Moment of Grace

February 21, 2012  Moment of Grace

Early morning, sunrise.  Pere Kesner stepped out of his room onto the veranda.  I was already there looking out at the beautiful morning.  Let’s say Morning Prayer together.  We gather our prayer books and bibles, English and Kreyol, and the English/French Book of Common Prayer.  It’s quiet.  The noisy activity of the day hasn’t yet begun.  We pray together, sometimes in English, sometimes in French.  We read from the Kreyol Bib La.  We sing together hymns in the French Hymnal.  A bird in the tree joins in.  A close moment of grace.  God is present.

Simplicity

February 20, 2012  Simplicity

While walking this morning to visit a family, I passed by five women doing the family laundry.  Basins of all sizes were scattered on the ground under a big shade tree.  The water source, an area with showers and faucets, was just a few steps away.  Piles of clothes surrounded each woman, as she sorted.  They scrubbed, rinsed, and scrubbed some more until the clothes were clean.  The women seemed to be enjoying their work; nobody looked stressed, in spite of their difficult life.  The women talked and laughed among themselves as they worked, probably catching up on the village news.  What I saw in the short time I visited was a real women’s camaraderie where each woman shared the same challenges of daily living.  Although life here is very difficult without electricity, running water, safe housing, and food scarcity, I see simplicity of life that allows time to enjoy one another.

After Carnival

February 17, 2012                           After Carnival

Carnival at Ste. Marie Madeleine is over.  School is closed, teachers have gone to their hometowns for family celebrations.  There is a quietness about the area that I haven’t yet experienced.  I’m enjoying quiet time and especially am enjoying one on one time with Gastina.  We’re working on language; she is helping me with Creole and French and I’m helping her with English.  She is such a precocious child for 10 years old!  I suppose it’s a result of the hard life she has had in her ten short years.  She is also learning simple computer skills by playing computer games and writing, using Word.  Today Anna joined her in playing computer games, and then Christian joined in.  The three played very well together, no problems.  I watch them play and share one mini laptop and call to mind that these three children are the poorest of the poor.  Gastina had severe malnutrition when I met her shortly after the earthquake, two years ago.  Anna and her family lived in a blue plastic tarp tent until Ste. Marie Madeleine Church and South Florida Haiti Project gave them a home to live in.  Twelve year old Christian and his family moved into the Nouvo Bidaw Houses.  His mother, seeking a better life for him, had given him to a family in Port au Prince.  Christian was very unhappy and was returned to his mother.  He now attends our school and will live in the Children’s Home.  South Florida Haiti Project has made a huge difference in the lives of Gastina, Anna, and Christian.  Leisure time following Carnival has been blessed time, giving me what I need just at the moment I need it.

Carnival at Ste. Marie Madeleine

February 16, 2012              Carnival at Ste. Marie Madeleine

     Today is my birthday!  And yesterday was Carnival at Ste. Marie Madeleine.  People were preparing for more than a week, practicing dance routines and creating costumes.  Festivities began early, around nine in the morning with music playing and amplified loud so that it was heard throughout the community.  The small porch at the entrance of the Director’s office served as a stage.  The children were delighted, screaming with joy, when Director danced.  By ten o’clock the school yard was crowded with people who came to celebrate Carnival, the celebration prior to Ash Wednesday and Lent.  Carnival is a major event here and is celebrated all over Haiti.  All businesses close, schools close, everything shuts down.  It’s the final party before Lent.

     Children, in costume with their faces painted and glitter sparkling in their hair, sang and danced.  Some wore long beads, New Orleans style.  They had so much fun!  The main attraction was our young dancers, preteen and teenage girls who danced cultural Haitian dances.  I amazes me that girls so young can dance as well as they do, moving in the tradition of the Maroons.  Gastina and Anna were a part of the dance line.  Our boys, Kiki, Gregory, Gibson and friends performed a comic routine depicting life in the Haitian countryside.

     The party went on through the afternoon, stopping for Evening Prayer, and then continued until nine o’clock.  Everyone had a great time, so did I!     (We have not had Internet for over week.  I’ll post this as soon as I can.)

Some Days Are More Challenging

Some days are more challenging than others.  We have been without Internet for four days.  I miss the convenience of keeping in touch with family and friends and keeping up with what’s happening.  I’m learning that there are degrees of inconvenience. When I turned on the shower faucet and there was only a gurgling sound, now, that’s inconvenience!  It’s too late to call anybody, and then, who would I call?  So now I know how the people I interact with every day feel at the end of a hot day.  If they haven’t planned ahead and brought water to their homes, they cannot bathe.  Hot and sticky from insect repellent and sun screen, I use facial wipes and go to bed.  I am tormented during the night by mosquitos.  They bite my arms and buzz around my head.  I turn on the light.  “I’ll get that sucker!”  But no mosquitos were in sight.  Back in bed, wrap in a sheet to cover exposed skin, but now I’m too hot.  I go back to sleep.  It’s morning…still no water.  I see Guy and tell him in my broken Kreyol that I have no water in my bath.  He tells me, I think, that he’ll take care of it and turns a valve on the side of the building.  Still no water.  I ask Guy to bring me a bucket of water and he does.   All is well.  Now I’ll bathe.  I step out of the shower and am greeted by the biggest, blackest, ugliest, furriest spider I have ever seen.  It’s in the doorway between the bath and bedroom.  I’m trapped!  I stand there staring at the spider.  I think it’s staring at me.  I don’t know what to do, so I wait for it to go away but it doesn’t.  If I try to step past it, will it attack?  I wait longer.  It doesn’t move.  It’s looking more and more harmless, so I move slowly and try to step around it.  As I do, it scurries under the bed.  Oh great, now I have a big black ugly spider under my bed.  I sit down and catch my breath, while keeping an eye on the floor around the bed.  I know if I go out to the yard where the cooks are preparing the school lunch, they will know what to do.

So, I go and tell the cooks and Jabon that I have a big black spider under my bed.  They all laugh.  They think it’s funny!  Jabon takes a broom and heads up to my room.  He pulls out the bed from the wall and the spider runs up the back of the bed and wants to settle on the headboard.  Jabon sweeps it back to the floor and then whacks it with the broom, and it’s a dead spider.  I ask if it bites and learn that it indeed does bite, quite a venomous bite.  So, challenging…but in the end, all is well.