On Christmas day, we invited all of the children that attended the Wings Over Haiti school along with their parents to meet us at a building to have a special lunch and dinner with us and for the children to receive gifts. When most of us think of Christmas, we envision Christmas trees, lights, JOY, perhaps even snow. Snow aside for obvious reasons, lights aside for electricity issues, and Christmas trees aside for exportation complications, I was certainly expecting the joy to still remain on a Christmas day in Haiti.
Instead, we found ourselves in one of the most awkward situations I think any one of us had ever felt on a Christmas day. For upwards of three hours, the parents and children blankly stared at us as if it were a classroom and they were seated in detention. I had expected everyone would be mingling and dancing and curious to open presents, but instead, those first few hours felt more like we were holding them hostage than we were celebrating one of the most blessed days of the year. Did someone forget to tell them it was Christmas?
In response to the above question, the answer was no. They clearly knew it was Christmas as many of the parents had dressed their children up in their finest attire. This little girl, who I simply could not stop myself from photographing over and over again, was, in a weird paradox, the most beautifully dressed yet seemingly the most shell shocked and unhappy, remaining the entire day with the exact same face as if she was a deer in headlights.
