PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – At 4 a.m. there was a tremor. I heard some neighbors quickly vacating their home. Later, our workers at the warehouse were talking about it and I heard from our customs broker that no one was working at customs for fear of buildings collapsing.

I was wondering if we would have any kids in school today. At 9 a.m. we pulled into Dadadou camp and there were about 60 kids. I hoped that more would join in shortly. Since it was the first day of school for these kids, the plan was just to have a time of fun and games. The kids began to sing the popular hymn “How Great Thou Art.” They sang beautifully and the teacher said a prayer. Within minutes children were coming from every corner; by the end of the day we had about 500 kids.

Dr. Jounie, the camp coordinator, was so excited to see the kids go to school. “These kids were traumatized and they need a place where they can be themselves. My dream has come true through Operation Blessing…this school will change lives,” she said.

Eight teachers and 7 volunteers were registering the kids and categorizing them into age groups. The school will offer grades 1-6, going from 9 a.m. until noon. Kids were singing and having lots of fun all morning. According to Dr. Jounie, this is the first school in operation.

Dadadou has around 7,000 people. As the word gets out, more and more children will be attending the school. At the end of the school session, each child was given a bottle of cold water, an MRE (meal-ready-to-eat) and peanut butter.

Smiles were everywhere; every kid had something to take home. Dr. Jounie said, “Operation Blessing is the best organization. You do what you say. Thank you.”

Tags: Caribbean, Dadadou, Disaster Relief, Earthquake, Education, Haiti, Kumar Periasamy, MREs, OBI, Operation Blessing, Orphan Care, Port-au-Prince, Relief Camp, School, Tent City

This entry was posted on Friday, February 26th, 2010 at 10:26 am and is filed under Caribbean, Disaster Relief, Earthquake, Haiti, Kumar Periasamy, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.