Thoughts about the Unexplainable

When you go to Haiti, there is an underlying dynamic that you feel. You can not see it and you don't realize that it has even touched you until you have settled back in to what you think is normal. This dynamic is completely emotional. It is what pulls at your heart strings. When you are in Haiti there is no such thing as down time so it is able to sneak in, in the exhaustion that you feel and it goes unchecked. It is in conversations that you have and the people that you see. I believe that it is even in the air and in the rain. It is not something that we have here in the states. We have an underlying dynamic that is never mentioned but it is also never felt. Haiti is a place that makes you feel things and if you are not careful and even if you are, it brings out the ugly in you. This dynamic makes you feel all the things that, here in the states, we refuse to feel, see all the things that we refuse to see and to hear all the things that we refuse to hear. I think that it might stem from the heightened sense of awareness that you have while you are in Haiti. No distractions. It is also something that I can not explain and in any serious attempt, I would fail miserably unless I was talking to someone who has been to Haiti and felt what I am talking about. Not to say that you couldn't understand...it is just unexplainable.

aesthetics

"Sometimes we fall down and can't get back up

Were hiding behind a skin that's too tough"

Haiti is a beautiful place if you know how to look at it.
You have to be able to see past the the trash and the rubble.
Smell past the garbage and the rot.
Feel past the rocks in your shoes and your own discomfort.
You need to able to feel the music and the voices.
Smell the food and the trees in the air.
You have to be able to see the colors and the people.
All of these things are wholly Haiti.
Even the garbage.
Yet to get caught up in the way it smells and your discomfort, would be a mistake.
You would miss a rich and colorful people with a rich and colorful culture and history.
You would miss a people who are stronger than any that you have ever met.
You wouldn't see those things about them.
You wouldn't be able to talk to them.
Understand them.
Understand that they feel very deeply and how you can hear that in their loud and boisterous conversations that sound like arguments.
You would not see the blue of the sky or the white of the moon.
Yes, it would be a mistake to get caught up in aesthetics when this place has so much more to offer than a look.


"Sometimes we fall down and can't get back up

English Camp Day 2 aka Weneda

By looking at her you would think that she has been through a lot. You would probably be right in that assumption. She is only about 15 years old and she has epilepsy. Her name is Weneda. She is beautiful and scared. Her face leaves a haunting reminder of what can happen here when things go unchecked. Her mother has said in the past that she has had a seizure and fallen into the fire and that is how she has gained the scars that are on her face and arms. But you know that there is more to that story than will ever be told.

The above picture was taken minutes after she had a seizure today at English Camp. It was as unexpected as the sight of a cat in Haiti and no one saw it coming because none of us knew. No one had been told that she had epilepsy. I knew who her mother was and that she had a daughter with epilepsy but I never made the connection that it was her. None of us that know her mother did.

During her classes bible lesson today she just stopped moving. The other kids began to tell us that she was sick and no one knew what was going on. I looked at her and immediately knew that she was having a seizure. I had seen it happen before and it scared me. All of the kids flew off the bench like it had just been lit on fire. They said they didn't want to get her sickness. After she came back to us we, you could see it on her face that she was afraid. She didn't know what had happened. We tried to move her and she clung to the bench. We finally conveyed to her what we were doing and what had happened and she allowed us to move her. We tried to figure out what was going on with her and all of this. We asked her if she was on medication or had any for her seizures. She said that she had lost her prescription. Well...then later today we talked to her again and she said that she had her prescription and would bring it tomorrow because they can't get it around here.

After the seizure today, it hurt my heart to see the way the kids treated her. No one wanted to sit back down on the bench with her. They didn't want her sickness. All of us that were in the room told the kids that they had to sit down. It actually fit right in with the lesson that Amrajeet had been talking about. The love of Jesus.

The Power of a Shoe

So I am pro shoes. I love to wear all kinds and when I heard about Tom's, I was all for that. One for one. Buy one pair and they give one away to someone else when they do a shoe drop. But I never realized the gravity of the statement "One for One" until today.

During camp as I was walking around and talking to the kids, I saw shoes that looked familiar. I looked at them, and looked at them but couldn't place them. Until I saw the little blue and white flag on the back of them. At once there was this overwhelming sense of joy in me as I realized at once that they were shoe drop shoes. I had never seen them before and I was thrilled that they had come here and handed out shoes. I was thought that this is what it looks like when this mission comes full circle. A little girl in earthquake devastated Haiti wearing the same shoes that I have on my own feet at that very moment.

It was a moment to keep in my heart place.

The Feilds Are Blue and Gray

I can honestly say that I never imagined that seeing the tent cities would be so emotional. As we were driving to the beach yesterday we saw many. Some were in the city, near civilization. Those were not the ones that I found to be so heartbreaking. It was the ones that I saw when we got past all the cars and all the buildings. The ones on the beach road. We stopped at a gas station and I have to say that I wouldn't have seen them if I hadn't been on top of the cage truck. I seemed to have the perfect view of them from where I sat.



They were shocking. Sitting there gleaming in the sun, dots of blue and gray. Somehow they were horrifying. You looked at them and knew that they had moved out here. Knowing that the nearest town is several miles in either direction was part of the horrifying feeling the gripped me. I began to cry. Those people left all they had left behind and moved out of the city, where buildings could fall on them, to a place that seemed to be the middle of nowhere.




My heart began to hurt as we pulled away from the gas station and I could see just how far the blue and gray dots went. So many people displaced. Forced from their home, if they even had one left to begin with. I wanted to stop and talk to these people. To ask them why they had really moved so far and to see how far they had come to be right here. I wondered if any had come form down town knowing, that it would be safer out here with no unstable building for miles.



What hurt the most was that, on the way back form the beach it was raining or threatening to...it wasn't, isn't, fair. I felt bad that I got to go sleep with a solid roof over my head and a soft bed under my back and all they had was the tent or plastic tarp to sleep under and maybe nothing to sleep on. To think about the fact that there is nothing I can do hurts my head. Makes my heart cry and my eyes weep.

Then as we were driving and it began to rain, the Lord reminded me of the song that I always find to be stuck in my head when I am in Haiti. Here are the words that came to me:

You are my strong melody
You are my dancing rhythm
You are my perfect rhyme
And I want to sing forever
That you are beautiful my sweet, sweet song
You are beautiful my sweet, sweet song
You are beautiful my sweet, sweet song
And you will sing again

I began to cry once again. Knowing that it is going to get worse before anything gets better. Knowing that there is nothing I can do to fix the houses. Know that soon He will erase the dots of blue and gray and Haiti will sing again.

Business as Usual

Grace and I made it safely to Haiti. Just to update everyone. We are safe and sound at the Tlucek's house. And got to sleep on the balcony with an amazing breeze and very little bugs...yeah thats right be jealous.

But on a serious not as I was getting in the car after our escapades inside the "little airport" (which is really a little room with a baggage conveyor belt and lots of people...), people were still standing outside trying to get you take take their taxi, which is obviously the best one to take...and there are still people hanging off the fence asking you for money. The thought that kept coming to me was "Business as Usual". There has been this horrible event that took place and when you look at the people, it seems as though nothing has happened. They are just here doing business as usual.

Blurb is the word

So just a quick little blurb.

If you don't already know I am leaving for Haiti on Friday. I am going to be gone for 10 days and will be working with Byron and Shelley Tlucek doing English Camp. I am also bringing in fabric for the sewing program and will be working with Heartline Ministries (who also oversees English Camp...) bringing in supplies such as birthing kits, for their full time clinic/birthing center that they are hard at work setting up. I know? Awesome right? So I will be doing all of that and who knows what else.

Oh and for any one that cares...I get to spend from, roughly, 10:30 am to 4:00 pm in the Miami airport...I know you can just see me leaping for joy. This is the time that people watching will be in full swing...pictures to come be looking.

Word.

Remembering Sarah

This is an old video that I made a few years ago. I watched it today and balled my eyes out.

We are...

Haiti 2010

So I have a plane ticket. Leaving June 25th, 2010. Coming back July 6th, 2010.

It is kinda leaving a bittersweet taste in my mouth. It has been two years since I have been to Haiti. I was there for English Camp. I am going for English Camp this year as well. I wish that I could say that it was going to be the same as the past years. 60 kids in 60 kids out, for six weeks (I am only going for the first week this time) and done. It is crazy enough as it is that way. This year there are a few new factors. Haiti is still having aftershocks. They just hadanother earthquake not to long ago. So the ground is still shaking. Shifting. Changing. So English camp has to change. I am pretty sure that means the workers have to change and not expect what has been before.

So I will be in Haiti for 11 days. Pray for me. Keep me in your thoughts.

Lamou Vire Tet.

Luke 7:47

Alyssa

Untitled

Today was a day that I began.

I am not sure that I will finish it.

It has become hard to live in that twenty four hour period, between sun up and sun down, in the spaces that we call day and night on this wretched planet.

Its dangerous not to mention lonely.

Where have you been? I have needed you.

The space of the night is when I feel real fear.

Thats when I feel real terror, that no man can calm.

Where have you been? I have needed you.