Category Archives: Holidays

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Saint Sara’s Celery and a Broth Debacle Averted


As Sara, the dogs and I struggle  to “suitcase”  a year’s worth of Haiti into a less-than-large shipping container (all in an effort to return to the US next week), please notice how our dog Lucy “assists” with the effort.  She has her paw in the sorting and boxing, packing and wrapping:

Lucy "helps" with the packing!

Lucy’s romp through our packing not withstanding, today, in the spirit of looking back and celebrating some of our biggest adventures  in Haiti, I bring you Part 2 of my Thanksgiving post.  (To read part 1 click here.)  Enjoy!

Yesterday, promising a series of posts this week about the difficulties Sara and I face trying to celebrate Thanksgiving from Port-au-Prince, I outlined what I called the “oven-related challenges” that could jeopardize our thankful feasting this Thursday.

Today, however, shopping-related issues take center stage—the consumer-driven hazards that could take down even the most well-intended and tradition-centered of holiday celebrations.  In fact, it may be that the more one tries to model any Thanksgiving feast in Haiti on the one Grandma would have catered, the larger the obstacles threatening it loom.

So, buyer beware.

Wisely, Sara and I anticipated some of these issues and brought back from the US several Thanksgiving menu items we thought might be needed—imagined we wouldn’t find here, even in the expat-oriented grocery stores in Petion-ville. 

But as you might expect (those of you who know my pathetic track record when it comes to poor packing), I anticipated incorrectly—finding here in Haiti what I did bring back but not bringing what I didn’t find.  Just my bad Thanksgiving luck!

Except for canned pumpkin—that is. 

Here I hit the pie-filling nail on its not-so-proverbial-pie-filling head.  I swear there’s not an ounce of Libby’s to be had on the whole of this damn island—cherry pie filling, yes—canned yams, yes—canned pumpkin in time for Thanksgiving pie-baking—no sir—none of it—anywhere.  And believe me, I have looked. 

But we need not worry.   I may not have a thermostatically controllable oven to bake the pie in, but I have a full 29 ounce can of “America’s Favorite Pumpkin” to put in it.

Now about the celery—

Here I should mention having a bit of scare yesterday morning trying to find this vegetable, almost as essential to stuffing as sage itself.  Standing in Giant Market (right here in Petion-ville), I came so close to a celery-induced heart attack, I was imagining, “What would Jesus do?”  What would the son of God himself (assuming he were a turkey-stuffing kind of carpenter) use in his stuffing were the stalks of stringy stuff not available?  If he turned water into wine, could he turn carrots into celery?

But, again, you need not fear, as Saint Sara herself performed the miracle, finally finding what she called a “not very robust” celery (but a celery-looking substance nonetheless) in the grocery store near her office. 

Catastrophe averted.  We are that much closer to a celery-ed stuffing inside our bird that’s to be roasted at a temperature the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit will themselves determine.

Then there’s the chicken broth—

Yesterday Sara sent me to the super market for some cans of it, among other things.   Actually, Giant carried the item in both the Swanson and Campbell’s variety—the Swanson, carton-ed with no added MSG and the Campbell’s, canned with all the blood-pressure-raising MSG one would ever want.  And being a health-conscious, not-wanting-to-consume-excessive-amounts-of-salt American, I selected the broth without MSG.  In fact, I tried to check out with three cartons of the stuff, since Thanksgiving dinner calls for broth in both the gravy and as a moistening agent in any well-celery-ed stuffing.

Here’s the hitch.  Though the store stocked the Swanson’s (over-stocked it, in fact)—they wouldn’t sell it to me.  And, if sheer quantity were any indication, wouldn’t sell to anybody, for that matter.  They couldn’ t figure out the price.  So, when, after thirty minutes of trying to determine one, no member of the sales or management staff could still settle on the number of Gourde to make me pay, I suggested they charge me anything. 

“Over-charge me,” I even offered—a concept they seemed not to grasp—though they seem to get it well enough when selling products on the street and doubling the price when any non-Haitian tries to buy.

But undeterred and unwilling to waste any more of my time-is-money American minutes, I gave up, bought the cans of Campbell’s, and headed home, risking ill-health all the way.

So the bottom line is this— the shopping obstacles, though they were multiple and at times bizarre, did not obstruct in any hugely significant way.  These were more imagined obstacles than obstacles of real substance—

So Saint Sara, the wise and proper packer, was (as she is in all things) probably right about this, as well–

—Since the anticipated shopping obstacle was, like the celery itself . . .

. . . “not a very robust” obstacle after all.

Have you had any strange, even borderline bizarre, shopping experiences?

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The Butterball Challenge (Haitian Style)


As Sara and I continue to pack up our lives here in Haiti, and I continue to reflect and reminisce about some of Haiti-related “challenges” we’ve faced over the last year, I simply must share, for those of you who may have missed it, the following about our effort to prepare a sit-down Thanksgiving dinner for 24 under, shall we say, less-than-ideal conditions:

In honor of the upcoming holiday, I’ve decided to share, over the next several days, a few of the challenges we’re facing trying to prepare Thanksgiving dinner from Haiti.  So stay tuned all week for the sometimes amusing, sometimes maddening, sometimes mind-numbing complications that inevitably arise when celebrating this most American of holidays in the least American of locations.

Today I give you the oven-related challenges.

 

Is my Haitian oven up to the Butterball challenge?

 

I told Sara when we were looking for a house here in Haiti, that I simply had to have an oven.  Neither of the two homes we had in Vietnam had anything other than a cook top in the kitchen, which bothered me to no end, since I like to bake—cookies, cakes, biscuits, pies, muffins.  The only thing I like more than making them is eating them, but that’s another post for another day.

 So Sara did what any Tollhouse-cookie-loving partner would do.  She got us an oven—a real honest-to-goodness gas oven—minus the thermostat.

 I kid you not.  There’s no way to set any specific temperature on this most essential of kitchen appliances, any temperature either Fahrenheit or Celsius.

 Now, I love Sara more than anything, even more than my daily dose of cake and cookies, and those of you who know my inclination toward carb-consumption, know that’s saying quite a bit.  But sometimes she misses the most obvious of details.

 “Oh, that’s not that important.  You’ll figure that out.”

 Twelve attempts and twelve burnt batches of cookies later, I’m still figuring. 

 Which brings me to the matter of needing an oven this week, a temperature controlled oven, I might add.   In America we can’t celebrate Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie.  It’s the most Thanksgiving of Thanksgiving desserts—even when celebrating from here in Port-au-Prince—especially when celebrating from any far-away, cholera-sickened, earthquake-toppled part of the planet!

 A pumpkin pie likes to bake for the first 15 minutes at 425 degrees Fahrenheit and the final 45 to 50 minutes at 350, temperatures too precise even for the oven thermometer I brought back from the US.  It only seems to get me in the ballpark of a particular temperature, give or take 100 degrees. 

 But what about the turkey Sara plans to roast, what about the thermostatic requirements of the old Butterball?

 Oh, that’s not that important.  She’ll figure that out.

Have you had any memorable Thanksgiving dinner disasters?

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Variations on Giving: a Friend’s Reflection on Lent


Disclaimer:   

Please know I do not allow Mindy to publish what she does below with any sense of comfort. In fact, I do so with fear and trembling, not wanting anyone to think, for a minute, that I believe the life Sara and I lead deserves Lenten comparison.   

Sara and I have chosen our path purposefully, but it, in fact, gives to us more that we give to others.  The sacrifice is reciprocal and then some, making our lives meaningful, challenging, sometimes even fun. 

 Please know the words below are those of a friend, a friend who has loved us for many years and may speak with a bit of bias—but a bias based in love.  As such, I am humbled and try to accept the gift with grace—acknowledging that though it may be too much, it’s a gift given from the heart.

 And the gift of love, the gift of grace, after all, is what the Lenten/Easter season is all about.  God only asks for our hearts and gives us grace in return.

 So thank you, my dear friend.  Thank you!

Dear Readers:
  
Kathy has taken the day off. 
  
While she finishes a myriad of tasks related to her move home to Kentucky, she let me talk her into publishing the following post I wrote about her and Sara.
 
This week Kathy is looking back and reevaluating the experience she and Sara have had in Haiti.  I hope this post will help them see how brave they’ve been.
  
I know I speak for many who have come to respect and admire these good people.  And though I speak about them in the context of Christianity, I believe good works are apparent in and of themselves, regardless of religion, creed or belief.
  
Kindest regards,
Mindy
 
_______________________________________________________________
 

As I reflect on Sara and Kathy and the lives they lead, I am reminded of the story in the Bible about the widow’s mite. “She gave extravagantly what she couldn’t afford…she gave her all.” (Luke 21-4)

 The Jews had been instructed to give to the Temple and to the poor as part of their service to God. One day Jesus sat at the Temple and watched people putting money into the offering boxes. Some were rich and gave lots of money. Some gave money, but were unhappy about it. Then a poor woman, a widow, came up to the boxes.

The poor woman put two small coins in the offering box. The disciples with Jesus weren’t very impressed, but Jesus said this woman had given more than any other that day. How could that be? Jesus said it was because it was all she had.

 I reflect on the selflessness of my friends because they inspire me on this first day of Lent to “give my all.”

 I’m Episcopalian and have always observed Lent by giving up something for the 40 days or so that lead up to Easter and the celebration of the risen Lord. When I was a child, I was instructed not to give up something I disliked, like spinach, but to give up something I loved, like chocolate.

 The physical act of fasting is meant to remind us to allow the Spirit of God to reshape the way we think, act and live. I know this as an adult. As a child, it was just something we were expected to do.

 It was a practice that was meant to become a habit and, then, a life lesson.

 The apostle Paul explained the lesson very neatly in his letter to the Philippians:

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what.  Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human.  It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges.  Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death – and the worst kind of death at that – a crucifixion. (Philippians 2:5-8 – The Message)

 This is how Sara and Kathy live. They go from disaster to disaster, at great expense – professionally, emotionally, physically, psychologically – giving extravagantly what they can’t afford…giving their all.

 Now, I want Kathy to run this blog post and if she does, you must know that it’s because I’ve asked her to do it on my behalf. 

 Because I thank her and Sara for reminding me, in this season of Lent, to allow the Spirit of God to reshape the way I think, act and live not only by giving up something I love, but by giving my all.

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Happy Valentine’s Day–from the Heart of Haiti


Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.  —Rainer Maria Rilke

The weekend here in Haiti has ended . . .

The time to catch up—do laundry, make beds, have some spaghetti with the ones we love—has lead us to Valentine’s Day—muddy, gone-amuck Monday Cinderella-ed into—

More laundry, more beds, more spaghetti with the ones we don’t always love.

Yes, the ones we love may be less than lovely at times.  But on Valentine’s Day, I’m also thinking about my home here in Haiti and about my home in the blogosphere, readers who care, readers I’ve come to love.

So, it seems essential on this day that celebrates love, a day that celebrates caring and appreciation, that I invite readers I love into the heart of my life here in Haiti–into my home.  For it’s as true as it is cliched: home is where the heart is.

A while back, on a truly muddy Monday, I promised photos of our house in Port-au-Prince, promised, that is, when so many of you ranted about our kitchen decor in a post called “Haiti needs to be HGTV’d.”  (If you missed that post, click here.)

So, though “Writing Neurotic” still threatens (for an introduction to “Writing Neurotic” click here and here), our wireless is working well today—is almost, semi fast . . .  (Notice the adverbs that qualify “fast.”  All apply.)

Given this, I’m going to attempt a giant photo upload.   (If you’re not familiar with the wireless challenges we face at our house here in Haiti, click here.)

If I succeed, a virtual tour of our home should follow.  (Please pray the bandwidth gods, maybe even Saint Valentine himself, remain with us.)

Here’s the deal.  Our house sits on a hillside, hovering above the up-scale Port-au-Prince suburb of Petion-ville, where the streets are poorly paved, if at all, and the twists and turns of “almost-roads” threaten even the most seasoned drivers—pot holes the size of swimming pools are not uncommon.

Though there’s little electricity, once you get here, things are lovely.  Truly—our home is small but adequate, and we have dressed it up with paint—bold color, saturated color, the kind you want to drink in and absorb.

After honking to alert the guard (yes, he’s armed), he’ll open the gate and you’ll drive onto what is essentially the roof of our house—an outside deck that, for the most part, doubles our living space, (only sometimes exposing us to the stench of burning tire in the town below.  Don’t worry there’s been no rioting today.  We’re sinus-ly safe for now.)

Jean-Jean will open the gate, and our dog Ralph will greet you.

So come join us, pull up a chair, have cup of tea or a cocktail, if you like.  The roof-top deck, where we’re sitting looks like this:

The view from your seat looks like this:

And, if you wonder about that roaring, rumbling sound—it’s our generator round the corner, keeping the lights on for us:

Sorry for that obnoxious noise!

You’ll enter the house itself from the roof, by descending a set of stairs:

From the opposite side of the room, the staircase looks like this:

You’ve entered our main living space—a kitchenlivingdiningroom—what in the US we might call a “great room,” though ours is not so grand. 

The kitchen looks like this:

smallandcrampedbutweloveit

Our main seating area looks like this: 

Have a seat. Soak in the color.

On opposite sides of this space, doors lead to two rooms, the master bedroom and bath on one side, the guest room and bath on the other.

The master bedroom looks like this:

And the master bathroom looks like this:

You’ll enter the guest room through this doorway:

This room doubles as Sara’s office, but if you spend the night, you’ll sleep here:

Your bathroom, a mirror image of the master, looks like this:

Another door off the guest room leads to a balcony that looks like this:

And a stairway that looks this:

At the bottom of the stairs, another door from the outside opens into my studio and study:

Wait!

Our guard Jean-Jean rushes down the stairs–interupts the tour.  He insists the protests have started again.  You need to go.

Gosh, darn, you just got here——

We hurry back up the stairs to your car.

Well, at least you’ve gotten a sneak peak at our home in Port-au-Prince, I concede, and as you close the car door, I shout above clatter of gate opening–

Let us know when you can come again, stay a little longer, spend the night. 

I’ll send a driver and an armed-escort to meet your flight. 

(For a post about madness at the Port-au-Prince airport, click here.)

Happy Valentine’s Day from the heart of our home! 

Happy Valentine’s Day–from the (still unresolved) heart  of Haiti—————-

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Haitian Housekeeping from a Beach in South Florida!


Today I promised another post on Haitian graffiti artist, Jerry Rosembert Moise (if you missed yesterday’s post on graffiti, click here).  However, you street art enthusiasts are being put on the blog’s back burner, while I recover from a near all-nighter, waiting for election results that were not actually announced here in Haiti until this morning. 

As it stands, Mirlande Manigat and Michel Martelly will run off in the second round of presidential elections on 20 March.  This means the Haitian electoral council has followed the recommendation of the OAS (Organization of American States).  The OAS reviewed the results of November’s election and recommended that government-backed candidate Jude Celestin be disqualified because of fraud.  Ultimately members of the CEP (electoral council) were split 5-3 on whether or not to remove Celestine, deliberating all night, before finally announcing their decision just after 7:30 this morning EST. 

The good news–this should mean relative calm on Port-au-Prince streets.  In fact, there was a good bit of cheering this morning when the decision was finally broadcast.

For me personally, this means my long-weekend in South Florida should become a much-needed reality tomorrow morning.  As long as streets remain quiet and the airport stays open (it closed for several days following the last announcement), Sara and I will be sipping margaritas on the beach through Monday.

The ensuing drunkenness may mean no posts till Tuesday  (we’ll see) and my inability to officially pass along the “Memetastic Award” Clouded Marble cursed honored me with 2 days ago.  Sorry for this delay until next week, but in the meantime, you should visit her amazing blog and check out the other winners, who, I assume, will not be beaching it up in Miami this weekend, and may post something you’d enjoy reading in my absence.

In the meantime, check out my archive to catch up on posts you may have missed.  And enjoy the genuine genius always available on my blogroll.

That’s all the house-keeping this blog can handle for one  morning, but I will continue tidying from the sands of South Beach–a Kindle in one hand, a cool beverage in the other.

So toodles–I’ll be sipping  till Tuesday———–

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What’s up with Freshly Pressed?


Is it just me—or has it not been updated for anyone?  I’d HATE to think the editors at WordPress were only keeping it from me and other home-for-the-holiday-hanger-on-ers in Kentucky. 

Has the Obama administration sanctioned an extension of the New Year’s holiday?  Is there some new politically correct way to celebrate that makes it last a few days longer—go days and days without pressing  the premier of the blogosphere?

What’s the deal?  Is there something the gods of when we celebrate what are keeping only from us, from aid workers and their significant others, slogging it out in Haiti?

I know I’ve been sort of living on an island with no TV and only periodic access to electricity—but I’ve been back in the US for over two weeks now.  I should be up on these things—at least for the next few days—until Saturday when I return to my Caribbean paradise.

Somebody please fill me in!  Help me out!  What’s up? 

It’s January 5th already.  Are we not pressing new words in honor of the New Year?

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And I Thought Haiti was a Scary Place: a Tale of Forensic Failure in Kentucky


Why is it that I ALWAYS seem to have the weirdest of weird experiences—the wackiest—the most ridiculous?  Tell me.  How is this possible! 

I know what follows may be hard to believe—but really—how could I make this stuff up?

Here’s how it all went down:

Two nights ago Sara and I had just returned home from a crazed day of shopping—what we always need to do just before returning to Haiti, where we often can’t buy the kinds of items pampered and “all-too-accustomed-to-comfort” Americans require to maintain sanity and goodwill.

It was around 7 o’clock in the evening.  I was in the bathroom—brushing my teeth, if you really must know.  I was minding my own floss-focused, dental-hygiene-driven business, when suddenly a loud crash interrupted my serious teeth-cleaning efforts.

Holy Sh_t! What in the name of battling tooth decay had just happened?

I grab my black boots, head out the front door and around the house to find—

A brand new black Cadillac had just plowed into the side of our house—back bumper smashed against the foundation of my none-too-sturdy, 100-year-old jewel in the crown of Victorian architecture.

I wasn’t pleased by this development—

But not wanting to create enemies of neighbors who had seemed to move in during our last 3 month stint in Haiti and would likely still be there during our next three-month stay abroad, I tried not to over-react.  It seems the driver of the black Cadillac was visiting these neighbors when he/she accelerated in reverse off the snow-covered driveway, getting up-close and personal with my foundation. (I say “he/she” because neither the man nor woman seemingly associated with the vehicle was willing to take responsibility for being behind the wheel.)

But—living in a country where people burn tires is the streets for sport, I took this all in stride—got what information I could, which was very little but ultimately included a name and phone number—not likely as it all turned out the real name or real number. 

The house did not seem seriously damaged, so I didn’t bother to call the police when these folks refused to share information regarding their auto insurance—

Late the following afternoon, however, when Sara and I had again returned from a day of home-from-Haiti errand-running—

Another crash—

Same vehicle—

This time a rear end collision with our fence—

I kid you not!

In less than 12 hours—10 and a half to be exact—these owners of the black Cadillac had managed to careen into our property, not once, but twice. 

I wondered how this could all be real.  Had I entered some kind of Cadillac-crazed twilight zone?  Had I found myself on a really bad episode of Candid Camera in which Allen Funt runs cars into the houses of home-for-the-holidays-Haiti-aid-workers—all in the name of good laughs and family fun?

No—this was real and I have the fuzzy photos to prove it—

Thank God I had the presence of mind to run outside, not only screaming, “What is wrong with you people?!”—but also carrying a camera to document, a paper and pen to take down license plate numbers, and a mobile phone to call police.

I may have been borderline hysterical, but I, sure as hell, wasn’t stupid—though the police when they FINALLY arrived an hour later—were indeed the most idiotic this side of sanity one could ever imagine.

Not only did I have to dial 911 three times to get these crime-fighters to respond—I had to explain to dispatchers why this was, indeed, an emergency.

“These people have run their vehicle into my house twice in less than eleven hours.  Something is very wrong here.  Far be it from me to suggest there might be drugs involved—but, at the very least, I don’t think you want these folks back out on the streets.  If they do this from the relative safety of a driveway, imagine what damage they might do on the open road.”

And the two officers who finally arrived on the scene were equally clueless.  The man asked me—

“So your fence was always like that?”—though it leaned at a 120 degree angle with a car rammed up against it.

“You’ve got to be joking—that can’t be a serious question.”

“Calm down, lady.  Was your fence always that way?”  OMG—he was serious!

To say that these folks from our local police department weren’t firing on all 6 cylinders would be an understatement of epic proportion. They didn’t seem to appreciate the urgency of the situation or wonder why in the name of all things crazy that can happen on the road, one would drive a brand new 40 thousand dollar vehicle with NO auto insurance, if to protect themselves from all of the other crazy drivers on the road, if nothing else? 

They told the woman who seemed to be the owner of the car that they weren’t there to take sides or “get anyone into trouble.”  They were simply there “to file a report.”

Ultimately, the police did issue a citation for “not carrying proof of insurance”—an issue they assured the car owner “could be cleared up if they took proof of coverage to City Hall tomorrow.”

No sobriety testing—only a flimsy assertion that the officer “hoped” the driver had not been “drinking and driving.”

Okay then—if this blundering comedy of errors was detective work at its best, I’d hate to see second best—or god forbid—out and out forensic failure.

And it’s with this forensic failure that the story ends.

Anti-climactic—I know—but really that’s the crazy-making reality of how it all played out.  The police did nothing to deter or, god forbid, prevent these Cadillac-driving, fence-toppling Kentuckians from heading back out onto the road to wreak havoc on the highways of our state.

And I thought Haiti was a scary place!

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Weighing in on Bangkok: a Retrospective


(Since the holidays have kept me from writing for several days now, I’ve decided to offer a retrospective, of sorts, hoping a peek at past posts would offer decent reading in the meantime. 

The piece below was written nearly two years ago–January 4, 2009–just after this blog was born under another name.  Sara and I were living in Kentucky.  I was teaching writing at a local university, and Sara was considering a return to disaster response work that was expected to take us to Bangkok.  Initially this blog was meant to chronicle that adventure. 

In the post below, I’m moaning about a diet I’d begun as part of a New Year’s resolution.)

Okay, I got on the scales this morning–big mistake!  It may be that we are about to embark on a grand and exotic Asian adventure, but, God knows, I can’t do it fat!  I simply can not walk the streets of Bangkok like this–all 173 bulging pounds of me.

This is how it all went down.  Sara and I had agreed we would weigh on Sunday.  I had begun dieting a week ago but was too afraid to step on the scales.  Sara is to start watching what she eats on Monday.  Sunday then seemed a reasonable day to determine what we weighed.  While I may be a chicken shit when it comes to actually quantifying my size, once the decision is made to put a number on the situation, I want to get the pain over with as quickly as possible.  So when we woke up at 2 this morning to take the dogs out for their middle of the night pee, I brought the scales into our bedroom, as the floor in the bathroom slants too badly to weigh accurately in there, and proceeded to strip naked, because God forbid I weigh even an ounce more than necessary.  I even removed my glasses and seriously considered doing without a barrette but decided it unwise to try reading the numbers both blind and with hair falling in my face.  Then, stepping on the scales like the most over-sized contestant on the Biggest Loser, I was told I weighed a mere 75 somethings or other.  Now I may not have a completely realistic sense of what I weigh, but I did feel fairly certain I hadn’t been 75 pounds since I was seven.  And, of course, being without glasses I was unable to get the stupid scales to stop reading in kilograms and begin weighing in pounds, as I stood shivering and blind in a drafty 100-year-old house–not able to weigh having made the big decision to do so.  This did not sit well with me.  So Sara, who knows my inclination for throwing fits and was herself sitting warm and fully PJ-ed under the covers of our bed–decided to intervene.  After playing with the thing for a few long and chilly minutes and asking me where I had put the manual–when in fact she is the manual keeping half of this relationship–got the apparatus reading in pounds again.  You know something is not right with the universe when a book of directions is necessary for figuring out scales.

To make a long blog a little shorter, let it suffice to say I weighed a good many pounds more than I wished.  So I am an Asian bound woman on a mission.  I will not walk the streets of a Thai city like this.  I may be willing to wear my glasses the next time I weigh, but I will not make a big fat spectacle of myself on the sidewalks of Bangkok.

(Sara returns to Haiti soon, so in a few days postings should resume normally.)

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Top 4 Things about Christmas 2010


Though the photos aren’t fantastic, I can’t help sharing a  few of my favorite things about Christmas in Kentucky this year–a holiday away from Haiti with the most precious people on the planet this side of Port-au-Prince!

#4  Hanging out with handsome nephews 

Johnny, Sam and Drew

#3  Celebrating with sisters

Lynn, Susan and Kathy

#2  Seeing my brother’s stocking stuffed with coal a toilet seat–no joke!

Tyce holding holiday throne (still in the box)

#1  Having my Baby home from Haiti in time for the Holiday!

Sara on Christmas morning

Merry Christmas from my family to yours!  And don’t forget to pray for Haiti  this holiday!

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Haiti’s Greatest Gift: notes on the nature of giving


It amazes me how often Haiti is a study in extremes, not only between the most obvious of oppositions: rich/poor, white/black, have’s/have-not’s—but also between the more subtle and insidious of extremes—the ones I notice once I’ve returned to the US and realized all over again just how much we as Americans have and just how much the people of Haiti don’t.

I understood this even more clearly yesterday when I thought about how well “we-with-the-leisure-to-read-blogs” have it, that one of our biggest anxieties during the Holiday Season is the worry over whether we’ve gotten Uncle Joe or Cousin Rita just the right gift—from perfect stocking stuffer to the most ideal of electronics—iPhone, iPad, iPod.  It’s i-ronic just how much “I” is in our gift-giving, how many “me’s.”

I realized that the leisure and disposable income gift-giving presumes suggest profound things about these two countries I now call home.  Namely, if we have the time and energy, not to mention the funds, to spend on gifts, then we obviously aren’t worrying about keeping our children safe from cholera, aren’t worrying where our next meal might come from, aren’t worrying how we’ll keep our babies dry during the rain at night, the torrential downpours that turn the floors of our tents into pools of liquid, dripping mud.

However, sometimes I think that my graphic, black and white drawings, even my poems, express something about the extremes of Haiti that these well-chosen words of explanation fail to communicate.  So in closing, I offer some recent, some not-so-recent drawings that try to articulate in ways these words do not—the kinds of graphic contrasts that keep me awake at night—not only in Haiti—but in other places, as well.  Below the images are used to punctuate a poem I wrote some years ago, one written in the voice of someone displaced, alienated, alone—someone struggling to climb up out of endlessly hopeless circumstances, someone not unlike the poorest of the poor in Haiti.

On Rattlesnake Mountain

At dusk we lock

                the iron gate 

                                                collecting bones

                bleached in tufts of matted grass

                scaffolding the bluff

I insist on picking them

                a carcassed bouquet

                                                of cow bone

                picketting our path

                back up the crooked slope

Eye sockets shape

                a separate ascent

                                                dead leaves

                thicken the air

                like smoke

The moths are tongueless

                it’s simple to blame

                                                the mothers

                their beaks vacant as stairs

                I climb a thicket ofdry sticks

(For a more light-hearted and truly hysterical look at the holiday, I suggest you read today’s post on “The Ramblings.”  Tori’s comment  helped me gain some of the insights I share here.)