Imagine This

Katherine Harrison

August 20, 2024

Tags: 2024, unrest, medical, sponsorship

Imagine This:

Air, hot and sticky and thick. A home made of crude concrete blocks, crumbly and rough. Windows made of uncovered holes in the wall, or of decorative brick that allow little air to flow through. Maybe there’s metal bars for security. The outside noise pushes in; sirens, dogs barking, voices yelling, the cockadoodledoo of a rooster who doesn’t care that the sun isn’t due to rise for hours. Then banging on the door. A gang? Scared neighbor warning us to leave? You grab your two children as your husband rushes you out the door. Leave it, leave everything. Outside in the swelter the sound of gunfire is jarring; rapid shots aimed who-knows-where. The added heat of fires burning tires or, worse, homes and buildings. You dash down the street looking for a tap tap (taxi) or a friend with a vehicle. Anything to get you out the neighborhood. You have family or a friend hours away in Petit Goave, on a mountain. Come here, they say, it’s safer. We have a school for your kids.

You travel through the night. Small flames shine through the gloom from people cooking on the street or selling goods. The solar powered street lights have been stolen. Your headlights and the headlights of oncoming traffic illuminate the legs of pedestrians and children. An occasional goat. Your ride slowly makes its way out of the sprawl of Port-au-Prince and the outlying communities into the rural night. Will you run into a roadblock? A gathering of bored gang members looking for trouble? As you travel the hours down Route 2, you hold your breath through smaller towns hoping they are quiet this night. Then a sharp left turn and suddenly the car is pointing upward at about a 40 degree angle. Less light here, less noise. Where are we going? Good lord is this the end of the land? How are we still going up? Not far now. You should be happy we have a road now to get all the way to the village rather than walking up the last quarter mile.

Imagine climbing out of a vehicle with your tired and cranky children. You're scared and exhausted. Probably hungry. No other clothes than the ones you’ve been wearing since yesterday or the day before. You look around and there’s not much. A few small buildings, a few treetops, and a big, black sky. The quiet is deafening. Your cousin’s cousin, the one who lives in the country with her husband, is there waiting for you. Smiling and hugging you, she gives orders to her children to take your kids with them. You are given access to whatever food, clothing, and floor space for sleeping that is available. You are told, you will be ok. You are welcome here. Your children will be fed in the school, educated, and loved. They can run and play. I see that one has a cold, you can see our nurse tomorrow. You will join our women’s group of farmers, look at my beautiful peppers here. Our husbands and sons will help your husband fashion a hut just for you and yours. Your kids can wear our kids’ clothes. Here, my dress will fit you just fine. Get some rest. You will be ok. You are welcome here.

That’s what the people of Piton are doing for those fleeing the violence of the rest of the country. They have no wealth, no surplus; and yet they share.

Help us help them!

Sponsor one or more of our students who've just arrived in Piton. Or help us stock up funds for our medical clinic that is busier than ever because it's the only place locals can go for basic care.

Support our Medical Clinic

~ or ~

Sponsor a Student

< Older Post

Newer Post >

Share this post

P is for Protected

By Katherine Harrison • July 27, 2026

Casual observers of the Temporary Protected Status crisis for Haitians and other nationality groups, including a senator from Ohio, enjoy saying "the T stands for temporary," as though we aren't aware. To emphasize only that T is for Temporary and ignoring that P is for Protected is short-sighted, self-serving, and completely misses the main point of the program. These are people who are fleeing situations in their home country that you nor I can imagine. They flee, learn another language, another currency, another culture, AND attempt to make a living to support their families in the US and sometimes their home country. Another detail people tend to ignore is that the TPS program itself does not offer a path to citizenship or residency. No, that is a completely different maze of departments, rules, costs, and attorneys that an already-intimidated immigrant must navigate. And while navigating, they are easy targets for bad advice or worse, scam artists looking for easy money. Yet another detail glossed over is this: TPS beneficiaries are held to the same legal standards as everyone else. TPS absolutely does NOT protect against criminal behavior. They risk deportation as a consequence of breaking the law. Today's ending of TPS for Haitians is so egregiously against our country's stated ideals of Refuge and Opportunity: Welcoming people seeking freedom, safety, and a better life. Haitians are being told to return to their home country where they will certainly encounter one of the world's most severe humanitarian crises that is being fueled by gangs using guns FROM THE USA. Yes, it’s been a long while since Haiti was granted TPS status in 2010. In hindsight, the status maybe could have been revoked some years later. But what to do when the country has devolved into its worst state since 2010? Apparently, this Christian country says, “sorry; temporary.” Keep in mind: Our own State Department says "Do Not Travel to Haiti," providing warnings with such strong language as "murders, kidnappings, robberies, assaults, sexual assault...." yet the country is deemed safe enough for the return of 350,000 Haitian bodies. Our own FAA has banned all flights to Port-au-Prince. To deport, the government will have to use charter aircraft, or military aircraft. Note: when the US government sent flights back to Guatemala recently, the cost to the US taxpayer was $8,000 per deportee. Multiply that by 350,000 Haitian TPS holders: $2.8 million of taxpayer dollars. TPS beneficiaries are providing valuable services to U.S. society and contributing to our economy; they are paying taxes into the US economy and will NOT receive any benefits back from the government (Soc. Sec., unemployment, Medicare); their reward is being in America. The lives of Haitian TPS beneficiaries will certainly be endangered by their return. They will be targeted by gangs for the simple fact they had the courage and means to leave the country in the first place. And since the US government has announced that deportees will have a certain amount of US Dollars in their possession upon deportation, lives will be lost on the off chance that money can be taken. The entire country of Haiti is beyond her breaking point; sending hundreds of thousands of souls back there will further stress and destabilize the country.

Public Latrine Construction 2026

By Katherine Harrison • July 5, 2026

Thanks to the support of a generous and practical-minded supporter, we built our first public latrine in July 2026! It is situated between the two villages we serve, Piton & Piton West, on the footpath used by the local villagers, and those coming from further away. Activities in Piton have increased greatly. The population has more than doubled due to the arrival of refugees from the Port-au-Prince area and villages in between. More people visit these two mountain top villages now more than ever, and the need for a public latrine is urgent for the sake of sanitation. This post will be updated with photos as construction continues.