Bringing Haiti to Maine

About five years ago I lived at Dorothy's infant rescue in Port-au-Prince and I met this munchkin, Kervens. 

 

 

He was 10 years old and for a year, we lived in the same house, played with the same babies and animals, went on the same adventures, sang the same silly songs, ate the same food, and loved life the same way.

 

 

I was a strange sort of older sister/mother/friend to him and though I didn't get to live with him after that year, I still saw him regularly whenever I visited Dorothy's.

 

Through a serious of events, Kevs ended up living in Gonaives with the Brooks, the family who runs Much Ministries. They are his legal guardians now, so he and I are neighbors with lots of inside jokes from our year at Dorothy's.

You can imagine how excited I was when the Brooks suggested that he spend a session at Chop Point with me. For the first time, I got to speak in Creole with someone and confuse everyone. I had someone who was as amazed as I by the beauty of Maine and by the cold too. And most importantly, I had someone who understood exactly what I meant when I shared Haiti stories with the campers.

Kevs was a great addition to camp. The only black kid we had all summer, he embraced his uniqueness with confidence and was friends with everyone by the end. He bonded with his counselors, threw himself into every activity with gusto and even had time for some very intense life talks with his old nurse friend.

And just look how much he's grown! From this in 2008...

to this a few days ago (two Caribbean dwellers freezing on the Maine coast at sunset):