My name is TiPapa. I am 11 years old. I am a street child; that means that I live and I sleep on the street. I grew up in the countryside, in the Northern Department.

My parents were farmers. We ate two times a day, in the morning and in the night time. In the morning we had mangos, avocados and plantains. Then we worked the land. It was my job to get water. I walked up the mountain with the water in a bucket on my head. We grew small beans, peas, carrots, peppers, tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, potatoes and yams. My sister stayed at home to take care of our baby brother. Now he is 3 years old, but I have not seen him for a long time.

Sometimes my mother wrapped him in a cloth and carried him outside when she was working. When he cried, she sang songs to him about Jesus. At night we ate vegetables, soup or rice with peas or bean sauce, and then we went to sleep.

One day some men with guns came by the route through the forest. They talked to my parents. My mother was scared of them. They told her to cook food for them. She did, and after they ate, they left our house. A while later, I was coming back from getting water, and I saw some more men in military uniforms were at my house. They wanted to take our food and the money my father had. They had guns, so he did not have any choice. He gave them everything we had.

The next week, my father took me with him on market day. We got up when it was still night time, and we walked for a long time. When we got to the market, he took me to a man who was driving a truck. The man gave my father some money, and my father told me I was going to live in the city and work for a family and that they were going to send me to school. He told me I would be safe in the city because the soldiers had not arrived there yet.

I was sad, because I did not want to leave. We drove for a long time. Then we arrived in Port-au-Prince. He sent me to live with some people as a restavek (unpaid domestic servant). They told me to call them “aunt” and “uncle,” but they did not treat me like family. When I lived with them, I worked very hard. I cleaned the floors, I hauled water and I did all the chores. I did not go to school.

After I came to the city, the soldiers followed me here! They came to take the city and make the president go away to Africa. I saw the soldiers in my dreams with their guns.

I got tired of my hard life. Sometimes my “aunt” beat me. Her children hit me. I slept on the floor, and a lot of the time I was hungry. I hated this hard life, so I ran away. Now I live in the streets.

There are soldiers here too, but not Haitian soldiers like in the North. The ones here are foreigners. Some are kind, and some are not kind at all. Some of the soldiers beat the children who sleep in the street, or they arrest the children and hand them over to the police. If they ever try to give me to the police, I will misbehave. I will fight them like a mad man. I won’t let them give me to the police. Because if you go with the police, it is like magic – you disappear and no one will ever see you again.

The police put you in the jail or you are taken away, and no one knows what happened to you or if you are alive or dead.

TiPapa is now off the streets, being cared for and having his health restored. Arrangements are being made to return him to his family. Sponsorship and assistance will also be secured for his family to assure nothing again will happen to destroy the lives of these people.