“I finally got the passport this morning. THANK GOD!!” the email from Ralph came glaring from my Blackberry. It was the final document needed to extricate him from Haiti. Almost a year of jumping through hoops, everything we needed, except the airline ticket, was in place. I called American Airlines and had him scheduled on the 12:30 flight out of Port-Au-Prince the following day. You don’t want to wait too long because you never know what can happen in Haiti one minute to the next. Between the political unrest, the rioting, cholera; the government can shut the airport at any given moment.
Ralph was 9 when his father left his mother, remarried and took him and his new wife to the United States. They started a life in Pompano Beach, Florida and despite the fact that Ralph missed his mom, he loved his dad and was excited about living in a country he had heard so many amazing things about. Although he did not speak a word of English, he quickly assimilated, mastered the language, made friends and was doing well in school. Everything seemed to be perfect until one day his stepmother, using the ruse of going to visit his family, took him back to Haiti. Once there, she handed him $100 dollars, took his passport and Green Card and headed straight back to Florida. After six years of living in Florida, going to school and making a life, at 15 he found himself alone and without any identification in Port-Au-Prince. Even his birth certificate was back in Florida. Haiti is not a country you want to be in without ID. You cannot go to school, get a cell phone or do much of anything for that matter, without ID.
Ralph found his way back to his mom who was barely managing, living in a small, one room hovel with her 5 year old daughter, Ralph’s new half sister. The following day, he called his stepmother's cell phone, "I'm in Miami", she said. "Miami!!" Ralph screamed in disbelief, "How about me??" "You're gonna be there for a while - get use to it", she snapped back and hung up. He cried for weeks. One week later, after continually trying to call home, the numbers were changed. That was the last he heard from them.
Ralph lived with his mom and little sister, scraping together barely enough to sustain themselves. Cramped inside this tiny room, Ralph would occasionally sleep on the roof but the frequent heavy rain made it impossible to make the roof his home. He left within a month because he knew he was a tremendous burden on his mom. From his mom’s roof he went to his aunt’s house and asked if he could stay with her. She was sweet and kind and welcomed him but after three months it became too difficult for her to care for Ralph. She had two children of her own and was struggling to keep them fed. She told him he had to leave.
With no place to go, Ralph found a few pieces of wood and some old sheets and made a shelter for himself in the outskirts of Port-Au-Prince. He lived there, with 2 other street kids, doing odd jobs for pennies or scraps of food. When it rained, he would leave his makeshift tent to find better cover for the night. For almost a year, he lived like this, barley surviving, until January 12th, 2010. The earthquake changed everything. With fluency in English and Creole, Ralph was a valuable commodity to the thousands of relief workers. With inner ambition and a strong desire to help, he dug in. While assisting with transports, search and rescues and working as a translator for doctors, he had access to food. His daily struggle to survive was at least temporarily, over. As a gift for his hard work and translating skills, a doctor gave him a good tent. He parked himself outside of Haitian Community Hospital and his life as a relief worker began.
I met Ralph immediately after I arrived in Haiti. He was my right hand man: my translator, body guard, and keeper of my backpack. I don’t think I was there 24 hours before I started questioning him about his perfect English and his clearly American way. When he told me what happened, not only was I appalled at the recklessness of his father and stepmother, I was determined to get him home, here, back in the United States where he belongs. A year later, he is here. Amen and God Bless America!
A million thanks to Paul Waggoner, Eileen S., David C., Lisa A., and Pius D. Without these people, this doesn’t happen. These are the people who stuck their necks out, giving their time and expertise to see this through. In addition, they put up with me.
p.s. Although this act of abandonment sounds horrific by our standard of decency, it happens enough to Haitian children to earn them a name; “throw backs”.
