Hurricane Matthew

a hibiscus/ (choublak )flower in the rain

You have probably heard that Hurricane Matthew has caused a lot of devastation in Haiti today.  The storm hit the southern part of the country and did a lot of damage there.  I am living on the opposite end of the country and so far we have not experienced anything that could be considered hurricane conditions.  All day, it has been damp and cloudy, with light intermittent rain.  There is almost no wind, not even the typical tropical breeze that lightly blows through on most days.    It seems now that the storm is passing to the west of us, although weather reports indicate that there is still a possibility that we may experience some hurricane conditions. If we get anything at all, in all likelihood it will not be anything like people experienced in other parts of the country.   

 As the storm approached, in general, my family members, community members and many friends in the United States seemed to me to be more concerned about the possible approaching storm than did many of the people here in the potential path of the storm.  It is interesting to observe individual and cultural differences in how people respond to such situations.  It worked out well, that today (Tuesday) is my day off and that I have had a relatively good internet connection most of the day so that I could easily respond to emails, phone calls and messages reassuring everyone that I am fine and all is well here.  You remind me of how fortunate I am to have loving community members, family, and friends.  Thank you all for your thoughts, prayers, concern, and well wishes.   My heart goes out to all of those who have been affected by the storm; they are the ones who most need our  prayers, thoughts, compassion and concern. 

Schools were closed yesterday and today throughout the country because of the storm.  I suspect they will be closed tomorrow too, maybe for several days.  Elections are supposed to take place here on Sunday; I am wondering if and how the storm will impact people’s ability to vote especially in areas most affected by the hurricane.  It does not take a lot of rainfall to make travel difficult in Haiti.  Most of the roads are not paved.  Muddy flooded roads, and puddles the size of ponds can make it impossible for people to get to school, work, medical treatment or polling places.  

A flower (whose name I do not know)  in the rain.  ( Give me a break; I know the name of the flower at the top in both English and Creole) so if you know the name of this flower (in any language) please share it; leave a comment.  Thank you!    

Have a good week!   Many blessings!   

Updates and Brokeness

Ministry Update
For a long time, I have wanted to be more available and involved with the families of the children at the orphanage.  The children spend the entire summer vacation and a couple of weeks at Christmas time with whatever relatives they have.  While out of an ethical commitment to confidentiality I can't share details of the meeting I had with relatives of the children, I can share that I am glad I invited them to meet with me.  I learned a lot from those who came, and we are planning to do it again next month!    

Housing Update
There are three young woman soon to be postulants who moved into the convent where I am living  The postulants who were here last year are now entering their second year and are out living and working in different locations.  Currently, in addition to the three newcomers, there are two Haitian sisters, one sister from Burkina Faso,  one Canadian sister, and two Americans.  Two other Haitian sisters who officially live here are away in Canada at this time but will be returning next month.  It is a gift to be able to live with people of various cultures and ages, to be exposed to different worldviews and ideas. It is also a gift and a welcomed change to live with someone else from the United Staes.    


Relfection 
Lately, I have found myself reflecting upon brokenness.  I share this simple reflection/poem with you.
Brokenness
So much seems broken:
inconsistent internet
warped bed frame
pot-hole laden roads
dull knife
will the water run?
will the lights come on?
will the pilot light in the oven ignite?
will the bicycle slow when the handbrake is pulled?

Most difficult of all:
broken promises and
broken hearts



Have a good week.  Take care. Many blessings!

Preschool Pilat

The first day of school is kind of scary for many young children.  I was thinking about that a lot during the past couple of days.  I traveled to Pilat over the weekend to welcome the new kindergarten class on Monday and Tuesday at the sisters’ school there.  As one can expect many of the 33 new students cried as their mothers left and several continued to cry intermittently throughout the school days.  Since they were short a teacher’s aide, I was quite busy those two days.  Many of the children became more comfortable as time went on and certainly will continue as school becomes their familiar routine and hopefully a positive pleasant experience.  

It was great to see the second year preschool children as well, who have grown since I last saw them in June.  They, of course, asked for Ti Tòti, (the turtle puppet)  who came out to play with them during recess; that little puppet received many little kisses!  

Early this morning,we were nearly twenty minutes into our journey leaving Pilat, to return to Cap-Haitian, and had just crossed a river (without a bridge) when we saw one of the young kindergarten students in her school uniform dress holding her mother's hand as they walked the rocky unpaved mountainous roads towards school.   It was well before 7:00; the school day begins at 8:15.  

This afternoon, after various delays, I officially began to see the children at the orphanage for groups.  It never ceases to amaze me how children express themselves through play and art.  It is a privilege to accompany them.  I am grateful that I am here. 

Many blessings!    

Lakansyèl (Rainbow)

While on the orphanage playground with the children late yesterday afternoon, I looked up to notice a beautiful rainbow. 

  

This is a perfect metaphor for my first full week back after vacation.  It was bright and sunny.  Overall I was very happy to be back and it was a good week.  Yet, there were some storms; a lack of clarity in a particular situation and a disagreement which I would not have predicted and do not fully understand and could have handled better.  Sometimes we look at the sky on a beautiful day when thunderstorms are on the way and say, what is the weather doing?  I looked around and wondered what I am doing?, what God is doing?  Yet somehow just as the beautiful rainbow came,  a sense of joy and consolation entered my heart.  It was not because of anything I or anyone else did or said, not because all was suddenly settled, but it was simply a gift from God.  I may not know exactly what I am doing from one moment to the next sometimes, or what God has planned, but God will use both the sunshine and the storms to create great beauty.  

May you experience joy and recognize the rainbows in your life. Thank you for taking time to read this.  Many blessings!    

Return to Haiti

Sometimes it still amazes me how modern day travel can allow us to be in very different places within a short amount of time.  Sunday night I was at my cousin's wonderful wedding eating chowder and clam cakes at the reception in scenic Newport, and the following afternoon I was in a convent in Cap-Haitian chatting with sisters and eating a mango.  

I am grateful that I was able to spend time with family and friends during vacation.  My time in Rhode Island which also included a fun trip to visit family friends in New York and also a trip to Massachusetts to be with my twin sister on our birthday. I am also equally grateful that I have returned to Haiti.  School was scheduled to start this week, but for reasons that are unclear to me, it will start next week.  Only a few children are at the orphanage now, the others will come on Sunday. Today I was happy to see those who came early as well as the employees.   I am very much looking forward to seeing the rest of the children, but am also glad that I have a little time to get organized before the children arrive.    

Now that I am back in Haiti, I intend to resume weekly updates.  Take care!  Many blessings!     

Travels

Last week while switching planes during my travels from New Orleans to Philadelphia, I became aware of how in recent years travel has become somewhat routine and recalled a time in my life when it was quite novel.  At the age of seven, I boarded a plane for the very first time with my parents and  two sisters, wearing our dresses from the previous Easter; we flew Pan-Am Airlines from Boston to Shannon.  Three weeks were spent in Ireland, meeting our relations, touring, playing with cousins and neighborhood children.  It was wonderful!  When it was time to leave, I remember thinking at that time, that when I grow up I will live in Ireland.  Somehow, my seven-year-old self never fathomed that I would live in Haiti instead.

While in Philadelphia last week I assisted three mornings at a vacation bible school that the Sisters of the Holy Redeemer and their lay associates organized for 40 children.  One of the lively songs that frequently was sung during the program said something like, "I will follow Jesus wherever he will lead me."  I thought, the children singing this song really have no idea where God or life will lead them; just like, at the age of seven I never imagined living in Haiti.   Do they really know what they are saying?   Simply making any attempt at going where one thinks God's Spirit seems to lead can take us to the places and circumstances we never fathom.

I know that I am grateful for the places that I have been and the many people I have  met.  It has been a gift to be able to connect with people who I know from different chapters of my life during the past few weeks.  As I travel around I find that I have a deepening appreciation for those who seem to stay in one place and live so well their commitment to the people they serve.

Last weekend I traveled again, driving from Philadelphia to Ohio, where I spoke about the orphanage and my mission experience at two parishes during weekend liturgies.  Sometimes I find it hard to know what to say.  How can I accurately describe my experience?  How do I convey both the challenges and the privilege of serving in Haiti?  the great beauty  and the harsh poverty?  The frustrations and the joys?  The great gifts of the culture and the realities of the lack of adequate infrastructure?  How do you do this well and ask for money (something I hate doing) and say it all during that brief time after communion before the final blessing? Well, I tried and I met a lot of very nice people in the process. That is one thing about traveling, there are good, interesting, generous people everywhere I go and I am grateful for those encounters.

Now my travels have brought me home to Rhode Island, for a few weeks.  It is good to be here!    

I hope you are doing well, wherever you may be.  Many blessings!    

Pataje

During the three years that I lived in New Orleans after my first experience in Haiti and before I returned, I would sometimes attend the Haitian Creole liturgy.  There is a relatively small but growing community of Haitian individuals and families who attend.  They are very welcoming and kind.  At first, my goal was to attend once a month, a strategy to help me to not forget the language I had worked so hard to learn.  I found the liturgy energizing, and a way of maintaining at least in some small way a connection to the culture I had grown to love.  Gradually during those three years, I started attending more frequently, probably to the point that maybe only one Sunday a month on average would I not attend the Haitian mass.  Now when I am in New Orleans, it is the Sunday liturgy I most often attend, yes even when I am here on vacation.  Actually, a higher percentage of the typical mass is in Haitian Creole than many of the liturgies I typically attend in Cap-Haitian (liturgies at the orphanage and those planned by the sisters tend to be mostly in French.) There are songs that I learned while attending the Creole mass in New Orleans.  When we sing those same songs in Haiti the faces of individuals who attend the liturgy in New Orleans come to my mind, bring a smile to my face and I pray for the Haitian community of the greater New Orleans area. 

Last Sunday at the Haitian liturgy here, we sang a song that I had learned in Haiti; one we have sung frequently during mass at the orphanage.  That particular song is French, but I understand the chorus and get the general gist of some of the verses.  It is a song about sharing (share is patarger in French which is  pataje in Creole.)  While we sang that particular song on Sunday evening I thought of the children at the orphanage their faces coming into my mind, bringing a smile to my face and so I prayed for them.  I especially smiled recalling more than one incident when during play therapy I said something about sharing, encouraging the children to "pataje" and they broke into song, filling the play therapy room with that hymn.  As we sang that song on Sunday, I realized how much I miss the children.  I hope that they are doing well and enjoying their time with their families.

  

              

Differences and Similarities

On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of last week, I attended the Autism Society conference which was held here in New Orleans.  While I learned quite a bit, earned continuing education units, and enjoyed the conference, there were moments when I was aware that I am working in a very different environment than the other professionals attending.  One speaker mentioned how before 1975, when the law was changed, there were children with autism and other disabilities that were not allowed to go to school; only after whispering to my friend that it is still like that in Haiti, did I feel a wave of sadness for children whose disabilities cause them to be excluded from having their educational needs met.  During a session I attended the presenter told us which services a child would be able to receive even if nothing else were available; of course, she was assuming (and accurately for all attendees other than me), that we were working in the United States of America.  The services she described are not a right and are rarely provided to children living in poverty in Haiti.  I chose to attend one breakout session focusing on preschool children, thinking this could h help me to advocate for a child at the orphanage who seems to have some symptoms of mild autism and also thinking that if I continue to provide support and consultation to the preschool children in Pilat they could at some point have a child  who has Autism traits.  The special educator and speech therapist who presented seemed so committed and had great strategies for working with preschool aged children who are on the Autism spectrum .  They also described classrooms with only 12 children of which no more than four have a diagnosed disability, and where there are a variety of adults collaborating in the classroom including special and regular education teachers, multiple teachers' aides, speech therapist, and once a week an occupational therapist.   While I was impressed by the work that they do, I wondered how would anyone even try to implement their strategies in a Haitian kindergarten classroom where there are often more than 50 children with only one teacher and maybe an assistant, where educators typically would typically not have any special education training or experience?  I did get a sense that those in the United States who are on the Autism spectrum who are born into wealthier better-educated families probably have better outcomes in life and greater possibilities; the discrepancy is even greater when we consider the situation from a global perspective.  I am grateful that I attended and learned a lot, grateful that I was able to spend time with a friend who was in town for the conference, and grateful that so much work is being done to improve the lives of those with Autism; may the work soon somehow also benefit those living in places like Haiti too.

Sometimes I think coming to Louisiana before I head north to Rhode Island makes a lot of sense.  There are commonalities between Louisiana and Haiti that are very different from New England (where my family lives.) The architecture in the French Quarter of New Orleans is remarkably similar to that of downtown Cap Haitian, for example.  Yesterday when I drove to the town of Opelousas to visit many of my Marianite sisters (it was great to see ya'll!), I passed sugar cane fields.  Louisiana and Haiti are the only two places I know of that eat mirliton/militon (a vegetable)  and call it that.  Of course too, there are banana trees and hibiscus flowers.  So while at times I feel like when I am in Haiti I am in a different reality, there are similarities too.  The similarities often make me smile; like this little lizard who greeted me in the backyard today.

      

     

This side of the water, but the other side of the river

In Haiti the US is sometimes referred to as " lòt bò," or "lòt bò dlo" which means the "other side,"or the "other side of the water."  In New Orleans people talk about which side of the Mississippi River they are on, the East Bank or the West Bank, but simply when you are on one bank, you can refer to the other as "the other side of the river."

So, on Thursday night I arrived here on other side of the water, where I am staying on  the other side of the river  (in relation to where I have previously lived in New Orleans.) I am happy to be on this side of the water for a little while, and I am feeling very welcomed by the sisters in this lovely house on this side of the river. During my first few days here there were moments when I was surprised by what was once ordinary.   For example, I thought, "Wow!  We have a dishwasher (machine)!"   I have to remind myself of silly things like it is okay to flush toilet paper down the toilets because the sewer system can handle it.  Suddenly I am once again capable of cooking and driving (but of course not at the same time.)  Also, it is not necessary to turn the plates upside down with the silverware beneath them when setting the table because there are rarely any flies in the house and virtually no dust coming in since the windows are completely sealed shut and there is less dust in general since the roads are all paved.  Actually, I am impressed by the quality of the roads, even though others here are complaining about them.  The next person who complains about the conditions of the roads in New Orleans should travel with me the next time I go to Pilat.   By the way, Pilat in relation to Cap Haitian is on the other side of  seven rivers, none of which have bridges.  In recent days, each time I traveled  from one side of the river to other, I felt grateful for the beautiful bridges that span the Mississippi River, something I had previously always taken for  granted.   It is great to be able to get to the other side of the river while staying on this one during my time on this side of the water.


Wherever you are, (on which ever side of whatever body of water,) I hope that you are enjoying the summer. Take care.  Many blessings!

Funerals

During my first experience in Haiti, funerals occurred nearly daily during our morning liturgy at the little chapel on the grounds of St. Damien Hospital.  Despite the reality that I have attended so many Haitian funerals, and witnessed many grieving families, I still find funerals here to be quite difficult, (not that funerals anywhere are ever easy; they're not.)

The mother of one of the Holy Cross postulants, died a couple of weeks ago.  Fortunately the postulant was on vacation and with her mom at the time.  Last Thursday was the funeral.  A pickup truck and a jeep both filled with  sisters set out early in the morning, we could not take the minibus because the condition of the roads.  Shortly before we arrived we pulled over on the side of the unpaved road put the food we had brought with us on the open tailgate of pickup and ate our main meal (does this qualify as a tailgating party?)

We arrived at the family's yard a few hours before the funeral would start so that we could be present to the family.  We greeted everyone and expressed our condolences.  The postulant seemed so sad.  My heart was filled with compassion for her. She is only in her early twenties and is already parent less.   We sat on  chairs in the yard between two very simple cement homes on either end a cinder block wall on one side and a fence consisting mostly of corrugated metal on the other.  At times people were silent, at other times family members of the deceased wept, or called out loudly expressing their grief.  Someone fainted.

When it was a few minutes past the hour the funeral was scheduled to begin we boarded our vehicles allowing relatives to ride in the back of the truck.

The funeral was held at what appeared to be a community center, not a church.  When we entered the building I heard a lot of noise.  The coffin was still open for viewing and there were people crowded around it.  There was a lot of loud crying and yelling.  People close to the deceased were expressing their grief with their whole bodies.  I sat in the back row, but only for a  couple of my minutes because I decided to move after a bereft young man unintentionally hit the back of the metal folding chair causing it to move an inch or so.  The preacher tried to encourage everyone to quiet down and be still so that the service could start.  There was a program on paper, an itinerary which included two songs that the Sisters of Holy Cross were going to sing, but the presider never called upon them so they did not sing.  The postulant at some point went to the front and spoke lovingly of her mother, I heard a little of what was said after I explained  to the screaming woman next to me that I had come for the postulant but that I could not hear her because of the screams.  When the preacher spoke I decided to make a concerted effort to listen thinking this might be preferable.  I could only hear for a few minutes during a lull  but was equally uncomfortable hearing about Satan, the devil, and judgment.  I thought if someone were to preach this homily at the funeral of a very close family member of mine I would not be consoled and maybe I'd feel like screaming too.

The cultural differences in how some of people express their grief here do in all honesty cause me to feel somewhat uncomfortable at times even while I respect that this is simply a cultural difference and I at some level do appreciate that.  There may be advantages to expressing one's grief in this way; I have no right or reason to judge it.

There is another major reason why funerals here cause me even greater discomfort.  I can not help but wonder if the deceased would have died if the person had access to the kind of health care and other privileges I have access to.  I have no major health problems and consider myself to be in relatively good shape however during the next several weeks while in the US I have routine checkups scheduled with my primary care physician, gynecologist, and dermatologist as well as my yearly dental appointment.  Preventive care is not something the average person in Haiti has access to.  It is well documented that poverty with all its stressors places people at greater risk for many  health problems, the very people who have the fewest resources to resolve them.    This should probably should cause us all  some discomfort.

On Saturday morning I boarded a bus to PortauPrince and spent the weekend visiting children and workers at Kay St. Anne and other friends at NPH.    Most of the children who I knew five years ago are no longer there, some have been reunited with relatives and others now reside at the large orphanage in Kenscoff.  I was happy to see three of the children who have disabilities who were at St. Anne when I worked there. It brings me great joy to see two boys who did not walk independently when I was there who can run and dance now.  I enjoyed chatting with a coupled of employees.  The volunteers now live in what is called, "the villas";this is where I stayed.  In many ways it is more comfortable than the tents and prefabricated housing of the post-earthquake volunteer era.  The international flavor still exists.  There was a large group of  short-term Italian volunteers, they were so generous that they included everyone staying there to eat the authentic eggplant Parmesan they prepared for a late Saturday night supper.  The volunteer I stayed with who I did not know happens to live in New Orleans, we plan to meet for coffee (or tea) in a couple of weeks.

After visiting the children on Sunday morning I went out to lunch with two friends, one an American sister, the other a woman close to my own age from Ireland, and we met another American woman who I had not previously known. It was wonderful to visit with them.  We even swam in the hotel pool.  That evening there was liturgy in the hospital chapel.   The mass flowed between English and Creole with some songs in Italian and French.

On Monday morning I attended the liturgy there as well. Before it began I stood for a moment on the side of the chapel, in front of the simple wooden cross that marks the spot where little Katiana is buried, sadly recalling the most difficult Haitian funeral that I personally have experienced.  When I entered the chapel there were three small coffins on the floor containing the bodies of children and babies who died at the pediatric hospital over the weekend.




I returned to Cap-Haitian yesterday.  By the end of the week I will be in New Orleans.  I look forward to seeing many of you soon.  Take care.  Many blessings!