Tousant has been in our home visit program in Dumay since it's inception in 2011.
When we first met him, though he could stand up, he was scooting around his yard on his bottom, planting corn in his yard. There were stalks of corn coming up between the rocks all over his quarter acre yard.
At that time, his house was a humble shelter, leaning heavily to one side and made up of sticks and mud. A few years after we first met up with him, he had a plywood house built by a non-profit that built a few homes in Dumay in response to the earthquake. He lived alone, but all of his neighbors worked together to make sure he had what he needed. We occasionally sent him food and new clothes when he needed them. Most often, he was just really happy to have us visit and bring him vitamins to supplement his diet and Acetaminophen to help him cope with his knee pain. He always said he would pray for us to come back and see him again soon.
The running joke with Tousant was no one knew how old he was, including Tousant. We tried to figure out by asking him to tell us historical stories from his childhood - who was president, any big events. He told us fantastical/mystical stories about things that happened in Haiti when he was a child. I'm sure there was a grain of truth in the stories, but none of our Haitian staff could make sense of them.
After a few months of illness and being cared for by his daughter, Tousant recently passed away and is survived by his daughter and son. We miss his humor, his kindness and his mystical stories of Haiti.
