Junior Hannah Concepcion, whose mother was born in Haiti, has had a more interesting life than most. After a devastating earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010, Concepcion along with her parents and sister Rachel, moved to Haiti to do missionary work. Living there from 2010-2013, she had many great experiences that have had an incredible impact on her life and the way she views the world.
Haiti is a developing country just South of the U.S. with constant natural disasters and a generally poor society, making life there very difficult for many of its residents.
“It changes your world view, being exposed to a Third World country, which is literally the poorest in the Western hemisphere. It’s so interesting, because when you come back here, you realize how privileged people here are and they don’t realize it,” said Concepcion.
Hannah and her family did several different things to help the communities in Haiti. Her dad taught an agricultural class to the men in the village so that they would learn to grow and sustain crops, while her mom taught the women how to cook.
“It was really cool to see the long lasting impact that it had on different people of the community, because even after we left, the women of the community continued the cooking classes, even though we weren’t there anymore. Which was really cool, because you got to see that one family could have a really big impact on so many people,” said Concepcion.
Along with her missionary work, Hannah also learned to speak some French and Haitian Creole, the two dominant languages in Haiti. Haitian Creole is a mixture of the native Haitian language and the French language of the Elite, upper class.
The missionary work that Hannah did with her family has not only effected the people of Haiti very positively, but also allowed for her to come away with some great learning experiences.
Nicholas Sowell // Co-Sports Editor
