Nous devons changer

The following quote was written by the mother of several kids who attended our school in Haiti. I had the privilege of teaching some of them. I have always had a lot of respect for this family. Below I include a translation into English.

"Le pays revivra et sera plus beau qu'avant. Nous nous relèverons meilleurs qu'avant. Nous ne referons pas les mêmes bêtises; nous apprendrons à mieux jouer les plus beaux morceaux de notre répertoire musical; nous enlèverons les mots défaitistes de notre vocabulaire; nous réviserons nos discours destructifs; nous changerons nos rymes amères en hymnes de joie; nous désapprendrons pour mieux réapprendre; nous préférerons la joie à la tristesse; nous porterons en nous les germes de la vie. Nos frères et soeurs ont payé de leur sang, de longues heures d'agonies le prix du changement. POUR EUX nous devons changer." Lunise Jules Cerin

"The country will live again and will be more beautiful than before. We will get up better than before. We won't make the same mistakes; we'll learn to play better the most beautiful pieces in our musical repertoire; we will remove the defeatist words from our vocabulary; we will revise our destructive ways of speaking; we will change our bitter rhymes into hymns of joy; we will unlearn so that we can relearn better; we will prefer joy to sadness; we will carry in us the seeds of life. Our brothers and sisters paid with their blood, with long hours of agony, the price of change. FOR THEM we must change." Lunise Jules Cerin

My husband tells me he meets this attitude everywhere. This is an opportunity to rebuild, and to do things better this time.