Pille Lodi is a student at Kuressaare Gymnasium, in Estonia. This is a short chronicle of her trip to Haiti. She tells us more about Haitian culture, its people and children.
Some months ago I got an invitation to go to Haiti. I didn't know anything about the country and I had no idea where the country was located. I didn't have any clue about Haitian people and their culture. Today I can tell that it was an amazing and unique experience. I am very happy I went there to discover a wonderful country.
Everything started when my friend and I had a dream to go to Haiti on a mission trip with an American missionary. Her and her husband lived there for 14 years and after moving back to the States she goes back to Haiti a couple of times a year. She teaches and tries to help the people anyway she can. This time she went there to hold a seminar.
I was involved with children's ministry. It was a pleasure for me to work with them. I told them stories from the Bible; we played, sang and drew. I enjoyed it a lot and I think the kids did as well. We had a great time together. I think for many of them it was the first time to see white people. Everyday we had at least 40 children, some days even more.
In Haiti most of the people live in poverty and they don't have jobs and money to buy food and things they need. They are poor materially but rich spiritually. They are always happy and friendly. They love to go to church to sing and dance. They are relaxed and they don't like to worry about things that are useless.
Most parents don't have money to put their kids to school because schools are quite expensive and it is even harder if they have more than one or two kids; most of them do. Being over there gave me an understanding how important education and learning languages really is.
I think most of the students in Europe are very lucky because we have the possibility to go to school, learn languages, travel to different countries and see the world. In Haiti children are so eager to learn and in most cases it is not possible. Unfortunately most children and teenagers I met didn't know any English and we could not talk one-to-one - we had to use a translator.
Haiti shares an island called Hispaniola with Dominican Republic in Caribbean Sea. The neighbour countries are Cube and Jamaica. The capital of Haiti is Port-au-Prince and the country has two official languages: French and Creole. Local money is called "Gourd".
After I finish high school I would like to study on and sometime in the future to go back to Haiti to teach the kids who don't have the money to go to school. The population of Haiti is approximately 10 million people and about 50% of them are children. There is lots of work to do!
Everything started when my friend and I had a dream to go to Haiti on a mission trip with an American missionary. Her and her husband lived there for 14 years and after moving back to the States she goes back to Haiti a couple of times a year. She teaches and tries to help the people anyway she can. This time she went there to hold a seminar. 
In Haiti most of the people live in poverty and they don't have jobs and money to buy food and things they need. They are poor materially but rich spiritually. They are always happy and friendly. They love to go to church to sing and dance. They are relaxed and they don't like to worry about things that are useless. 
