Haiti: Epilogue

Haiti: Epilogue

Throughout this week, T.S. Elliot continually came to mind:

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question…

Oh, do not ask, “what is it?”

Let us go and make our visit.

Before we left, I wondered why I felt so etherized upon the surface of my life.  Perhaps the path of my life and career were as random as Elliots poem.

The people of Haiti do not live etherized lives.  They feel the pain of their plight and the weight of their poverty.  Yet, they continue to move forward with resolve and determination.  They fill their lives with the company of the family and friends.  They share their lives constantly.  They sing. They dance. They live.  Despite an average yearly income of $270, they share an emotional wealth far greater than many of us.

Perhaps our insidious intent to standardize our lives and control our environment has lead to a tedious argument punctuated with questions of whys and whats. But what the people of Haiti shared with me was their warmth and their community.

Our team laughed harder than most college dorm rooms on a Saturday night.  We told midnight ghost stories.  We yelled at each other and cried.  We celebrated and we mourned.  We felt fear.  We applauded and cheered inappropriately in public.  And the rare moments of calm and peace, we felt the lightness of our being.

We have taken away more from Haiti than we have given.  Our initial goals were:

To build

To help

To learn

To share

As I add our fifth goal, I think it may have been the most important lesson for all of us.

To feel