Trying to describe Haiti to someone who has never been there is a bit like trying to describe giving birth to someone who has never born a child, or trying to explain falling in love to one who has never known it.  Sure, you can read books and watch movies and see photographs; you can hear tales of others, gone before.  You can attempt to conjure up images and sounds and smells.  Ponder what thoughts might pass through your mind, what feelings might press upon your spirit there, in that.  But there are times when imagination is insufficient, when you see and hear and think you understand, but you don’t really, fully.  {Kind of like our flimsy attempts at knowing Christ here, I think.  Seeking and seeing dimly, but not yet perfectly}.

And I preface my reflections here with this, so you know that these snippets are just bits and pieces, not the entire sum of things.  For Haiti, really, is so complex.  And these are just wisps that stuck with me.

We would walk out of the compound metal gate, radiating heat, oppressive and hell-like.  And he would be there, this old man, bending over near the rocky ‘road,’ strewn with trash, pulling weeds from in front of the neighboring gate.  He would always look up and smile.  And I would smile back.  And he would always say, ‘How are you?  I am fine.’  But it wouldn’t sound much like our, ‘How are you?  I am fine,’ all clear and distinct.  No, when he said it, the words all ran together, so it sounded more like, ‘HowareyouIamfine.’  And he’d smile again.  I would answer, ‘I am fine.  Thank you!’  And then he’d say it again, ‘HowareyouIamfine.’  And I would respond again in turn.  And his eyes would light up and dance then, pure joy.  And we’d both smile some more, knowing now that we’d done all the communicating we could possibly do.  Kindred spirits, we were.  This dear old man, bent and burdened.

 

 

 

 

 

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