When students and teachers in the Vicksburg Warren School District took their spring break in March, Kelda Bailess and her daughter left the country.

Bailess, who teaches ninth and 10th grade biology and chemistry at River City Early College, her daughter Chloe, and co-teacher Camille Buxton were part of an 11-member mission team from Triumph Church that traveled to the Haitian village of Vignier to help a minister who operates a church, orphanage and school.

The decision to take the trip came after Bailess heard an announcement from her cousin Anthony Fields during a church service that he was putting together a team to go to Haiti, “And I thought it would be a great opportunity to do that with my daughter.”

The orphanage, she said, was destroyed in the 2010 Haitian earthquake, and the team worked to help clean and repair the building.

“We moved lots of material, including 2x4s that were steel,” Bailess said. “We moved lots of steel and different things like that up to the third floor of the orphanage, or what would be the completed orphanage. Everything there is manual labor. The funds are so low. It’s such a poor country that it takes a lot for it to rebuild. We watched them make their own concrete.”

Before Hurricane Maria, she said, the orphanage had 50 children; now there are 11 who are staying at the pastor’s home until the orphanage is rebuilt.

The church, school and orphanage, Bailess said, is in a walled compound with a door that opens to the village. Presently, while the orphanage is being rebuilt, the door to the compound is open so the villagers can use its well, which is the only one in the area.

“The children would walk in with a 5-gallon bucket, fill it up and put it on their head and walk back out,” she said, adding she talked with the pastor about drilling another well outside the compound.

The poverty in the village, she said, “was unbelievable. There was trash everywhere.

“On the side of the road, there was a ravine with water, and you may see a child bathing in it and then further down you would see a woman washing clothes in it; definitely a third world country experience. The people in the village make furniture weave baskets for sale and take care of children.”

But Bailess said the whole time the team was in the village, “We never saw violence; we were never threatened.”

While she initially helped with the construction, Bailess’ main interest was working with the teachers in the school and seeing how their schools operate.

“I wanted to compare them to our schools here, and assist them; how I could provide professional development for them, because I know that’s something they don’t often get,” she said.

“I spent one day at their primary school and one day at their kindergarten,” she said. “I was able to meet with the teachers and answer questions. We compared experiences in teaching, I was able to let them get a view of what we feel are priority subjects, and the time we spend on those as opposed to the time they have.”

She said one interesting observation was the 3-year-olds in the school’s kindergarten were learning to recognize everything in cursive — something that is no longer being taught in U.S. schools.

“At 4 years old, they’re starting to write their vowels in cursive,” Bailess said, “So everything on their chalkboards and everything that the students do is in cursive. I thought that was very interesting.”

Another observation was the lack of discipline problems in the schools. “The students are very respectful toward their teachers,” she said.

All the lessons are taught in French, and Bailess said the teachers face some of the problems American teachers face with English language learners — students from other countries who are learning English as they study.

In Haiti, she said, when the students at school go home, they speak Creole, a Haitian dialect, “So they face some of the same obstacles we do with our English language learners.”

Besides working with the schools, she and her daughter spent time with the orphans, taking photographs together and doing other activities.

“They would draw pictures and show homemade toys; things that we take for granted. They wanted to fix our hair,” she said.

Bailess said she was glad to have made the trip with her daughter.

“Education is so important, but for me to have that experience with my daughter to let her see having that service part and that people matter. I want her to have that service part; that’s why it was important for me to take her.”

She is planning to go back to the village next spring to establish a curriculum for leadership training for students.

“To change that country, we have to start with the younger generation,” she said. “Teach them and then let them go teach it to their families in the village.”

And she may have some help.

“I have some students who really want to go, because at River City, we really stress serving others, so some have set a goal to go back and help with the leadership program.”