Me entiendes? Comprends? Do you understand?

It takes a village to get our team of 8 people from Bethesda to this remote corner of Hispaniola, and we are grateful for all who have had a hand in getting us here.  We arrived at the Haitian-Dominican border yesterday, after 8ish hours of travel by car.  At every juncture, some sort of conversation in a language other than English was necessary:  "Where can I buy bananas for breakfast?" "How do I get onto this road if I can't turn left?" "Do you sell toothpaste?"  Some of these conversations have gone more smoothly than others, but I always feel as though I am straining to be understood. Every time, I break a sweat trying to explain myself in Spanish, with a bit of English, some words in French, and plenty of charades-like hand gestures.  My question at the end is desperate: "Me entiendes?? Do you understand??"

The need to be understood, it seems to me, is a fairly basic human need. It propels us to new heights of expression through music, language, and art. We tend to gravitate toward others who can understand our experience; who see where we're coming from; people who, at the very least, are good listeners.

And yet most of the time that I am in the Dominican Republic or Haiti, I carry a deep question within me: Are people understanding me? I wonder this constantly, both practically--does she understand that I want hotel rooms for 8 people?--and, more existentially--do they understand who I am, why I come here?  Do they understand that they are like family to me? And so the questions steep, and so I strive to be more clear, to explain more thoroughly, to articulate more precisely.

But yesterday, when we arrived in Pedernales, and the woman who owns the hostel where we stay greeted me, keys in hand, she said, "Our family is back."  And I was struck in that moment by a realization of all of the work that is done on the receiving end of my quest to be understood. For five or six years, the people in Pedernales and Anse a Pitre--not to mention all along the route from Santo DOmingo to the border--have been striving to understand me.  They have been the ones adjusting their perspective, leaning in, tuning their ears differently to this recurring visitor who comes with quirks and needs, guests and strangers.

The work of hospitality is the effort to understand rather than to be understood. It is the woman who, rather than explain to me for the fourth time how to get somewhere, grabs my arm and walks me the whole way.  It is the man who notices that I am cold on the airplane and hands me his blanket, no questions asked.  It is the milkshake-seller in Pedernales who always remembers that I am the  strange American who prefers a banana milkshake--hold the milk--in my own water bottle so I don't have to use a styrofoam cup.  Or the man who today, when I was struggling to explain who our group was and why we wanted to go into the church with our coloring books and supplies, graciously cut me off and said, "This is God's house. You should come in."

The prayer of Saint Francis asks, "grant that I may not so much seek to be understood as to understand." That is my prayer, too, for myself this week, and for all of us as we return to our homes, challenged to pass on the gifts we have received as guests in this place.

--Kara