At the artisan center I began a conversation with Jackie about Haitian funerals. She said she refuses to go to them because they are so filled with dramatic excesses of emotion – crying, screaming, fainting, jerking. She told us that Fr. Lafontant is trying to tame things down a bit – stops people when it begins and says, “We all will die someday. It’s a natural part of being human…” She said the emotions begin when the open coffin is brought into the church, which had not yet happened when I stopped in the church.
Jackie gave us our morning assignment, which was to go into the village outside the compound to pick up trash. We all felt a bit odd about this, but you don’t argue with Jackie. So, off we went with two big white bags she had had a young woman in her class sew for us (under some duress), two pickers, and a box of surgical gloves for us all to wear. She walked us to the head of the lane through the village and turned us loose.
We attracted no small amount of attention – mostly curiosity, some noticeable resentment, and at least one young man who was so happy to see us that he joined us, bringing a couple of plastic bags from his house. He wanted us to be sure and see that his house was neat, and trash-free around the outside. He was clearly the local evangelist for cleaning up the neighborhood. We figured that whatever other reactions there might be to our presence (intrusion? Invasion of privacy? Cultural imperialism?) perhaps it might at least spark a good conversation among neighbors about caring for their environment.
We filled several bags of both trash and plastic recyclables (Jackie assured us they really DO recycle plastic here). George ran the full ones back to the compound to empty and bring them back to be filled again. We worked for about an hour, then started back to the compound. Halfway there we heard a marching band coming toward us up the dirt path. It was leading the funeral procession from the church to the burial site. As they approached us, we stood off the side of the road respectfully as they came by. The members of the band were dressed immaculately and playing the instruments that Clarkson and Lisa Williams had provided some years ago – trumpets, clarinets, flutes, baritone horns and tubas, drums and saxophones. Behind them came the mourners engaged in all the excesses of emotion described by Jackie earlier. Some people carrying others who were weeping uncontrollably, others jerking and falling to the ground, some being tended to by others. Some were carried onto nearby porches to calm them down – all while the procession continued with most of the people maintaining a dignified and respectful posture appropriate (my cultural bias) to a funeral procession. Six or eight men carried the gleaming white casket as they approached the burial site, which was apparently just about at the point where we had stopped picking up trash. We told ourselves that our invasion of their neighborhood to pick up trash had been our way of honoring the deceased by clearing the path of debris to make way for the funeral procession.
As we approached the artisan center, I saw Marie Flore and began a conversation with her. She was visibly upset that we had been sent out to pick up trash. “We have people to do that!” She wanted me to know that this was not a normal part of a group’s visit to Cange, and that she was having a hard time letting Jackie be in charge of our group visit, as this is clearly one of her responsibilities normally when groups come. I assured her that we had not minded, and that we understood Jackie’s desire to “take charge” with our group, given her unique relationship with us.
Marie negotiated with Jackie to get us for the afternoon to go to a fairly remote village on the other side of the lake. The last half hour was like driving on a sometimes vertical, rock-strewn riverbed. Cars seldom travel this road, and in fact, Marie had never been here in a car, since she usually crosses the lake by boat, then walks the last 45 minutes to the village. She had not been able to schedule a boat for
our group. Once we got there we were ushered into a stick-built enclosure roughly 20x60 feet with a grass/palm frond roof. This is the school for 260 children who come from the area to go to school. We were introduced to a wonderful man who came to the village in 1978 to start the school. He spoke to us about the students and the challenges they have here in the school. We could see the two well-used blackboards propped up along the sides of the enclosure. There was no evidence of textbooks or any of the normal things one sees in a classroom, and the desks were simple wooden benches on which the children sat to learn. In spite of all this, the teacher told us they had had good success in students passing the national primary school exam – 18 out of 20 who took the test this year. Those who go on to secondary school do so in Cange where they board with local families.We were shown the field just adjacent to the school where they hope to build a new school – if they can find partners to help them. Fr. Lafontant’s strategy is always to build a school first in a community, then a church – and perhaps a clinic to follow.
There were lots of children around and we had fun taking pictures, then showing them to them. The videos were even better. Marie had brought our lunch of cheese sandwiche
s (standard fare for lunches on the road – a single slice of cheese between two slices of white bread), and then the community served us each a large green coconut for its milk. I had never drunk directly from a fresh coconut before. Tasty and fun!After being in the village for about an hour, we began the long trip back to Cange – over the same roads once again.
Following supper, our evening reflection time was especially good and rich. We had had lots of material for reflection during the day. I started us off with Richard Rohr’s daily meditation from yesterday (from the Center for Contemplation and Action), beginning with a quote from Carl Jung about the problems of life being fundamentally insolvable – “they can never be solved, but only outgrown.” Rohr’s theme this week in his daily meditations is about moving from judgment to contemplation to action, which also gave us much to consider in our own judgments of the Haitians (or anyone for that matter) and even of ourselves, particularly around questions about “why am I here?” -- questions that can haunt you in a place like Haiti. What ARE we doing here? And does our being here make any difference whatsoever? And isn’t there something wrong about coming here simply to experience some kind of transformation of ourselves? Our conversation was one of those times when you wish you had a recording that you could go back to and hear once again everything that was said. Every single person in the group had something profound and meaningful to say – no definitive answers to our questions, but deeply reflective offerings of thought and feeling. It was definitely a sacred time we shared. Doug led our closing prayers for the evening, and we went our separate way, some to bed, some to further conversation.
George and I had a chance to connect – just the two of us, for a brief moment before he left for the night. We had a big bear hug like we like to have, and he told me how happy he was that he had come on this trip. I took that as a good sign that he was getting something important out of the experience.
Clarkson informed me that Marie Flore would like a copy of my sermon before Sunday since she was going to be my translator, so I stayed up late into the night writing it. It came easily after my time with the text this week (the calling of the disciples in Matthew 4) – and our experience here this week.
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