CREDIT: SUSAN CHLIPALA
A group of eight students and two professors from Fanshawe spent Reading Week in Haiti.

Eight students and two professors from Fanshawe College recently returned from Haiti on what was previously called an “alternative spring break.”

Two students described the experience as “amazing” and “eye opening.”

Business Marketing student Nicole Abbott and Human Resources Management student Prini Sahni became fast friends with their travel mates and were eager to share their memories of the trip.

“It was an amazing experience,” said Abbott. “We saw a lot of different things ... Haiti is still a poor country and recovering from the earthquake and there are still a lot of issues there.”

“This is so different compared to where we were for an entire week,” said Sahni. “Haiti was very welcoming and it just absorbs you in even though you're not the same colour as everyone else.”

“I feel like I'm definitely experiencing [withdrawal], especially with the team.”

Both young ladies signed up admittedly for “selfish” reasons, but came back to Canada with some food for thought.

“I always love seeing more of the world and culture,” said Abbott. “I'm unsure of the program I'm in and what I'm doing with my life, and I thought this would be a good way to see what I've got here.”

Instead, Abbott learned that tossing money at a charity isn't the most effective way to facilitate change.

“I've always given money to charities and said, ‘Here's my $10, I'm making a difference.' I wanted to see ... has that money gotten there, has [it] made a difference … I don't want to throw my money at the situation again.”

Sahni wanted to finish the last year of her academic career with a bang.

“I wanted to end it with something I could remember,” she explained. “I've come back with a new perspective, and my career goals and my life path is not going to change, but the way I live my life is going to be a little different.”

“It just hits you...I can't believe they don't have the basic human right of having clean water. I wanted to come back and be able to be more grateful for the things I do have, and I think I've gotten that for sure.”

The team was able to compare life in the city (Port-au-Prince) to town life in Saint-Marc and life in mountainous Giulbert, interacting with locals, the disabled and orphans.

With a packed agenda, there was bound to be one experience that sticks out more than the rest.

“We had lunch in this little place in Saint-Marc...this little boy kept coming up and pointing at his throat going, ‘Aqua, aqua,'” remembered Abbott. “All he wanted was water ...He didn't want money, he didn't want anything … he just needed water, that's all he wanted. That's going to stick with me forever.”

For Sahni, what struck her most was that Haitians almost seemed happier than North Americans despite being “poor.”

“It wasn't what I was expecting,” she said. “I thought I was going into a country where people were so poor according to [our standards], but I feel they're happier and [more] self-sustaining than we are in North America.”

“That always sticks with me, because now when I look at life and I'm trying to de-clutter it and not be [so consumerist]. There's a difference between need and want and I think that's what I got out of this experience. Sometimes the things that you want are not the things that you need.”

She hopes to go back in a few years.

“I would like to go back and see how they've developed,” Sahni said. “I think now the process is starting to happen, so if we went back in a few years, I think it would be really interesting to see how much that has gone up on the scale and how much people have grown.”

The trip was on a volunteer basis and the group travelled with Rayjon Sharecare, an NGO out of Sarnia.

Rayjon offers awareness trips for people interested ingaining experience in the Caribbean area. For more information about Rayjon, visit www.rayjon.org.