Haiti 2017

Posted by SE Wagner July 18, 2017

Haiti 2017

I arrived home from Haiti around 2 AM on Sunday morning, which meant that by the time I fell asleep at 3 AM I'd been awake for a little over 22 hours. The last few days I've been catching up on my sleep and leaving the house as little as possible. It feels good to be home, but I do miss Haiti. I miss the kids and the colors and watching the sun set over Dessalines from the balcony of the rectory. I miss playing Jacks with rocks, dripping sweat from my eyelids while playing basketball (badly), hearing the kids singing songs and dancing, riding in the back of the open pick up truck along bumpy country roads.However, I don't miss waking up in the middle of the night to a cacophony of dogs barking, or passing hungry children on the street, or feeling utterly hopeless in the face of such seismic poverty.

I am glad I went back because I learned more about myself and about the people I went with and the people I met and Haiti as a whole. I learned to see nuances within the poverty; how the children at camp, whose parents could afford to send them to school, were better off than most of the children in Dessalines, and how the children in Dessalines were better off than the children in the countryside, who often ran around naked and lived in poorly-constructed shacks. Nearly everyone in Haiti is poor, but some are poorer than others.

I learned that teaching English isn't easy, but that sometimes what matters more than following your plans is letting those plans go and just having fun. Maybe the kids didn't learn much English, but they sang a lot of songs, danced a lot of dances, and played a lot of games. They smiled and they laughed and they had fun.

I think I will continue to go back to Haiti, in some capacity or another. I love it there--the people, the food, the feeling of a cool shower at the end of a long, hot day. More and more I feel called to teach abroad and Haiti continues to climb the list of countries in which I might do that. I am so amazed at how people are able to struggle through life every day there and still find joy. I don't think I have a strong enough character to ever be able to live as people really live in Haiti. While the rectory is rustic compared to American standards, it is a palace compared to Dessalines standards. We have running water, flushing toilets, electricity, beds, mosquito nets, and three meals a day. I have no idea how people truly live in Haiti. I only know how an American visiting Haiti lives. I am so grateful to have the opportunity to "touch the reality" of Haiti as Father Alexis says, but I am also acutely aware that we only touched the tip of the iceberg of reality in Haiti. I hope that as I continue to go back and continue to grow and see more of the world that I'll come closer and closer to the true reality.

Despite all of its poverty and devastation, Haiti is an shockingly beautiful country and I hope these pictures capture a little bit of that, or at least capture some of the reality.