As Sharon talks I notice a pile of photos sitting on the table. In my frustration, I pick them up and start flipping through them. Americans, plain ordinary working class Americans. Husband and wife. Husband, wife and kids. Husband, wife and dog. Husband, wife, kids, dog, house and yard. Husband wife and kids on stage in photo studio. I ask Sharon about them. She tells me they are sponsors. I ask her about their occupations. This one is a plumber and his wife is a secretary. Here is a single working mother. Next is a social worker. This one is a school janitor, his wife a homemaker. Here's a farmer. It goes on and on like this, plain ordinary working class American folks doing good things for underprivileged Haitian children.
I ask Sharon about her sponsorship and she proudly says, "Harry Wothem is not the only one who knows how to raise money. All of our children are on sponsorship."
She tells me that the sponsorship for the School is $40 per child per month.
"Many of our children have three and four sponsors," she beams and then, clarifying, she says: "But it's not like one child get more than another. We don't just give the child the money. The money is spent in the interest of the child and that can be interpreted a lot of ways."
Sharon
goes on talking and I lean back in my chair and begin to reflect on
something that in all the years I have been acquainted with Sharon, her
family, and The School, I have never really thought much about: The School is full of rich children.
*
The story of The School began in the mid 1980s when Sharon and her brother Kirk came down with one of Harry Wothem's whirlwind Christian tours of Haiti's poverty. They returned home and told their parents about it. The father, Richard Baxter, promptly retired from the Electric Company, went to Bible school, earned a degree and then Sharon, Kirk, their mother, father, and their two younger sisters all moved to Haiti to work with Harry Wothem. It did not take them long to become disenchanted with Harry's business style approach to charity and so they struck out on their own. As I recounted earlier, they have enjoyed dazzling success.
"It was so tough at first," Sharon is saying again, "everyone laughed at us. They said our school was no good."
The catch is, I am realizing as I sit here listening to her, that what she means by "everyone" is "everyone with money."
Sharon refers to the parents of the School's children as her parents' and as one drives through Baie-de-Sol with her, she is likely to wave at anyone in an SUV, with a large stomach, and with gold jewelry dangling from his or her body and as she waves, she smiles and exclaims, "that's one of my parents."
And "her parents" are easy to spot because most of the people of Baie-de-Sol are scrawny pedestrians in ragged clothes.
There is no doubt about it: The pupils of The School are overwhelmingly not impoverished Haitian kids as it says on The School's website. They are almost entirely composed of offspring from the ranks of the Baie-de-Sol elite. The plumber in the photo I was looking at sponsors the child of a Baie-de-Sol ship owner who also owns the largest regional bakery. The single working mother sponsors the owner of a radio station, an ice plant, a hardware store, an import-export business, and the largest funeral parlor in the city. The janitor sponsors the son of a Port-au-Prince surgeon who works as resident surgeon for the private hospital at La Pwent.
"Sharon," I say, "you're giving charity to the rich. The School is the most elite school in Baie-de-Sol. There are parents in the school who have more money than the people in these photos. Much more money."
"That's not true," she snaps.
"Well let's see, virtually every major ship owner in the harbor and most of the doctors I know in Baie-de-Sol have children in your school. Most of the higher-levels politicians and political administrators, the mayor, the customs inspector, the chief of police, they all have children here. The owner of the Shell gas stations has children in your school. No wait, he has two families in your school because both his wife and his mistress have children here. And, Sousou, who owns the Texaco stations, his wife and mistress have children there, too. The owner of the television station, he has children here. And what about the Benettes? They have seven children in your school. For Christ sake, two percent of the children in your school are Benette children."
"But I love her. Madame Benette is so elegant."
"That is not the point sharon. The point is that the Benettes are among the largest landowners in the Province. Their family has monopolized exports in Baie-de-Sol since before the Marines arrived in 1915. They vacation in France for crying out loud. And you are giving their children cost-free educations. You are giving them school lunches, Christmas presents, free medical care. And it is not yours to give Sharon. The people who give you that money expect it to go to impoverished children. Not to rich people. You are no better than the people who are stealing the money."
