Ki jan ou ye?

Sarah and Rooni

Rooni (striped shirt), Davidon (red shirt), and me

Davidson, Sarah, and me

Me and Sarah

On October 7th 2010 I traveled to Haiti with six friends from church with an organization called The Global Orphan Project. It was a five day trip that changed my life forever. I fell in love with the county, her people, and especially her orphans and children. Before the trip I listened to a language CD for Haitian Creole to pick up some phrases and was amazed at how much I was able to use when down there. It was really cool to be able to talk with the kids about a few things. Even asking what their names are, how old they are, and how they are doing was great. The title of tonight's blog means "how are you?". A good response if you are doing well would "tre byen"---very good or "pa pi mal"---not that bad. For that past six weeks I've been taking a Creole language class through UMKC with a gentleman who moved to the US from Haiti about 15 years ago. He is such a nice guy and it's been fun to learn more about Creole. I definitely want to go back to Haiti at some point and being able to talk to everyone more will be huge. When I was in Haiti I really connected with three kids...Davidson was a boy around 11-12 years old that found me the first night and would always be by my side when I was over with the kids. Sarah was a sweet girl I met the first morning we were there. She loved posing for pictures and loved that we shared a name. If I had to guess I'd say she was eight or nine years old. Rooni was a handsome little boy with an awesome smile (they all have beautiful smiles) and had his hand in mine a lot. These three kids became my kids and I think about them all the time. There is a group of people from Lakeland going to Haiti in August, but I won't be able to go. It hurts my heart that I won't be able to go this summer and hope to send a note to each of "my kids" to tell them I love them and think about them each day. It is still so hard to think of the right way to describe my trip to Haiti. It was all emotions rolled in with a ton of humidity and heat. In coming back I've done a lot of reading about Haiti as a county, its history, and have kept up to date on the current goings on there. This country's history is rife with corruption, war, uprisings, more corruption, and abject poverty. Amazingly enough through that troubled history and current condition the people are filled with hope, grace, and love more than anywhere I've seen. There is a saying there that is "piti piti na rive"...little by little we will arrive. So many of the people live each day knowing they need to take little steps to move forward. I wish we had that mentality more in the US. It was very difficult for me to come back and see such excess of everything. The mindless waste that goes on and the feeling of being entitled to all comforts available. I try not to feel guilty for what we have, but more grateful and aware. We try to live as simply as we can so we can give to those that they can simply live. I remember this past Thanksgiving I was cooking in my kitchen and just stopped and looked around being thankful for what I had. I knew that same day a mother in Haiti was preparing a meal for her family in a tent or make-shift house and was putting just as much love and purpose into her cooking as I was in mine. It's been five months since my pilgrimage to Haiti and I try to hold on to the feelings and truth I gained during that experience. If it all starts to slip to the back of my mind I pull out the pictures (I included some at the beginning of today's writing) and listen to a handful of songs that bring me back to holding rough, dusty hands and dancing in the night to music played on PVC pipes and water bottles. There is a growing Haitian-American community in Kansas City and I am looking forward to learning more Creole, connecting with the people here, and keeping part of my heart back in an orphanage in Croix de Bouquet. Bon lannwit...na ou pita!  (Good night...see you soon)