardens. Classes are taught in Creole, but English is part of 
the curriculum.

The mission's anchor is a large church with wooden benches, a tin roof and no 
walls that also serves as a community center, bellowing out as much music as 
prayer.

There are at least four other orphanages in neighboring villages that house 
another 200 children, Smith said. Tytoo Gardens is the oldest, opened by Hughes 
a decade ago after hungry children began showing up on his property to beg for 
food.

The building where the orphans now sleep was supposed to be a nightclub for 
tourists. Hughes landed in Haiti following a 1981 conviction for running a 
brothel in Canada. His encounter with the hungry children, friends said, 
changed his life.

''Yeah, he had a troubled past,'' Smith said. ``But he had a conversion, and 
God is in his heart. Haiti is in his heart.''

Tytoo Gardens is a two-room rock and mortar structure with concrete floors. 
Outside, there are picnic tables, a tiny banana farm and plenty of run-around 
space under a shady tree. But the inside is dark and cramped.

The 26 children share 12 bunk beds with thin mattresses stacked up in a single 
bedroom. Hughes sleeps at a house across the way.

Most of the children at Tytoo Gardens have lost both parents. The youngest is 
Yolaine, a 1-year-old girl with dry skin who likes to suck her left thumb. The 
oldest is Lorca.

On a recent visit, most of the children were barefoot, a sink was clogged and 
the bedroom was littered with shoes, dirty clothes, book bags and paper. 
Yolaine slept on a barren mattress on the floor. Out back, one of the girls 
tried to sweep away puddles of water from dripping laundry.

Tytoo Gardens was a stark contrast to the Mission of Hope, where boys and girls 
sleep in separate dormitories and on individual beds. The rooms are bright and 
tidy, white tiled floors sparkle and stuffed animals and colorful drawings 
crowd corners. Outside is a field large enough for a soccer match.

When the children from both orphanages come together for school or church, it 
is hard to tell them apart. The girls wear ruffled dresses and ribbons in their 
hair. The boys have tucked-in shirts and belts. Shiny shoes cover their feet. 
Smiles brighten their faces.

''Our goal isn't just to take a kid off the streets, it's to provide them with 
the tools so they can help change Haiti,'' Smith said. ``This is a long-term 
vision. This isn't a quick fix.''

Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, is fraught with gang 
violence that has spilled over to rural communities. A history of political 
instability has virtually kept progress hostage and elevated the level of 
suffering among the most vulnerable.

''The children are the ones who are going to change Haiti,'' he said. ``We 
plant the seed.''

If it wasn't for the orphanage, ''I'd probably be in the street and forget 
about God and do bad things,'' said Thony. ``I might be dead now.''

''There are many, many young men like me, children, who are hopeless, 
homeless,'' Thony added. ``I have no problem anymore. I have a house to live in 
and three meals daily. And I have good clothes. They take care of me very, very 
well. They are my family now.''

On the afternoon of July 28, as the children of Tytoo Gardens prepared for 
another night without their guardian, they shrieked with delight at the sight 
of an unexpected arrival.

As Hughes approached, the children ran toward the 72-year-old man who lost most 
of his right arm after being shot during a December kidnapping of a 
Haitian-American missionary. Accompanying Hughes was a newly-hired armed guard.

''It'll certainly take some time to get things back in order,'' said Hughes. 
``The future rests with God. We do our own little bit.''