Reflections of an early volunteer

by Jonathan Dohanich

The first time I heard about the Maison Fortuné Orphanage I was on my first trip to Haiti in March 2000 with the Penn State Catholic campus ministry. We stayed in Pandiassou, a small village about two miles from Hinche where the orphanage is located. I actually did not know at the time the orphanage had a name or who had started the idea, but it did interest me. On that first trip, which lasted one week, I did not have the opportunity to visit the orphanage or meet its founder and director Lefort Jean-Louis due to the logistics of our visit. I remembered wondering what the orphanage was all about and who was involved. Little did I know where God and my wonders would lead me.

After that first trip, I graduated from Penn State with a B.S. in biology and applied to numerous graduate school programs. However, each time I considered or applied to a different program, a door would close. Further, I could not get the experiences I had in Haiti out of my mind. I quickly decided after some prayer and consultation that I wanted to spend one year in Haiti working as a volunteer and was able to find support from the Xaverian Brothers Haiti ministry volunteer program and the Catholic Diocese of Richmond. After going through the application process, I was assigned to live in Pandiassou with Xaverian Brothers Harry Eccles, John Mahoney, and Peter Mahoney. I arrived in Haiti in August 2000, only five months after my first visit.

Prior to moving to Pandiassou, I spent two months in Port-au-Prince and Hinche immersed in language and culture training to prepare me for my volunteer year. Brother Harry and I had exchanged letters while I was still in the U.S. about me working at the orphanage. He thought this was a wonderful idea and he knew the director very well. In fact, Brother Harry had taught Jean-Louis how to speak English!

I first met Jean-Louis in October 2000 while I was staying at the rectory of the cathedral in Hinche. Brother Harry was on a visit to the U.S. and Jean-Louis had been sent to “check in on me.” After we exchanged pleasantries, Jean-Louis took me to visit the orphanage for the first time. We walked for about 15 minutes from the rectory to the orphanage and many people on the street called hello to “Mèt Lefort” or “Teacher Lefort.” Jean-Louis had taught various courses at some of the schools in Hinche and many of his students enjoyed seeing him out on the street. The orphanage had only started in February but already had 16 boys in residence. Many facets of the original orphanage are still very clear in my memory.

The orphanage compound consisted of three buildings on about ¼ acre of land. The first building had three bedrooms and most of the mattresses were on the floor. There were not enough mattresses for each boy and there were no bed frames. There was one table, four chairs, and two kerosene lanterns. The boys would pick up the mattresses during the day to make room to play. Many of the mattresses were placed on cactus plants to dry in the sun because the younger boys had urinated on them overnight. The smell in the bedrooms was pungent, but by the afternoon the open doors and windows had provided some well needed ventilation. There was no running water and the boys would go to a neighbor’s house to collect buckets of water. Only one outhouse was at the orphanage and it had to be shared by everyone.

At that time, the orphanage had only one employee, Fifi, who is still employed at the orphanage today. She cooked the boys one meal a day, provided much needed discipline and embraces, and also washed all the clothes and linens. Her work day was difficult lasting 12 hours a day or more and Jean-Louis could not afford to pay her much. The boys had a few toys and were able to entertain themselves but the days had little structure.

Those first few weeks, I played with the boys often and they taught me how to speak Haitian Creole. It is very fun to learn a language from children because they are not afraid to correct when one makes a mistake. I ate lunch with them when I had the chance and I also helped bathe the boys in the afternoon along with another worker we eventually hired named Jacksonn. As the weeks went on, I learned a lot about Jean-Louis and his inspiration for beginning the orphanage and how all the pieces had fallen into place. It was clear to me that Jean-Louis had been hand-picked by God to handle this responsibility. However, a great deal of help was needed because more boys were coming to the orphanage on a weekly basis.

At the request of Jean-Louis, I began writing letters to people in the U.S. to help us find more funding and the checks began to come at exactly the right times we needed them. First we were able to give the boys a breakfast of cassava, peanut butter, and bananas along with the afternoon meal. Then we were able to hire an elementary school teacher to instruct the boys for four hours a day to provide structure, education, and to feed these very curious and hungry minds. There were definitely bumps in the road, but we were always able to overcome. The hardest times were when one of the boys became sick and we did not have a lot of money to pay for a doctor.

One instance I remember when a little boy who was new to the orphanage became very ill with a fever. Jean-Louis did not want to take him to the hospital or health clinic because he knew we could not afford it. So he went to the house of a Cuban doctor who was doing a one-year internship in Hinche and asked him to come to the orphanage. The doctor came but he only spoke Spanish. Luckily, Jean-Louis had learned Spanish in high school and was able to translate. When the doctor came, a relative, who could not care for the sick boy, was there because she had heard the news and was worried. Jean-Louis would ask the boy what was wrong, translate it into Spanish for the doctor, then translate what the doctor said into Creole for the relative, and then into English for me. How amazing! What a blessing Jean-Louis’ language skills were to his ministry! The doctor was able to go back to his home and find some medications to treat the boy’s symptoms and he recovered after two days. Then the doctor told us we did not have to pay him anything! What a blessing.

As we entered into the year 2001, the orphanage was beginning to grow over capacity. I was writing unceasingly to our donors trying to explain the situation. I eventually wrote a report outlining the history of the orphanage and the need for a new location with more sanitary facilities and room for the children to sleep. With God’s help, the report reached the DiRenzo family in Chesapeake as well as Ron Bieszczad and Chip Wirth. Over a period of one to two months, they all came to visit the orphanage and saw how desperate our plight was. Joey DiRenzo, a middle school student, agreed to make the orphanage his Eagle Scout project. His parents, Karen and Joe, and Ron and Chip agreed to get their churches involved quickly. With overwhelming support coming from the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, we were able to rent the property where the current orphanage stands. We moved all the kids there in July 2001.

The new orphanage had four original buildings. Three of them were small two-room buildings for sleeping and there was one large building where there are now classrooms and the kitchen. The new area had ample room for the kids to run and play. Further, we had running water and room for the kids to make gardens. It was pretty amazing to see the kids’ reactions to the new orphanage. The boys kept asking me, “Jonathan, is the corn on the land ours? What about the yard, can we play soccer there?” And with every question, I could happily answer with a resounding “Yes!” We were able to hire more teachers in the autumn and we also bought school uniforms for every child.

Eventually I had to come to the realization that our work was not our own and that my volunteer year would end. It was with great joy that I helped our new collaborators begin the orphanage foundation. Reintegrating into the U.S. lifestyle for me was difficult at first. But I was happy to know that the orphanage foundation was built upon rock those first 18 months and not sand. People continue to find out about the orphanage every day and help in their own small way. Many of the things at the orphanage now began as one person’s idea and blossomed into wonders. Much like the wonders I first had before I even visited its beginning ground.

Dr. Jonathan Dohanich spent 15 months living in Pandiassou and Hinche, Haiti from August 2000 to November 2001 as a Xaverian Brother volunteer following his undergraduate studies at Penn State University. Jonathan is now a veterinarian and received his doctor of veterinary medicine (DVM) from Virginia Tech in 2008. He still visits the orphanage every 1-2 years and has led many student groups from Penn State and Virginia Tech to the orphanage grounds. He lives with his wife, Leanna, and son, Jarren, in Monaca, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh.