Another View from Haiti

Jen is a doctor who has been working with Heartline Ministries to treat people injured in the earthquake. She blogged yesterday about how things are now, both the hope and the pain.

Not Pig, Pigeon

The electrician wasn't here fixing the electricity (see last post). He's also a plumber, and he was working on our water tank. It turns out that the covering of it fell off during the earthquake, and a pigeon had died in there. That affects the quality, color, and smell of one's water.

All I could think of was Fawlty Towers.

Six Months Ago Today

Today is another six month anniversary; six months ago today, my children and I were evacuated from Haiti with one small bag each. This morning I worked on unpacking the (several more than one) bags we brought back with us yesterday.

When we checked in those bags at the airport in Florida, our porter was Haitian. Several of the porters were talking together in Kreyol, and when one of them saw where we were lining up, he said in Kreyol to the other, "They aren't going to Haiti." Ours turned to me and asked in English if we were going to Haiti, and I answered him in Kreyol saying yes, we were, and that I guessed the other man didn't believe it. He suddenly was very friendly and we spoke Kreyol for the rest of our brief interaction. I was happy to be speaking Kreyol again; it felt wonderful.

It was strange disembarking into an airport that I could hardly recognize. The main building of the airport is badly damaged, with huge cracks in it. We were put in a bus and moved to the old cargo area, now used for passport control, baggage claim, and customs. Everything was calm and orderly, except the little girl who came in blowing on a vuvuzela. Was it my imagination, or were the greetings a bit more heartfelt than before? Certainly there were tears and joyful hugs, but perhaps I was reading into what I saw.

The pickup procedures at the airport are not exactly streamlined; the driver who had come to get us drove past slowly while our redcaps flung our bags into the van and then my husband jumped in, hitting his head on the ceiling. "Did you count the bags?" I gasped.

"Yes," he said, just as one of our redcaps ran up to the van, with another whole cart of our luggage which hadn't made it into the van. We grabbed that too, and were on our way.

In some ways, I feel as though I just briefly walked out of my life and then back in. The streets look much the same as the day I left. The differences: there are many more tents now, tents everywhere. I could see them from the air as our plane came in, the blue and white of tarps and bleached out pup tents, designed for families to use for the weekend, not for a whole city of people to live in for six months. And on the main roads, some rubble has been cleaned up. On back roads, not so much. The day we left, people on the streets still looked a bit shell-shocked, though they were moving about purposefully, doing what needed to be done. Now, people seem calm and relaxed, as though this is how life is now; might as well make the best of it. I took pictures, even though they were really bad, blurred by the movement of the van I was in, because I know that soon I, too, will stop seeing the tents the way I did at first. They will start to seem part of the scenery. (Talie, who is Haitian, has a great post on the downside of this remarkable Haitian ability to adapt to the worst situations.)

In my house, some things haven't changed at all. My verse-a-day calendar is still on January 15th, the day before we left. There was clean laundry that I hadn't put away yet when I left in January (but not any more; I put it away this morning). The books I got for Christmas and hadn't had time to read yet are still by my bed. The Christmas tree isn't put away yet. (Thankfully, we had taken it down, or it would have fallen down, like everything else in that room did when the earthquake hit. But the box is still in the stairwell, ready to be put back in the closet.)

In other ways, though, many things have changed. My house is full of the evidence of people coming and going for six months, bringing all sorts of things with them and leaving them as they moved on. Things like XL size t-shirts in large quantities; apparently they had trouble finding XL size Haitians in the tent camps to give them to, so my husband ended up with many. Things like insect repellent by the hundredweight. Apparently my husband ate mostly trail mix and sardines while I was gone (and it's not because he's helpless in the kitchen - he is a great cook and does most of our cooking; it's just that there wasn't time for such frivolities). There are bags of trail mix all over the place. Did he just grab a handful whenever he felt hungry, I asked? Apparently so.

Last night we ate a celebratory welcome-home dinner of chicken and diri djonjon. I have been congratulating myself on living six months in the Land o' Plenty without gaining any weight, but I think that dinner, complete with two glasses of grenadia juice, probably put on five pounds. How blessed we are to have food to eat in our house, which is still standing. How blessed we are to be alive, and together. I started to cry (yeah, I know you didn't see that coming, because I never cry).

This morning I had a reunion with "my" electrician (long-time readers of this blog will recognize him as a frequent presence in my life; we have quite a bond based on years of his constant visits to our house to fix our constant electrical problems, and his children recognize my voice on the telephone). He is fine, and everyone is alive in his family. I wonder how many of these emotional meetings are ahead; many, I know. I talked with another Haitian friend, too, and we discussed how nobody will ever know how many people really died in those moments on January 12th. She said that whole families disappeared at once, maman, papa, ak pitit yo, mother, father, and children. Her life is complicated now (more than before); she has to move from where she has been living in a tent, to somewhere much further away from her work and less convenient. How many tap-taps to get to work, I asked? Two, or three, or sometimes four. But then we talked about how happy we are to be alive, and how God gave us our lives. Béni soit l'Eternel. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Six months ago today, I left this country in grief and pain. Now I am back, and mostly what I feel is joy. Yes, there is still grief, but I am so happy to be home. I didn't even realize how much I missed the sounds, and the smells, and the beautiful smiles. Whatever problems there are - and they are many and huge; I don't wish to downplay them - seem surmountable because we are still alive.

Poetry Friday: Haitian Earthquake Poems

If all goes according to plan, by the time this post appears automatically, I will be at home in Haiti. I don't know what kind of poem is appropriate for such a day, but while I was looking for one, I found this article, which is several months old, but which I hadn't seen before, about how some Haitian poets responded to the disaster.

John-Dany Joachim wrote:

I went and I am back, tande ak we se de
It was like in a dream,
or one of those movies that show the after world.
Two hundred years of words I will need to describe
the desolation my eyes have seen.
Two hundred years of memory to heal the scars
many years of labor,
and many more years of relearning.
I saw Port-au-Prince with its guts open,
its bare bones exposed to nothingness.
I saw tangible fear.
I could feel the anxiety and the anguish of the survivors,
but also I saw life waking up slowly.
That reminded me of ants,
coming out of their holes after a heavy rain.

There are some more excerpts at that link.

I hope soon to be able to post some of my own responses to how things are now in Haiti.

Today's Poetry Friday roundup is here.

Home!

Lakay se lakay. (Home, sweet home.)

It's been a long, exhausting day, after a night of sleeping like a baby (which is to say, waking up every two hours). I will write more tomorrow, but just wanted to let you know that we arrived safely in Haiti, and the power, water, and internet are all working. It's a miracle!

Thanks to those of you who were praying for our trip.

In Transit

We are in a motel room in Florida, waiting to leave for Haiti. We are surrounded by luggage - it's hard to walk around in the room because there's so much of it. I can't find anything I want to wear, or read, or use, without digging through piles of other belongings. I'm very tired of living out of suitcases and ready to be home.

And yet I'm afraid.

For months I have obsessively read everything published on the internet about Haiti. Now, I can't read any of it. On TV they showed the footage from the security cameras at the Palais National, taken during the earthquake. (That video was making the rounds on Facebook months ago, but somehow the US media is just now getting hold of it?) I have watched the video many times, but I couldn't watch it now; I left the room.

I'm sick, too. A friend wrote and asked, "Are you sick sick or stress sick?" Definitely sick sick, with whatever bug has been going through our family for the last week, but my physical condition does match my emotional one pretty accurately. I'm feeling fragile.

And I'm afraid.

I keep thinking about flying into the airport that I left six months ago, where rebar was hanging down from the ceiling and groups of us huddled, talking about what we had seen and heard. I think about driving through the streets of the city as we did that day, seeing destruction on an enormous scale, buildings pancaked on themselves. I think about all those people everywhere.

A woman at church the other day said to me, "I admire you so much. You are such a strong person to do what you do."

I feel uncomfortable being put on a pedestal, especially when I know so very well how inaccurate the sentiment is. Strong? Uh, no. So I replied immediately, "When all of this happened, I realized how weak I really am."

She kept smiling brightly and assuring me of how strong I am.

Believe me, I'm not. I'm weak and sick and terrified.

Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians: But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

It's still hard for me to boast in my weakness. I want to be strong and self-sufficient. I don't want to be the person who ran away from all of it six months ago, and is now cautiously creeping back. I want to be bold and courageous, perhaps riding a white horse. (OK, the horse might be taking things too far.)

Let's just hope His grace really is sufficient for me, and for all of us.

Six Months

Today is the six month anniversary of the earthquake. On other anniversaries I have posted articles but I can't do that today. Please read the articles anyway - they are easy to find - and keep Haiti in your thoughts and prayers. I can't read them, somehow. I am on my way home to Port-au-Prince to see with my own eyes, to bear witness to what is happening there. Six months ago everything changed for my family and for millions of Haitians. It seems like another lifetime. It seems like yesterday.

Poetry Friday: Death, Be Not Proud

Nearly three years ago we lost a friend and colleague at our school in Haiti. This week we lost another, and I want to post what I shared with my students when K. died in 2007. This is the poem my brother-in-law sent me when my grandmother died, and though I had read it before, reading it with fresh loss in mind made it resonate even more.

I recognized that this poem was a bit much for my seventh and eighth graders, so I wrote a paraphrase that I also shared with them. So, first, Donne's version, and then mine.


Death, be not proud (Holy Sonnet 10)
by John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy'or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.


Death, don't think you're all that, even though some have said you're mighty and dreadful - you aren't. You think you're defeating those who die, but that's not the way it is, and you can't kill me, either. We get pleasure from rest and sleep, which are just imitations of you - won't we get even more pleasure when we die? As soon as good people die, they get rest for their bodies and freedom for their souls. You, Death, are a slave to many things - fate, chance, rulers, criminals. You hang out with poison, war, and sickness. If we want to sleep, we can always take Tylenol PM and get a better rest than you can give us, so what do you have to be proud about? After a short sleep, we'll wake to eternal life, and you, Death, won't even exist any more. Death: you're going to die!

Here's my original post of this paraphrase, complete with descriptions of middle schoolers and mourning.

Today's Poetry Friday roundup is at Carol's Corner.

Lessons Learned

Ever since the earthquake, I have been writing constantly on this blog. Probably very few people have read every word of it, but I have read and reread it, and it has been therapeutic for me to write it and to read it. As I get ready to go back, I am making a list of some of the lessons my family and I have learned during the last six months. Many are ideas about which I've already written at great length. And many are concepts we would already have said that we knew, but experience has made them more real to us.

1. Flush. In the United States we flush every time.

2. We learned how to live in winter. The youngest among us had never put on gloves, never suffered chapped skin, never really even felt cold beyond the occasional day in the 70s at home.

3. I love teaching. Probably most people think a vacation of six months would be a good thing, and there were definitely good things about it, but I learned that my job is very important to me. I missed my students and my classroom so much that I had to keep myself from thinking too much about either. I know that there are big challenges ahead at work, but I feel ready to be back in Room 23. This email from our friend Dave Carter kept me going.

4. I love my husband. I have been married to him almost half my life now, so I was aware that I love him, but being apart has reminded both of us how much we love and need each other. In those early weeks it was hard to feel connected because we were able to communicate so little, and I wrote a lot about him and about our history together; that helped. (Here's one of those posts.) Being back together as a family has been healing for all of us.

5. Emotions are funny things. It's always a good idea to carry tissues at all times. I never know when I'll be overwhelmed by a crying jag, even if I've been fine for a few days. Several people have encouraged me to accept the feelings as they come, and that has been helpful advice.

6. Friends matter so, so much. I can hardly find the words to express how much. I heard from hundreds of them and spent time with many as well. Each was a blessing. I learned that people are kind, in ways that take my breath away. I learned that love is the one thing that matters. And I learned that I am incredibly fortunate to have so many people who love me and who were there for me. Thank you, thank you to all of them.

7. Talking, writing, music, and laughter are healing.

8. At a time when I most needed God, I found it difficult to pray. But God was still near. I learned that when I can't hold on any more, God still holds on to me.

9. I was surprised to learn that I couldn't read for weeks after the earthquake. Regular blog-visitors have seen me come back as a reader, but it was terribly unsettling for me not to be able to focus on a book.

10. Everything can change in an instant, and you can't predict how you will react to that. Any cracks, both literal and figurative, will be exposed. Any weakness will come to the surface. I learned that I am weak and need other people desperately. This was an uncomfortable lesson.

11. I learned that all I have is today.

12. In the time I have left, long or short, I want to "Add to the Beauty."

Last Walk

This morning I took what will likely be my last walk of 2010 in this town where I have lived, so unexpectedly, for nearly six months. This is a town where I have done much of my growing up. I lived here for two years as a child while my parents continued their education and my brothers and I were homesick for Africa and learned about life in the United States, and I walked to school and to my piano lessons. I came here for college as an eighteen-year-old who thought I knew everything, and I remember walking to a friend's house during Freshman Orientation through the darkened streets, full of the wonder of this place and so many people who turned out to be wonderful too. I met my husband here and we took many walks through these streets when we were dating and had no money and no car. I came back here from Haiti as a new mother and carried my baby in her frontpack and then, as she grew, pushed her in a stroller through this town. And in January, this is where I took refuge with my children in my time of deepest need and weakness, leaving a shattered Haiti, and my husband, behind. And again, I walked.

I have blogged often in these months about my walks, about what I thought about and listened to and about how important the exercise and fresh air were to my well-being. I walked in snow and after floods and now, in July, it's warm and sticky and feels almost like home. I've cried and and I've listened to radio shows and sermons and all kinds of music and I've sung along with my iPod. And I've talked, on the days when I walked with my walking buddy; I'm sure she doesn't know the half of how helpful she was to me.

This morning I listened to Steven Curtis Chapman while I walked, in memory of those early days here, back in January and February, when I would listen to his album Beauty Will Rise again and again and again. (I posted several songs from it at the time, here and here and here.) Today I let the tears come as I played the whole album, tears for the Chapmans' pain of losing their daughter, and for my pain, and for Haiti's pain. I am grateful to Steve Curtis Chapman for writing these songs and performing them. Many of them he wrote in the very early weeks after losing Maria, and they are raw and full of deep grief. It is music to mourn to, and yet there is hope in every single song.

As I listened to the words "If you can't believe, I will believe for you," I thought of all the people who have believed for me, prayed for me, held out hope to me on days when I had none of my own. People who wrote to me, and sent me packages, and listened to me, and took me to lunch, and showed me love in so many ways. As I listened to the words, "This is not where we planned to be/ When we started this journey/ But this is where we are/ And our God is in control," I thought about the journey, the years that have taken me around the world, and the people that I have been privileged to know, and I knew that Jesus will continue to be with me as I keep walking.

Back in January I noticed a broken mug by the side of the walking trail. I'm not sure why I didn't just pick it up and throw it away, but I didn't. I kept seeing it day after day. The handle was on one side of the trail and the rest of the mug on the other. I speculated about what had happened. Had someone thrown it from a car? Had someone been walking and drinking coffee and just dropped it? Why was it not all together? At some point most of it disappeared, but the little piece of handle is still there, and I saw it this morning. It's getting a bit weathered now, after all these months. You know me, readers; I always have to make metaphors out of everything. That little handle reminds me of my grief. It's not as fresh now, and it's not everything that I am any more. Maybe it will get smaller; maybe you won't even be able to see it when you talk to me. But it's still there, and I know it always will be, like a little nub of mug handle that somehow ended up on the ground.

I hope to walk the streets of this town again next summer, but who knows? I plan to watch the parade go through the streets tomorrow, but again, who knows? Today is all I have for sure, and today, I had a beautiful walk and was filled with love and gratitude. Thank you, Lord, for this town and for my walks through it at so many stages in my life.

Poetry Friday: Wimbledon

I have been enjoying watching the World Cup this year. Usually I would be at home in Haiti and we don't have television, so I would likely not be watching. It has been a lot of fun to keep up on the games.

The only other sporting event besides the World Cup that I care about is Wimbledon, which I rarely get to watch. When I was at school in England we all followed it very closely and watching the men's final was always a huge deal to us. One year I got to go to Wimbledon myself.

If I enjoy a sporting event, you can be pretty sure it's not about the sports. With the World Cup, it's about the international competition; I also love how egalitarian the sport is. You don't need a lot of special equipment; poor children around the world play soccer with whatever they can find to kick. And this year, the World Cup is providing trauma therapy in Haiti.

With Wimbledon, similarly, it's not that I'm so into tennis, though I used to umpire some when I was in high school. I was never very good at it, and if the games had had any importance, I would have been vilified worse than a World Cup referee. It's about the memories I have from watching it with friends and from going there myself. It's about the tradition and the beautiful green courts and the strawberries and cream.

This year I haven't watched much of the coverage, but I was amused to read that for the first time ever, there is an official Poet in Residence for the tournament, Matt Harvey. You can follow his poems here, at the official Wimblewords site. I particularly enjoyed "Mrs. K. with Strawberries," which begins like this:

Mrs K with Strawberries

they're ordinary strawberries
it's ordinary cream
from a commonplace cow
nothing special - like me

and they're served as you'd hope
in a bowl, with a spoon
with a sprinkle of sugar
just like at home

and I'm eating them now
in the Wingfield Café
and Jeremy's here
with his clever new phone

and he's taking my picture just typical me
with my ordinary strawberries
and ordinary cream

Here's the rest of it.

Today's Poetry Friday roundup is at The Poem Farm.

This Brief Summer

"Come live with me and be my love
'Midst valleys, woods and fields
And we will all the pleasures prove
That this brief summer yields."

from "Red, Red Rose," sung by Garrison Keillor on the CD English Majors: A Comedy Collection for the Highly Literate

Our time in the States is winding down, and we have been enjoying so many summer pleasures, from beach days, to precious time with family and friends, to Shakespeare in the Park last night (Richard III, which my son proclaimed "awesome," the same adjective he used to describe The Karate Kid), to a riverboat ride today.

Usually there is a twinge of guilt in my summer pleasures, because I constantly compare what I am privileged to experience with the deprivation others must suffer. This year I have even more reason for comparison, as hundreds of thousands of people swelter under tents in Port-au-Prince, and yet somehow I haven't been feeling that way. I'm not sure why, entirely, except that perhaps it seems a waste of energy to feel guilty. Instead I am using my energy to enjoy each moment as much as I can. I am deeply grateful for the blessings God has given me, and also deeply conscious that they can all be gone in a second. So while I do think of those people in Haiti, pray for them, plan our return and think about what we can possibly do to help, I don't feel guilty, just incredibly thankful.

The Story from Haiti, part sixteen

This is a whole episode all about Haiti. Dick Gordon talks to Sandra Amilcar, who lives under a tarp with six other people, including her two children. She talks about how each day is about finding food for her family to eat. (She perceives the breastmilk she is forced to give her baby as inferior to the formula she isn't able to find.) She describes what her days are like.

Gordon also talks briefly to Roody Joseph, with whom he's spoken several times on previous episodes.

In the second segment he talks to Hilda Alcindor, the director of the nursing school in Leogane. (This town had some of the worst damage in the earthquake; some estimates say 90% of the buildings there were destroyed.) She calls what her students are suffering "concrete-phobia." They don't want to be inside under concrete because they fear it will collapse. They feel movement even when there is none. (There's also a brief clip of my friend Maggie Boyer talking about visiting the national nursing school in Port-au-Prince a few days after the earthquake - this is from an earlier show. It hurt me once again to hear the grief and despair in her voice. One hundred and nine nursing students died in that school.)

Here's my index of the Haiti-related episodes.

The Story from Haiti, part fifteen

In this episode from June 14th, Dick Gordon talks to Sandro Linden, who moved from New York to help out his family before the earthquake, and who now is living in a tent and selling whatever he can on the street. Gordon makes the point that most of the stories in the media now are about Americans going to Haiti and the work they are doing and their reactions. While those stories are of course valid and draw attention to Haiti (a good thing), it is important to keep listening to the voices of Haitians themselves and what they are going through. This is why I love The Story so much, because of their inclusion of many voices.

Here's my index to the Haiti-related stories from this radio show.

Joy is in Our Hearts

by Sara Groves

we were pressed on every side
full of fear and troubled thoughts
for good reason we carried heavy hearts

it is good to come together
in our friendship to remember
all the reasons hope is in our hearts

hallelujah hallelujah
Christ our joy and strength
hallelujah hallelujah
Christ our joy and strength

now with patience in our suffering
perseverance in our prayers
with good reason this hope is in our hearts

hallelujah hallelujah
Christ our joy and strength
hallelujah hallelujah
Christ our joy and strength

oh we saw the face of Angels
many good things well secured
for good reason this joy is in our hearts

hallelujah hallelujah
Christ our joy and strength
hallelujah hallelujah
Christ our joy and strength

hallelujah hallelujah
Christ our joy and strength
hallelujah hallelujah
Christ our joy and strength

for good reason joy is in our hearts

Wanting the Wisdom Without the Walk

Jon's Serious Wednesday post at Stuff Christians Like is especially good today.

Christian YA Fiction

This is an interesting article on the Christian version of YA fiction.

Getting Ready

Today I bought some books for my classroom, including some potential read-alouds, for the first time in months. I am starting to get excited about teaching again. For a long time, every time I have thought about my classroom or my work I have pushed the thought away. Now it seems to be close enough that it might actually happen.

One of my eighth graders sent me a message a couple of months ago saying that she really missed me, and adding that, to her great surprise, she missed my class, too. In her new school she didn't get to express herself in writing, the way she did in my Writer's Workshop classroom.

I am so looking forward to reading my students' writing again. Remind me of that, would you, when I start complaining about how much grading I have to do?

Memorial Service

This morning my family and I attended the worship service that always marks the end of the Reunion Weekend at the local university. This is where we attended, but this wasn't our reunion year - last year was. However, my husband had been asked to speak for a few minutes about Haiti. One of the traditions in this service is to honor those who have died since the last reunion. For the reunion classes, names and photos are shown of everyone who died in the past five years; for other classes, they only show those who died in the past twelve months.

This year I was more struck by this than I usually am. I saw two faces that I recognized, both of people younger than I am, and one of them had been one of my students. But I also kept thinking that our pictures could have been up there this year; we could so easily have died in the earthquake. And I also thought, Some day our pictures WILL be up there.

Every day is a gift; we know this well. But these days I am constantly aware of it. I am grateful for every moment of life and I want to live well in the moments that I have, to honor God and love the people around me.

I Have Finished the Race

This morning my daughter and I walked the local 5K. It's a run, but I walk almost every year. I missed it last year but blogged about it two years ago. It was fun to do it with my daughter - last time she was in it, I was pushing her in her stroller and she was two years old. That year she enjoyed it a lot more - as we came to the end she said, "That was easy!" This time she complained most of the way and kept announcing her imminent death. She finished, though!

Once again, the T-shirt this year was made in Haiti. I'm praying for people in Haiti whose race is so much harder than mine and who are running it with discipline and courage.