by Amanda Scanlon
There has been a lot of stuff going on at Be Like Brit in Haiti!!! As you can imagine it’s always busy with 67 children, but when we have special visitors and exciting events going on, it makes things just a little bit busier!
Two weeks ago Cherylann and Bernie came back for a week in Haiti! They spent a lot of time with the children, of course. Cherylann made sure to meet with all the staff to discuss how things are going and where we can make improvements, something we try to do on a consistent basis here at Be Like Brit. While Bernie was here he was quite happy to finally arrange a visit from his good friend and college roommate, Sandro “T-Micky” Martelly. Sandro happens to be the son of the President of Haiti! Sandro is a musical artist known throughout Haiti. Our children, and even more so our staff, were very excited to see him here at the orphanage. Sandro was so very patient and caring taking the time to stand with each person who asked for a photo. We are so grateful to him for the way he treated us while he was here. We look forward to a visit from T-Micky sometime in the future!
To see a video of the performance T-Micky and his friend put on for our children while he was here, follow this link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=831o7uQ5MmU
Shortly after T-Micky’s visit, we had another Britsionary group arrive. This group was made up of Fr. John Madden from St. John’s in Worcester, MA- the Gengel’s home parish, several members of the church community, Dr. Scott Sieman, Dr, Greg Livanos and Heather Siciliano- our dental team and a few individuals who joined the group. Some children more than others were happy to go in for their bi-annual cleaning. A few cavities and extractions later and our children have bigger and brighter smiles than ever. We were also able to take x-rays of all our children to keep on file as they get older. Thanks to Scott and Katie Sieman, GT Thiagarajah, and all of their friends who helped make it possible to get the x-ray machine to Be Like Brit.
While we had him here in Haiti, we asked Fr. Madden to baptize a few of our children. I might have under-exaggerated a little bit when I told Fr. Madden it would be a few of our children. We ended up deciding that while Fr. Madden was here in Haiti with us we would baptize the rest of the children who hadn’t yet been baptized, which made 32 baptisms. It was a lot of work for us to prepare, but once all was said and done, it was a great day. The children loved that Fr. Madden took the time to learn how to say the sign of the cross in Creole so he could baptize all 32 children in their native language. It was a beautiful day and we are so grateful to Fr. Madden and the group that was here who helped make it happen. Fr. Madden told me that he’s sure this is his personal record for a number of children baptized at once and he’s just as sure that it will never be broken!
On the heels of their departure, Cherylann arrived with a good friend of the Gengel’s, Eileen Terry, her sister Rosemary Kelleher, 2 nieces- Siobhan and Shandon, and a cousin Julie. They spent an extended weekend with us in Haiti and loved every moment of it. The first major task the group took on was unloading the 15-passenger van that just arrived in Haiti last week. We enlisted the help of many of our older children. Inside were a dozen or so bikes, along with a whole lot of toilet paper among numerous other donations for the children and operations at Brit’s orphanage. We compacted the activities of a usual Britsionary group to allow the group to see as much of Grand Goave as possible. Siobhan, Shandon and Julie did an incredible job organizing our depot making it much easier for us to find things when they are needed. Thank you to this group for everything we accomplished while you were here!!!
A big part of our month of May here in Haiti is the guests that we have from UMASS Medical. We currently have 4 Pediatricians here with us. Sara, Adam, Anna and Janice are now a week and a half into their month-long stay at Be Like Brit. They are here checking in our children’s health- which they say is just fine! They are also doing some community outreach working at a few clinics in the area to help the people in the town of Grand Goave and those surrounding Be Like Brit. They will also be doing a complete inventory of our clinic and creating a list of needed supplies with charts to make it easy to find all the items that we do have! We are so grateful to have them here and become a part of the Be Like Brit family. Don’t worry, we will make sure they get some down time while they are here too!
As always thank you for reading. Thank you for helping us help the children of Hatii at Be Like Brit!!!
