For travelers making their way around Haiti, one of the most rewarding and amazing places to stay in the capital, Port-au-Prince, is St. Joseph's Home for Boys Guest House. Besides offering a respite from Haiti's harsh sun, sudden rain, blackouts and crowded pick-up truck buses, visitors to St. Joseph's can relax in the knowledge that their tourist dollars are helping keep afloat a successful and comprehensive orphanage. This guest house exists within this orphanage, the building is shared. St. Joseph's provides shelter and the structure akin to that of a family for boys and young men who formally were of the street. Visitors staying at this unique guest house have a bird's eye perch to watch these boys grow up safe and sound.

In Haiti, boys adopt the street-partially or wholly-to either get away from abusive domestic situations or to relieve their providers of the economic responsibility of caring for them. Each boy who now lives at St. Joseph's traveled from the streets a wildly different path to this orphanage. But once at St. Joseph's all the boys are expected to attend the local school-or work toward attending the local school. All help with the running of the home and the guest house.

The boys are plucky and independent. Besides making sure that your room is clean and that there is fresh water ready for you to drink, the boys will treat you as they see you, as a possible, good source of entertainment. They will sun or nap next to you on the roof with a disarmingly lack of restraint, conversing if you welcome talk. If you own anything remotely fancy, like a watch or a camera, the younger boys will request your permission to poke at it. Not that the boys have that much time to mess around with you, they have chapel service, school and chores to attend to-and some residents are dancers.

This orphanage is named St. Joseph's to pay respect to the role Joseph played as he served as Jesus' foster father on this earth. But if you ask Haitians living near St. Joseph's where exactly the orphanage is, before answering, they will rephrase your question with, you mean where is "Ka Michael's"-or where is Michael's house? This can be read as an acknowledgement of Michael Geilenfeld, to the great extent the orphanage is identified with its founder.

Geilenfeld first came to Haiti to start a shelter for street children as one brother of the Missionary Brothers of Charity, an organization founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The service provided was that of establishing a safe place for street boys to sleep at night, but the boys returned to the streets during the day. After two years of operation, Geilenfeld was reassigned as the shelter closed and the Missionary Brothers took on a new mission in Haiti, that of providing medical care to those near death. Geilenfeld felt compelled to leave the Missionary Brothers, to return to Haiti and to attempt the creation of a more complete shelter for boys who would otherwise live on the street.

One part of the creation of a more substantial home was to introduce the boys to art. Haitians are rightly famous for their painting and paintings hang on almost every wall of the present building. St. Joseph's literature makes the claim that dance and theater, a claim that I can attest to after witnessing a rehearsal at the orphanage, gives, "the boys a sense of accomplishment. It nourished their creativity. It (has) taught them about their history and culture." St. Joseph's in-house company, The Resurrection Dance Theater Troupe is focusing this season on new interpretations of traditional folk dancing. Under the direction of Doctor Chuck Davis of Dance Africa, this May, the troupe will tour New York and Chicago. Performances in New York have been scheduled at BAM-The Brooklyn Academy of Music-at 7:30 PM, Friday May 23, on the following Saturday at 2PM and again at 7:30, and that Sunday, they will perform at three.

I'd like to encourage people to come out to see these performances. In my sneak preview, in the dances that Dr. Chuck Davis led, a humor surfaces, a humor which would not be manifested without hardest of work. The dances had funny, work-in-progress nicknames such as the fish, the drum, the chicken dance. The appeal of the dances lies in part in how easy it is to see Haiti in their motions. The chicken dance is reenactment of a cock fight, a common, Haitian Saturday night entertainment. For residents of New York and Chicago, these performances are a window to view the possibility of true Haitian accomplishment.

Report by James Harbison, May 15, 2003

DanceAfrica 2003: http://www.bam.org/performances/danceafrica.asp

St. Joseph's Home for Boys Guest House
48 Rue Herne (near route 91)
Port-au-Prince, Haiti

257-4237
sjfamily@pobox.com

30 USD, per person per night. Shared rooms.