Lent

The work week began with two days of Carnival celebrations with the children, which consisted of their getting dressed in donated costumes that looked to me like pirate costumes, (although when I said that a child looked like a pirate nobody seemed to know what I was talking about even though I thought I learned the word for pirate in creole class in Miami last summer.)  The children crowded into the van and went to St. Louie to celebrate with the older children.  When they arrived adults and older children painted their faces with glitter.  There was music, children danced ate bonbons (cookies) and played musical chairs.  It was wonderful for me to watch a child who has a developmental disability participate; she does not speak, though her smile spoke of excitement and joy simply to be dressed up and at a party.

The season of Lent began on Wednesday.  I decided to lead an evening prayer on Friday evenings during lent for anyone (workers, volunteers, visitors) s interested in coming.  A few people said they were interested but were unable to make it this week.  Nobody came, but I can't say no-body was there, as on the chapel floor there was a dead body in a white bag, waiting to be prayed for at mass the following morning.  We continue to have frequent funerals during daily liturgy.  Even when there is not a body there, we are often remembering the dead.  Every Thursday we pray for the dead who will be taken from the morgue of the general hospital in down town Portaprince to the potter's field for burial.  On Friday morning, there were special prayers said for an Italian woman who died in the earth quake last year, since her parents were visiting because they are working to provide funding for prosthetics for survivors of the earthquake who have lost limbs.  In some ways at first glance it seems like it is always lent in Haiti.  There has been trial, and suffering one after another, taking shape in political unrest and cholera.   Actually it often feels like every week is Holy Week. Like Jesus, there are people in front of us who died young, and unjustly (I say this because their maladies that would be prevented if world resources were distributed more equitably.)  

If I focus only on my own trials, what I have given up by being here, the pain I have witnessed, I could convince myself that my whole time here has been one long lent so far.  Yet, this is not the whole story, not by any means.  Not for me, and not for the people I work with, and probably not for the people of Haiti as a whole (although I do feel a little  presumptuous in saying that).  I simply need to look at the babies at Kay Ste. Anne, including one who had been badly injured as an infant in the earth quake who are all at least starting to walk.  Since I arrived, I have been gifted with new friends, new understanding and insights, new life, wonderful gifts.  The children here have grown, I have witnessed this.  There is joy in the midst of all of it. The children smile, laugh, sing, and learn.  Recently, I heard that most of the tents in the camp behind Matthew 25 are gone, because people have moved on.  Now, I notice in the car when we drive by certain areas, that some of the large tent communities actually seem to be slowly shrinking.  In some areas there seems to be a lot of construction happening.  There is hope here.  There is new life, maybe even at least in some small ways, resurrection.
I think it is important to have liturgical seasons to communally focus on aspects of the life and death of Jesus each year.  Yet, I also believe that every season is happening everyday only most of the time I forget to look for it, or name it as such.
May these days of Lent be blessed for you!