Life in Haiti

My good friend Janelle arrived in Haiti 2 months ago and has been living and serving in the same community as I was. Check out her blog and her sharing of her adventure in picking me up on Monday. It gives you a very small taste of how life is here in Haiti, every day. What an adventure for the blans!

http://janelleinhaiti.blogspot.com/2010/02/monday-adventures.html

I've arrived!

Hi friends!
I've arrived safe and sound. My bags just came today so I had a couple days of wearing the same thing but oh well! It was a relief to see all the bags and no problems getting through customs at all. The weather is gorgeous (nothing like in the summer) and it's so great to see all my friends and family. I started working this morning and that was encouraging and fun. Great to try and converse in Creole and understand the reports they have created following the earthquake. But we did it with little frustration! It's such a joy to be back here, and even when I'm a little sad to have left Winnipeg, I just wait about 15 minutes and something else great will happen. Things change so rapidly here in Haiti so you just have to wait it out, and NOT plan anything. I am limiting my internet use this week as I want to spend time with friends catching up, but hope to post more frequently in the future. The town has many more people here and the schools are closed so there's a lot of hanging around. I've met many people that have come from Port au Prince after the earthquake that will likely remain here for awhile. They are survivors, as my friend Calvin continues to point out. Yes, all people here surely are survivors. Thank you everyone for your support and I look forward to staying in touch! :)
Love,
Shauna

My return 2010

I found myself in this same situation, 8 months ago. Preparing to leave my home and comforts and saying goodbye to friends and family. 1 week ago (Friday) it was determined that the accountant of the clinic would unlikely be returning to Haiti after a visit to the USA pre-earthquake. I was invited by the clinic and offered my help as needed and found myself waiting out the weekend to hear the final word on Monday. Monday rolled around and I suddenly found myself preparing to leave in 1 week for Haiti. Things to buy, work manuals to write, conversations to be had, hugs to be given, tears to be shed.

Exactly 8 months ago I left Winnipeg for Haut Limbe and started my journey there. It seemed like an adventure. Like a new challenge and a chance to meet new friends and see how I could help serve and live with those in the community. Now, I know what to expect. I know what I'm getting myself into (to some small extent), and I know what I'm leaving behind. It's different this time, in almost every way possible. It's a longer amount of time. I know that I've just started something huge. That when I return, my life will not be as I left it. That people will change and circumstances will change. Do I have regrets? Yup. I have a few. Tonight I'm grieving what I will be leaving behind. All week I've been trying to process the completion of my job. 4 1/2 years in the same place, learning and growing there. Being loved by a staff and community across Canada, the US, and abroad. In 1 week, my life has changed drastically. And I know it's only just begun.

I am excited for the challenge and work in Haiti. I'm excited to see my friends and family there. I'm excited to dive in and see how things go at the clinic. I truly am thrilled. It's just so bitter sweet. I have no idea when I will return to this life here. To my friends. Months from now. And in my heart I know I will be there longer. This is only just the beginning. Thanks for journeying with me through this blog.

Quick update

For those of you that are still checking this site out, I am home now. I've been home for exactly 1 week, almost to the hour. I think I may keep this blog up for a little while as my debriefing and informing of continuing work at the clinic.

Here's the most recent: THEY FINISHED THE ELECTRICAL!!!

They started the week before I left and were done the day before I left Haiti. Here are some pictures.

Some things I've been learning

Here's just a few quick things I've been learning as I sit at the end of a long hot work day:

1. I can live without. Without hot showers, nice clean clothes, bug free beds, a vehicle, certain foods/drinks, silence, noise, plans. It's been easier then I thought it would be - granted I've had it pretty good.
   
2. Life is so short. We have a part in whether or not we want to continue. What a blessing each day truly is.
   
3. Being a foreigner is very difficult for me. There have been many days I wish I wasn't white and feel uncomfortable in my own skin. My own, very white, skin.
   
4. We have much - us "white" folks. Yes I know this is a generalization, but that's how we are viewed. We have much and things are very easy for us.
   
5. It's your own choice whether you want to be on this journey of discipleship, of obedience. You make the decision to obey, or not. And it's not easy.
   
6. I'm told I can't be an influence on the young girls here. This one is hard for me to swallow. I'm white and therefore what I do and say has no effect on how they will live their lives. Could this be so? One human being to another? My actions have no affect on them!? This one will take A LOT of thinking and processing. Likely a blog post to follow on this one.
   
7. I don't want to come home next Sunday. I want just 1 more week. Just a few more days to do and see all that I wanted. How did this come to a close so quickly?
   
8. I never want to wash my clothes by hand.
9. I have a dream and vision for a role I could play here in Haut Limbe in the future. I have no idea how it will play out, and how it could even work, but it's not up to me to figure out those very small details. If God is calling me to this as a next step, the small details will all work out. First though, to finish school and return to work. Yes, that's important.
   
10. A smile can change anyone's day. No words are every needed.
11. What doesn't get done today...will get done tomorrow. Or maybe not tomorrow...but the day after? The work on the electricity has yet to begin on the hospital. Things are so much more difficult here. Money takes time to be sent. Supplies take time to find and purchase. And well, people just work much slower here. Truly, what doesn't get done will get done tomorrow. My "to do" list isn't getting much smaller...it seems I've even adapted this pattern as well. But my tomorrow is running out...Sigh.
    

My roots...and other stuff

I've been reflecting on how it's been to be removed from my church community the last few days. What things have been evident and how much I've missed being with that group of 150 or so people. Even without having conversations with everyone each week, they are all my family. I need not be anything or say anything, I have a place there. I have people that keep me accountable, just by existing. I need not be asked hard questions but just by their presence I think more about my actions from day to day. I want to be a better person when I'm rooted in a community. I want to serve and love and become a better disciple when I know that I am journeying with them. After 9 weeks of being away, I'm beginning to really see the effects of it. Church here is well, different. Not only is it in a language I can't understand (they talk WAY too fast at church) but it's a different style then I'm used to. We haven't had bible study, I haven't heard a message that I understand, I haven't had a group of people to talk, share, and pray with. I haven't had a close friend to share those inner thoughts and feelings with and pray about and for with. So, even though I'm really not looking forward to leaving here, I am looking forward to being back with my community. With those that know me, love me, and care for me on this journey.

In other news, I was informed today that the patient that was staying with us at the house (Roselande) passed away this week. Her funeral was today (or possibly tomorrow). She didn't want to live, and that was so evident. I guess I'm only half shocked. It's really sad for her family and for those that loved her. For her as well as the future she could have had here. But I can't help but think about if she had kept on fighting. The struggle to continue receiving, paying for, and taking her medication. The effort to test her blood sugar and monitor her diet. Things are just so difficult here, not that it means you should just give up. It's hard here. In Canada, well, I don't even want to think about how things are different for someone exactly like Rose. That's enough to make you sick.

The realities here are different. People will risk their lives on a boat to try to escape to the USA to find some kind of work to support their families back home. A boat sank a couple weeks ago and there was only 1 survivor. He was returned on Tuesday to Haiti and there were crowds waiting for him. No one knew who survived, and once they did they knew who didn't. I was happy when I saw him arrive and being carried and saw the cheering people around him. But afterwards, I noticed those crying. Realizing their loved one's were on that same boat. There's so much I don't realize and understand here, especially initially, but God has been opening my eyes little by little to different things.

I'm scared to come back. Life will return to what it was before...and yet I'm different. How I fit back into those same places will be different. At least I hope so. People have changed and continued living their lives, as have I. So here's to the last 2 weeks. Late nights, early mornings, and lots in between!

Countdown

In 2 weeks tomorrow I will be heading off to the Dominican to catch my flight home. 2 weeks! It’s this week that’s been the turning point for me, I think, at least that’s what it seems. I guess it just hit me that the work here isn’t done, and that I didn’t finish everything that I came here to do. Part of this is due to not knowing exactly what I was getting myself into, but the other part is just in general, I don’t feel like I’m finished here. I’m not ready to go. I’m finally beginning to get comfortable with the pace of life, the way people operate here, and I’m finally able to relax and take a seat on the side of the road to rest for awhile and just watch as people pass by. I’m excited to return to life at home, to see friends and family, but I’m not ready to leave and not know what the future holds with regards to my life here.

Being called blanco doesn’t bother me as much anymore and I’m able to make jokes with the children and the cat-calling guys to make light of the fact that yes I am indeed a foreigner, and yes, indeed I am white. People often state the obvious here: “you are sitting, you are eating, you are resting, you are sleeping, you are white.” I actually find it pretty amusing. It’s been a real struggle for me with the racism/reverse racism here, but lately it’s been easier to deal with. Once you get the language and can joke around with people, it seems they view you differently, and I them as well.

So, as I begin to wrap up my time here, I have been reflecting a lot on the larger issues of this country. On the economics and the whole entire system of this country. When we have young entrepreneurs actually taking action and starting a business and yet getting no where, it frustrates me. In Canada, it seems our job is to get an education, use it, and the system will do the rest. Here’s what I mean. I go to school for business. Thereafter I start a business in something that I see is demanded in the economy. I advertise, have good customer service, etc, etc, etc. But it is not MY job to ensure that people have money to purchase my goods. I can help them think they need my product, causing a demand for it. But when you really think of it, it’s not my job to ensure that the entire community or country has money in their pockets to purchase these things. Take Alin for example. He has his greenhouse, no one has money to buy any of his products. He is growing bamboo to help prevent soil erosion and is planting trees to help with the deforestation, but who will pay him for this? Who will pay for the workers to cut down the bamboo, for their lunch while they work, for the truck to haul the bamboo back, for the workers to then cut it and plant it? Who then will plant all the trees on the mountain and make sure they actually grow? The farmers on the mountain? The town? I think in North America, the government would help with this right? There are programs that are subsidized by the government to ensure we don’t end up with no trees in our forests from forest fires or logging or whatever!? There are so many people just sitting around, and yet so many attempting to find some sort of employment. It really is a huge problem.

Anyways, continue to pray as I head into the last couple weeks. The “asking” has gotten more frequent as people know I’ll be leaving soon. Pray that I will be patient and have a listening ear to the need here in Haiti.