A Year Unlike Any Other: Thanksgiving In Haiti

While everyone was at home enjoying a nice thanksgiving meal with family and friends and lots of good food............We were too. We had a frozen turkey reserved at one of the grocery stores in Port-au-Prince. Yes we reserved it, we thought it might be one of the only butterballs in the country. Although I wasnt able to walk down the street to my aunts house, see my cousins and be with my family like we normally do, here we have our own little family. We were joined by Barak, a priest, a visitor Sr. Jean who has been with us for three weeks. Also it wasnt my moms appetizers, and my aunts cooking and desserts, but we had a good Americanized Thanksgiving. We had a turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, gravy, and I made my moms pumpkin bars! The food at thanksgiving time is really a plus, and something I missed, but we celebrated and right outside our gates were people who didnt have enough to have even one meal.
I didnt get to come home to be with my family, see all my friends, go shopping with my mom at 4am for nothing but to watch all the crazy mommies fight over a toy, have pumpkin creamer in my coffee, and watch National Lampoons Christmas Vacation the family favorite. It was a year for change for even my family who went to the other side of the family for thanksgiving (I believe for the first time in all that I have been alive). Although I missed them, I got to skype them, hear what they said they were thankful for at dinner, and hear their voices.

This is our dinner table. Laurie took the picture, but she was there too.

Pre-dinner table.

I got the honor to carve the turkey...

Thanksgiving day started by going to visit the schools. We have had a visitor here, Sr. Jean. and she has never seen the schools. Being conscious of the meaning of the day, waking up here made it 100x more obvious that I and so many others have so much to be thankful for.
We went to watch the flag raising and then go to the school across the river to see the progress of the project! My favorite part of the flag raising is when they have to pray. They are supposed to be closing their eyes, but when there are white people there, this makes it ten times more challenging for them. I got a few pictures of this precious moment, and was appropriate for Thanksgiving day.

We then went across the river where kids who are too small to cross the river go to school. There is also a little girl who has been at the school for three years. She has been in the preschool because she has a developmental disability, here there is no means to help children like her. Here is a few pictures of her, with the smile that says she is so full of life.

On Friday, we went to Jean Rabel. A place were other RJM sisters live, and our friend Guardyne who was here with us for a month. These three days were a little vacation for us. We were able to relax, have some fun, and see a new part of Haiti. We went to the market that is really hard to describe. There is tons of people selling items for hair, bedding, clothes, fresh cut meat, rice and , fruits and veggies. If you need something, that is where you go. The streets are full people, who are walking, tons of women selling, few people buying and as one of the sisters said " if you need to talk to someone, you will find them at the market" On market day, thats the place to be. We also went to the "beach" which was full of big rocks and garbage. We were able to find an area with sand, but we were weary to go in and just stuck our feet in and found shells.

Jen said, lets take a picture together.
Then she said lets pretend I am pushing you
in (the running water filled with garbage and
who knows what else)....

This donkey was just standing while his owner was talking. Im sure he was planing his escape.

This boy was following us through the whole market. Carrying his chair on his head, then when we parted him, he decided to carry it above his head. He didnt talk to us, just following the white people.

This is us at dinner, again Laurie took the picture... We ate our dinner in about 20 minutes, but after we shared stories for maybe an hour or more each night. Mostly told by Sr. Nazareth who is Spanish who combines English Kreyol and Spanish in her stories. She doesnt try to be funny, but the stories she tells are priceless a lot to do with the word choices and integration of multiple languages. She told us about how they were robbed and the money ended up in the latrine, and about a woman who had something wrong with her breasts and they were past her knees.

Also you can see in the picture there is no door behind me. Where they live, they have no doors, its all open air. Their showers and toilets are under their big roof or overhang, and has walls, but it is still in the open air.Being there did result in a few bug bites, but they live closer to the people, and has a welcoming refreshing feel.

It took 4 hours to get there, driving through the mountains there is not a shell station to stop at to use the bathroom.... So the side of the mountain was the only choice. Here is a picture of Laurie that Jen took when I was using the facilities because there might have been Haitians across the mountain with a clear view of what I was doing...