Anpil Bagay (Many Things)

Fèt Manman

Last Sunday, June first, was Mother's Day here in Haiti.  While we (the sisters and lay volunteers) were finishing breakfast the older children came into the convent.  The stood together in a group and sangs us a song to wish us a Happy Mother's Day.  While they were singing a wave of sadness overcame me, as I was aware that their mothers (except for one or two) are all dead.  I held back tears, only to notice a moment later that other sisters had watery eyes.

Plaj la
On Wednesday morning while the children were at school, we (the sisters and two Canadian lay volunteers) went to the beach.  A couple from Canada who are here because one of them is working on a project for the High School that the sisters sponsor, came along.  As always I enjoyed swimming in the pleasant salt water.  This time I got out to the water sooner than I wanted to in order to prevent serious sunburn.  It was a wonderful community outing, we all seemed to enjoy the morning, and one another.

Corpus Christi
Although in most diocese in the US, Corpus Christi is celebrated on a Sunday; Thursday was a holy day here in Haiti and Catholic schools were closed.  We attended the early morning liturgy at the cathedral along with all of our youth who had received the sacrament of confirmation a few weeks ago.  There was a Corpus Christi procession following the liturgy, which none of us had anticipated.  My students, two young adults were coming to the orphanage for English class at 9:00 am.  It was somehow decided that we would participate in "a little" of the procession, although when I was informed of this I did remind the sisters of the class I teach every Monday and Thursday morning.  I had not brought any money with me and neither had any of the other sisters (because there had never been any need for me to bring money to early morning mass,) so returning alone in a tap-tap was not an option.  Not really having a good sense regarding the length the procession, I assumed (I really should know better by now), that a little bit of the walk would be 10 or 15 minutes, and as long as there were no blokis (traffic jams) I figured we would make it back to the orphanage in time for my students.  We started the walk, many people marching together through the streets singing Haitian hymns about the Eucharist.  The faith of many people here often seems to be so alive.  After awhile, I stepped out  of the line and onto the side walk to text my students, asking them to wait because I would likely be a few minutes late, actually expecting that we would be leaving momentarily; since both of them frequently have telephone problems I was not confident that the messages were received.  I again reminded a sister of my class, and stepped out of the procession and tried to call the student who was more likely to have a functioning phone; she did not pick up so I left a message.  We did not stay for the whole thing, but probably marched for an hour.  When we were finally finished and were heading towards the orphanage mini bus, I did get a hold of one of my students but she had already made her way to the orphanage, each of them typically walk a moderate distance to come to class, and had already left since I was not there.  This was somewhat challenging for me because I felt irresponsible for not showing up when my students made the effort to get there; one of them is often dripping with sweat when he arrives.  Perhaps I feel overly responsible, but I do like to keep my commitments, unless it is a true emergency and to me personally this did not quite seem to qualify.  Here too, where there is one driver who drives the two orphanage vehicles, I don't have the kind of mobility that I have often had in US convents where it is not uncommon to have a car available for each sister who drives herself around.  When we returned to the orphanage property at 10:00, four hours after we had left for 6:15 mass.  Being in a culture that is not especially time oriented makes me aware of how time oriented I am; I actually don't even think that being so time oriented is my nature, but that I learned to overcompensate for my nature and as a result I am sometimes overly time oriented.      

Fèt
On Saturday evening, there was a liturgy followed by a party for a Sister of Holy Cross who is returning to Canada after living in Haiti for most of the past 48 years.  The liturgy seemed quite lovely, although honestly I could not understand much of it.  A wonderful meal was served; great Haitian food!  Then there was a well done power point presentation, that included pictures of the sister during her many ministries in Haiti; very impressive! After that, each convent did an act of some sort to thank the sister and to entertain everyone at the party.  We, (the sisters and volunteers I live with) danced; we practiced several times for about a week and I think we did a fine job and more importantly had fun preparing and actually dancing.  We had been practicing for a week.  All of the other songs, dances and skits were very entertaining; there are some very talented Sisters of Holy Cross.  We laughed a lot.   Ala yon bèl fèt!  

Update

The children in primary school will be finishing school the end of the week, and preparing to visit relatives for their summer vacation beginning early next week.  Some of the older children will be around for a little longer because of their school schedule and exams.  A month from now I will be heading to the states for vacation, visiting community, family and friends, doing some little fundraising at a parish in Ohio, and making a retreat.  I still have to work out the details of where I will be when.    

I hope you are well wherever you are.  Take care!