I truly believe no matter how hard you try to explain it, no one can ever fully understand what it’s like to live in a 3rd world country, unless they experience it for themselves.
No matter how many pictures they see, stories they hear, or how many times they hear it. Unless they have experienced it all 1st hand, they will never be able to grasp the magnitude of the poverty and sickness in these places or the contradicting joy and richness in love that these people contain
with that being said most of you may never have the opportunity to live in Monwi, Haiti for a month so I am going to try to depict this community as best as I can for you.
Monwi is a little community on the coast line of Haiti.
I am living in a cement house with a tin roof inside of a “fence” that is essentially a tall concrete wall.
When you walk out of the gate from our little compound you step onto a gravel and dirt road where kids will trample you with joy at any time of the day, eager to hold your hand or climb on your back, admiring the way our pale skin looks next to their dark complexions.
As you walk down the road in this area you pass many houses that are made of a combination of one, some, or all of these things: concrete, mud, scrap metal, scrap wood, and/or palm tree leaves.
Most houses are very small containing on average 2 rooms and you can usually find the majority of people sitting on their porch during the day.
Having electricity isn’t very common in this community, so cooking, cleaning, and bathing is usually done outside.
About a 5 minute walk from the house i’m staying in is the beach, running into the ocean is a big fresh water river. In the river is where you will find many of the women washing their clothes and where a lot of the community bathes.
Back to the gravel and dirt roads, other than houses lining the streets, there are lots of schools where you can always find plenty of adorable kids in little uniforms running up to the inside of the school yard fence trying to get a hi five from you.
There are also little snack stands on most of the corners that sell cookies, crackers, candy, etc.
Animals are always roaming around the streets, goats, pigs, dogs, cows, donkeys, ducks, chickens, you name it…they are everywhere.
If you walk a little further down the road you will make it to the market.
I wish I had better words to depict what the market is actually like but try to envision this: tons of people are lining the roads, tarps held up by sticks are like makeshift roofs over each little station, everyone is selling something different, food (of every kind), ice, soap, clothes, drinks, shoes, nicknacks, etc.
people of all ages spend all hours of every day working in the market under the hot sun, they set up and tear down their stations every single morning and night.
The market is where the people of this community get their everyday food and necessities.
If you continue to walk past the market you make it to more houses and more schools, places where real people spend and live their everyday lives. Places where their is real hardship, trials, tribulations. Places where some people don’t know the name of Jesus and have to face all of these things alone. Places that need hope and prayer.
This is why i’m here, why I gave up 9 months of my life to spread God’s word.
The lost have a name and a face and some of those faces live in a little community in Monwi, Haiti.
