It has been so hard to get in the groove again, almost like it gets more difficult every time I go to Haiti. I'm still floating between two realities, they both exist. The contrast is too stark though, it shouldn't be that hard. I'm sitting on a padded chair now. Not so in Haiti, that's one of the things I miss most when I am there. My computer is plugged in and I don't have to worry about the voltage frying it nor for the lights to go out because there was not enough sun that day. By the way that is rare. But my bed, oh my goodness, it is so nice to lay in my own bed. Sunday night I had a big spider under my mosquito net. In my room that's OK, in my bed it's not. I took my shoe and of course I forgot about the mud I had walked in all day, and slammed the sucker dead. Yeah, but by doing that all the mud was now on my sheets. Oh well! I like to drink water, lots of it. I hang under the tap several times a day and fill up. Well in Haiti it takes a lot of work to filter the water to make it safe, every time again and you can never let your guard down or it will get you. So you just don't drink enough. I drove home through the night after I got back into Atlanta. Three hours, 167 miles, zero pot holes. It took us two hours the night before to travel 11 miles. Not because of traffic because there was nobody else in the 11 mile long, mud filled pothole. Maybe they can get a Guinness world record for that. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining and nobody makes me go there. It is my own choice. But living is just so darn difficult for the Haitians and that's measured by the experience of someone like me, who still has enough money to buy food and has a place to sleep, albeit with spiders and mud on the sheets. Go figure if you don't have that either.
Poverty is a relative term. Just this summer one of the older orphans said to someone, "I am not poor, but there are a lot of poor people around here". This came from a kid who has two sets of clothes, shares his bedroom, which holds only two beds, with several other kids and who gets two meals a day. If he can see it that way we should be able to see how rich we are. I'm not trying to beat a dead horse but I just want you to imagine what they deal with every day, no end in sight. Yet in all that they can still be happy. Last week we did a clinic in a remote area. It was so busy that we simply couldn't treat all people on a one by one basis. We were going around the crowd giving out worm pills.After I gave them their pill I would hold their hands and wait until they made eye contact and than whisper a two or three word prayer. Sometimes it took a while to connect but every time the result was stunning: A smile, love, emotion, tears and yes, sometimes embarrassment but in a good way. It made me wanna do that all day long. It was energizing me and them likewise. They experienced they were somebody and I found out I was just one of them. A glimpse of heaven. That's what makes me come back to reality. There and here!
No comments:
Post a Comment