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I would like to start this off with a Gmail chat I had with my mom. I just felt that the dialog capture so much of what my days have been filled with, but in a short and rather direct way.

me: I have new photo's up on facebook from today if you'd like to look at them...

Mom: I will do so. Good day?

me: Good day, there are a lot of dreams in Haiti. I had another day in Cite Soleil... It was a bit of a hard day. It is really just inhuman how people live here... And that the world can not know makes me a little sick.

Mom: I can only imagine. Looking at your new pictures now. The one little fellow lets us look right into his little spirit. Like you, I struggle to comprehend how it is people keep on living with nothing.

me: Did you get to the picture of the little girl being held by her dad?

Mom: Yes. She did not look well - malnourished? That was a hard photo to look at.

me: It was a hard thing to see... I cried after... According to her dad, she has had a fever her whole life. She had some sort of mental handicap too. And she was even skinnier in person. The photo didn't really capture it.

Mom: Each day is a gift. So much love there.

me: Her family was wonderful, did not ask for money nothing just wanted us to see and to understand.

Mom: Like you - I ponder "what is an answer?" or maybe the challenge is to sit back and consider what EXACTLY might one do that could result in some enduring forward progress? I think it has to be on a small, focused level. The rest is just too big.

me: I think the answers can be found at least in part in PINP. That's what
May 17, 2010

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Haiti is a confusing place. It is one of the poorest countries in the world and I really don't understand why. Their is a sophistification and poise (maybe grace is a better word) that is found in the Haiti people I have have never seen before. They are very smart, hardworking, honest people that like order and take very good care of the belongings, even trash seems to be taken care of in a kind of organized mess. It is difficult to treat trash in any other kind of way when there is not real inferstructure to dispose of it.

This same grace is found in the children. I was able to work with some of the children yesterday only to be slightly overwhelmed by how much all of them want to learn and how calm and respectful that all where. Quite the opposite from the sense of entitlement I seem to see in so many of our youth today.

I am still learning (many many things) and will share them with you as I am able to make more sense of them all.

More later.

Allison
May 12, 2010

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The word of the hour is excited! Sunday we embark on a two week journey to Haiti and back again. My mind seems to be going a mile a minute with questions and curiosities and more things to add to my already expansive list of to bring or to dos. (It
May 06, 2010

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