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Elia Gourgouris went to Haiti hoping to aid the aid-givers—those who have been working round the clock to help earthquake victims. But that changed. In fact, he returned last week from Haiti with a new direction in life: to help Haitian orphans live in better conditions and have better opportunities for the future.
Gourgouris, an LDS psychologist who worked with traumatized students at Columbine High School after the 1999 shooting, went to Haiti with fellow psychologist Terry Lyles to help aid volunteers work through some of the psychological distress they have experienced being in Haiti.
But after seeing the need of the children at the orphanage where he stayed, he and Lyles used this trip to spend time with the children and learn what they needed to live better.
“This was a personal mission of hope and discovery. It was more of a fact-finding mission,” he said.
During Gourgouris’s interaction with the children, he came to understand how very little it took to make them happy. “Their need for love and affection—I wish I had twenty arms so that I could hold them and play with them. They’re starving for more than just food,” he said.
On one of his first days there, he discovered that one-third of a piece of gum was enough to make the orphans happy for an entire day. “They chewed it for five hours—some saved it and started chewing again after dinner,” he said.
Gourgouris also learned from the sacrifice of Bishop Guesno Mardy, the LDS bishop who runs the orphanage. Mardy and his wife, Marjorie, not only deal with the care for the children of the orphanage, but they have their own children, the children of siblings who died in the earthquake, and a continued search for the own two-year-old son, who was kidnapped a month before the earthquake. And they’re working to get the $400,000 of funds and supplies necessary to finish a newer, safer orphanage for the children.
“You think your life is stressful? This will put things in perspective,” Gourgouris said. “The remarkable resiliency of the human spirit—that’s what I noticed.”
Gourgouris took the opportunity while in Haiti to meet with religious and governmental people who will aid in the transport of supplies for the orphanage. Because of corruption and the current chaos, it helps to have direct contacts to work the delivery of supplies. “You physically have to be there to coordinate this kind of stuff,” he said.
During his journeys around Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas, Gourgouris was astounded by the state of things.
News coverage about Haiti has died down, but devastation still continues. With little infrastructure working and so many people out of homes, the streets are filled with trash and excrement.
The rainy season will start soon, meaning the streets will turn into rivers of sewage. Aid organizations fear the death toll in this period will grow by tens of thousands when the rains come. Shelter and sanitation are top priority now. “It’s beyond description,” said Gourgouris, “so we have to look for little victories.”
Little victories like signs of hope.
On his last day there—February 12, the one month anniversary of the earthquake—Gourgouris experienced the most significant memory of his trip. The President of Haiti declared it a national day of mourning. As he, Lyles, and their guide drove through the streets, he saw thousands of people walking around in their Sunday best—white shirts and ties, white dresses, Bibles in hand. He saw them singing in front of churches or locations where they had lost loved ones, the words they sang translated into something like, “Jesus, stay close to us.”
“I got choked up when I saw that. These people, who have so very little and lost what little they did have, are showing faith,” he said. “It was very powerful that in the midst of this darkness, there’s hope.”
Gourgouris still plans on providing trauma counseling, though at a later date, most likely in the summer. Lyles will also return. “You’ve got an entire metropolitan city suffering from post-traumatic stress,” he said. “But right now, it’s just dealing with basics of survival.”
His most immediate plan is to put families interested in adopting, or simply families interested in helping the orphanage move to its new facility just outside Port-au-Prince, in contact with the proper authorities. He and his wife have even considered sponsoring some of the older, teenage orphans to come over and attend school when they’re old enough.
“My mission, in the end, is to help as many kids as possible,” he said.
If you are interested in helping or finding out more about the orphanage, e-mail Elia Gourgouris at dreliagourgouris@msn.com. If you are interested in donating goods or funds directly to the new orphanage, visit www.foyerdesion.org.
Kate Ensign-Lewis
