Montreal Gazette
Wed Jan 20 2010
Byline: SUE MONTGOMERY
Dateline: PORT-AU-PRINCE
Source: The Gazette
His tiny body was found on a stinking, rotting garbage dump on Jan. 11, 2007.
A crowd had gathered around, and while all no doubt felt sensitive to his plight, no one had the means to feed and clothe him, except one woman, who gathered his naked, filthy body in her arms and took him to Maison enfants espoir, an orphanage in the Santos neighbourhood, furnished with equipment provided through the Canadian embassy.
Employees there christened him Jonas Espérance, after Jonas in the Bible, who was rescued from the water, and the French word for hope. There was hope that he, too, would be rescued, and have a better future.
But red tape in Ottawa stalled his adoption by a couple in Jonquière, Paul Simard and his wife, Huguette, who started the ball rolling about five months after Jonas was rescued.
Now, the boy is one of the millions of victims of Haiti's catastrophic earthquake.
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"People are coming here en masse every day, every day, with children," says Étienne Bruny, 46, director of this orphanage visited just a year ago by Governor-General Michaëlle Jean. "They are begging me to take their children, because they have no way to care for them.
"Just this morning, a mother showed up with her two children, but I had to say no,
I just don't have the resources."
While the building is still standing, it is badly damaged and, with constant aftershocks shaking this terrified nation, it's too dangerous to stay inside. The interior walls, cracked with huge chunks of plaster missing, are still adorned with pages torn out of colouring books and painstakingly filled in by the children: a Santa Claus, a Christmas tree, a horse.
Outside, concrete blocks are splattered with the dried blood of those who fled in sheer terror.
For now, the 57 children sheltered here, from 11-month-old twins to 14-year-old Judith Innocent, are clearly in good hands, compared with so many hundreds of thousands outside the metal gates.
Bruny, with the help of his eight staff members, has constructed a makeshift shelter outside. They dragged the wobbly metal bunk beds outside, along with their thin mattresses, and draped them with a large camouflage net, which provides some shade from the searing sun but not from the rain that threatens to fall any day.
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Jacqueline Lessard, an 84-year-old mother of seven from St. Jean sur Richelieu, began coming to Haiti in 1993, two years after her husband died. She met Bruny's brother in 2001, then Bruny the following year.
The pair started Organisation de la promotion sociale d'être humain, with the goal of improving Haitians' lives, and Lessard threw her energy into getting an office set up, even picking up a hammer to construct their small office.
"She baked cakes and prepared juice for our meetings," Bruny recalls, as a small group of dust-caked children near him break out in song.
Three girls sit on small chairs, braiding the hair of dolls, limbs missing, as if they, too, have been victims of this enormous disaster. A boy plays dominos. Two others make up a card game.
Bruny and Lessard divided their time between Canada and Haiti to raise funds, then finally decided to start an orphanage.
"We had big dreams for the children of Haiti," Bruny says, his wide face breaking into a broad smile, tears welling up in his eyes.
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Moments before the quake struck, Bruny swears he had a premonition and ran down the building's stairs from the second floor of the two-storey structure and ordered all the children out into the yard. He returned upstairs to get Lessard, when the earth shook with a vengeance.
"It started to shake and get bigger and bigger and bigger, and I thought, whoa," he says.
"We've had earthquakes in Haiti before, but they just shook us a little bit, then it was over.
"This just went on and on."
The children were miraculously spared severe injury - there was a broken foot, a head wound, a back injury and a sore knee. Three of those children are still in a makeshift hospital set up in a nearby church.
But the psychological scars, the full extent of which may not be known for years, are already showing.
"They cry a lot and have a lot of night terrors and they refuse to go near the house," Bruny said, adding that when there is power, he turns on the tiny TV, hoping to distract them from their fears for at least a few moments. "They are so, so traumatized."
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On Sunday, Lessard, overcome with grief and helplessness, reluctantly made her way to the Canadian embassy, racked with guilt that she was leaving without one child, especially Jonas, whose chance at a better life may now never happen.
"She had just $20 U.S., so we thought it was best that she leave," Bruny says, shrugging his shoulders. "She cried and cried and cried, because she was leaving, knowing we had no food, nothing.
"I tried calling the Canadian embassy to see if she could take children with her, but we couldn't reach anyone there."
Since the quake hit, they have had little, and sometimes no, food to feed the children.
Sometimes Bruny buys bananas and the staff scavanges whatever they can to fashion some kind of soup so the children can have a little to eat twice a day.
They had about $500 U.S. in the bank that is now a massive pile of debris and concrete, and Bruny has about $35 to his name.
The father of three children, ages 6, 4 and 2, and his wife, Rosanie, spend their nights in the orphanage compound with the children and most of the staff. Bruny knows every child's name and the date they arrived at the orphanage by heart.
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Judith Innocent, a shy, thin girl just entering puberty, limps around the compound; her leg was injured as she ran from the building.
When Judith's father died, her mother began bringing her here daily for school, until one day Judith, at the tender age of 8, realized this is where she could get regular meals, a decent bed and school, and asked her mom if she could stay full-time.
"Her mother realized that we could care for her better than she could," Bruny says.
"We still have a good relationship with her and help her when we can."
Judith, he says, is a trooper despite her aching leg, pitching in to help change diapers, brush and braid the children's hair, and clean up the yard.
"In my head, I've promised myself that one day I'll take her to Canada," says Bruny, who was surprisingly calm and seemingly content in the midst of his country's catastrophic situation.
Above him, a mango tree branch bends under the weight of its fruit, which, in cruel irony, will tempt the children's taste buds until it's ripe in about two months.
smontgomery@thegazette.canwest.com
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