Thursday, September 7th

The rest of my time in Anse a Pitre went by very quickly. It was back-to-school time in both the DR and Haiti, which meant that street vendors added stacks of composition notebooks and sharpened black pencils to their usual wares of coconuts, jeans, and gasoline.  Even without the red and yellow of changing leaves or the snaps of parents' cameras, that first-day-of-school feeling was palpable to me. New haircuts, new friend groups, the question marks and possibilities that hang in the air--September's children have some things in common all around the world.

One last thing I'd like to write about is something I think I've mentioned before, but I know I need reminding all the time.  One of my work shifts at Sadhana Forest was sorting through the "Recycling Hut," which is essentially a whole hut full of trash that has been left by volunteers or collected from the surrounding land.  For two hours, sweating through my gloves, I sorted through all sorts of left-behind items, from clothes and shoes to bottles caps, band-aid wrappers, and toothpaste tubes.  I had bins for "paper," (which gets burned as part of cooking dinner); "reusable soft plastic," (any size/sort of plastic bag in which we could carry a transplanting tree or use at the market); "reusable hard plastic," (bottles that could be repurposed); "clothing" (used to mulch young trees); "reusable string"; "art possibilities"; and then the most difficult: "non reusable metal, hard plastic, or soft plastic."  I felt so defeated each time I put something in that bin. There is literally nowhere for it to go. I thought about how every little piece of garbage I generate, either in Haiti or in the U.S., has to have a home somewhere.  Every q-tip and juice box and piece of tissue; every piece of packaging ends up in a place.  At home, I don't have to think about it as much, but I hope that, even here, I will continue to think more like someone who has to live among whatever I generate.  Someone in Haiti told me a few years ago, "when you throw something away, there is no actual 'away.'" A sobering and challenging thought.

As a final note, if you are interested in coming on a BUMC visit to Haiti with me in February, let's talk! Our trip dates are February 2-10.

Thursday, August 31st: Motorbikes and Badminton

It has been a really good and full week here in Anse-a-Pitre. Yesterday I had an adventure with Wood and Artule when we were sent out to the mountains to get terre-rouge (red clay) to use for making more rocket stoves. We brought burlap sacks, shovels, and pickaxes, and Wood convinced a moto-taxi driver to give us all a lift out to the site for about $5. I rarely take motorbikes here and have definitely never gone four-to-a-bike (plus our tools).  So that was cozy. I got to be in the safest, most squished spot in the middle, rather than hanging on off the back.  We ran out of gas once and had one other unidentified problem with the bike, but we made it out and filled the sacks.  (Or Wood and Artule filled the sacks while I helpfully held them open). When we realized we didn’t have anything to tie them with, the motorbike driver found some shirts on the side of the road and cut them into strips to use as ropes. They somehow loaded four heavy bags of clay on the back of the bike, plus one in the driver’s lap, and sent him back to Sadhana Forest. Ever-ready with my running shoes on, I elected to run back instead of hitchhike. Lunch that day was well-earned.

The festival last weekend turned out to be a bi-national celebration of Haitian and Dominican culture, held on a Haitian street by the ocean.  There was lots of music, soccer, and art, and, what do you know, some intense badminton.  Most of it happened after my bedtime, but one afternoon I caught a little parade down the main street, with an eight-person brass band that played a few bars of music over and over as two lines of children marched behind.  I tried to take a video but ended up with only two photos of my shoes. 

Maybe because of all the focus on the festival, I had trouble finding a ride out to the refugee camp, so I walked there on Saturday, which took 92 minutes. The first time I went, the pastor, Eduane, wasn’t there, so I couldn’t do a whole lot except say hi to people.  I went again on Tuesday and met with Pastor Eduane, who told me what’s been going on this year. The government gave the families who were kicked out of the DR in 2015 financial incentive to go elsewhere in Haiti, and some left to join relatives. There are 43 families left who have nowhere to go, and someone was able to buy the land they’ve been camping on so that they can have a permanent settlement there.  Local churches have sent food and have helped them to build more stable homes out of branches and tarp.  Pastor Eduane asked if I could come in the afternoons this week to teach English classes, which I’ve never done but was happy to try (especially because he offered to send a ride to fetch me every day).  It’s mostly young adults who have shown up, and their eagerness and intense focus as we began our lesson really overwhelmed me the first day.  I have never in my life taught students who exhibited a hunger like theirs.  We have lessons under a canvas tent, and I didn’t come to Haiti prepared with any supplies or plans, but we’re doing our best.  I brought the two project directors from Sadhana Forest with me yesterday, and they took the more advanced speakers to have practice conversations.  They are going to come back after I leave and plant fruit trees out at the camp, and hopefully start some more sustained ways of helping.

So that's what’s going on! Again, thank you so much for staying connected.  Any thoughts, ideas, organizations or people I should get in touch with--send them my way!

Thursday, August 24

I wasn't able to catch a bus from Santo Domingo to the Haitian border on Tuesday, so I ended up staying an extra day in the capital, enjoying the hospitality of a random woman who took pity on me when I walked up to the hostel where I had stayed every year since 2011 and found it boarded up and dark. So she hooked me up with a place to sleep, and another complete stranger found me a taxi to the bus stop the next day. You will all be thrilled to know that the taxi driver willingly drove me all the way back to retrieve my flip phone when I realized I'd left it under my pillow.  Another near-disaster the flip phone, narrowly avoided :)

The bus ride through the mountains of the Dominican Republic was really beautiful, and my walk to and across the Haitian border was peppered with friendly faces and (limited to my few Spanish phrases) conversations.  The government of the DR has continued to bolster a military presence at the border, now sporting a giant Dominican flag and statue that guard the fancy new iron gate.  Not the most welcoming.  Gone are the days when it was just a single chain across a doorway.

Crossing into Haiti and visiting people has been a huge source of joy for me.  Everything is really green and lush (for this part of the country), thanks to lots of rain and some innovative irrigation practices.  The Haitian guys--Wood, Nixon, Patrick, Sandy, and Arthur--who run the tree-planting and gardening at Sadhana Forest are doing really well.  The trees on the property have grown significantly, and we planted ten more on a family's land out in the mountains this morning.  Last night, we went out to the town (I can count on one hand the number of times I've been awake after dark in this place), bought peanuts and fried plantains from a woman who sells them on the street, and walked to the beach to sit in a boat and look at the stars. 

This weekend, I'm looking forward to spending time at the refugee camp (now over two years old), attending an old-school revival at a nearby church (I probably won't go for the all-day, all-night option), and checking out a cross-cultural festival I've seen advertised on the street. Many of you may remember that the last time I got super excited about a festival, it ended up being about processed meat, put on by the Dominican equivalent of Oscar Meyer. So I don't have my hopes up super high this time.  But we'll see!

Anyway, the Internet cafes in Pedernales have all closed, so I am using the wifi in a friend's welding shop, and it's very very hot here. So I'm going to call it quits and head back to Haiti. Thank you so much for your good thoughts and for keeping in touch. I hope to write back sometime next week with updates from the refugee camp.

Glenda's Reflections

Sadhana Forest

Sevah means service and that is exactly what we provided at Sadhana, like all the other volunteers from all over the world.

Sadhana Forest is a reforestation community located in Haiti at the border with the Dominican Republic. On our first day at Sadhana Forest, which was the start of the second session for that day, we were greeted by Marie, a French national who gave us a tour and shared her vast knowledge of the community and how it operates. After the introduction by Marie we were assigned jobs, and were placed in groups of 3 or 4. Some of the jobs assigned were: planting trees in the nursery, bathroom duty using sawdust (I will not go into the details here), water duty, kitchen duty, to name a few.

Our group chose kitchen duty for that day. The menu for the day was beans and rice with coconut milk. We made salad that comprised cabbage, beets, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and lettuce. Before we started to prepare the food the surface of the counter was cleaned with vinegar (not any of the usual kitchen cleaning products), then we washed the vegetables with water then with vinegar.

Rony, a young Haitian native, volunteers at Sadhana on a regular basis and pointed out what we needed to do and where to find the ingredients needed. Phuong and Daniel cleaned the beans of pebbles etc. while I proceeded to wash the vegetables. Coconuts had to be grated to add to the rice and beans. The graters Rony gave to them to start the grating job were in very bad shape, all twisted and bent, they had seen better days. Daniel and Phuong, novices to grating, had some problems and eventually Rony took over the job of grating the coconuts.

Rony placed pieces of wood into the opening of the coal pot style stove and proceeded to light it. The beans were washed and put into a large enamel pot. In a short while, one could smell the beans, which evoked an aroma of food cooking in a place far from home.

When lunch was finished I sounded the gong, knocking a metal hanging from a tree, and everyone gathered in the eating area. The eating area is a wide open space with a mosquito net in the center, with pillows placed around the edge of the net for sitting. When everyone was seated, a moment of silence was observed and then the eating began.

On my second day at Sadhana I chose to clean the water system. There is a water filtration system and every day large water bottles are cleaned with sand, rocks and vinegar. Firstly, clear white sand and small rocks are placed in the bottle with a small amount of water, it is then vigorously shaken, washed with water and rinsed with vinegar. Each bottle is filled by a hose connected to the filtration system, it takes about one and a half hours to full one 5-gallon bottle.

________________________________________________________________________________________

The Refugee Camp

We were very excited to go to the refugee camp. We travelled for about fifteen minutes from Sadhana Forest in the back of a pickup truck to get there. We were determined to see the children and the reckless way the drivers drove did not deter us.

At the camp the children joined us in a tent which is the church. Rev. Kara provided them with coloring books and crayons. At first they appeared shy, but before long most of them were engaged in coloring. A few young mothers came with their babies and Sterling (Rev. Kara’s dad) held one of the babies in his arms and sang “Summertime”.

Going to the refugee camp was heartbreaking. Words could not truly have explained what I was witnessing, here families were existing on the bare minimum: no bathrooms, no running water, no electricity, no trees or other vegetation. These families were just living in a waste land. Was this really happening? In the year 2016 we still have human beings living under these conditions. Who do we turn to for help? We are all children of God.

May God, help, protect and bless the people in Haiti.

Sermon: "Too Many to Name"

Scripture: Luke 8:26-39

Today's gospel reading is quite a story,
not one you'll find in many children’s Bible coloring books.
It’s right in the middle of some more straightforward stories in Luke:
Before this, Jesus tells--and even explains!--some parables.
Then he gets into a boat
and calms the sea during a storm.
After the episode we heard today,
he heals a sick woman and brings a little girl back to life.
But here in the middle of all of this,
not quite as neat and beloved as the others,
we have today’s story of a chained-up man who lives in a tomb.
A legion of demons is driven out of him
and transferred into a herd of pigs,
who, in turn, face an untimely end in some water.
It's not immediately apparent what we do with all of this.

Despite the perplexing scripture reading, though,
I think that the part of today's worship service
that was the most difficult to prepare
was the prayer time.
Every Sunday, but especially today,
there was so much to pray for,
it was hard to know where to begin.
What can we say, God?
It's as if we're in layers of hatred and fear, injustice and grief.
Last Sunday night, our team of 8 was in in a remote village on the Haitian/Dominican border,
a place with horrors of its own,
and we learned about what happened at Pulse, in Orlando.
The heaviness that took over the air, our hearts,
made it hard to move or speak.
We were overwhelmed.
Now, demon-possessed isn’t a term I usually use to describe myself
or anyone else,
But
my heart goes out to the man in this Gospel story.
I feel for his sense of being overwhelmed.
There are so many demons in his world
that they’ve stolen his name and called themselves “Legion.”
which, in Roman army terms,
was about 6000 soldiers.
This guy was dealing with a lot.
And that's pretty much all we know about him:
His problems.
You see, when people are tortured or held captive,
either by personal demons,
like addiction or fear or depression.
or by demons that plague societies--
poverty, prejudice, violence--
When those afflictions are the ones pulling the strings,
that’s all that we--
folks on the outside--
can see.
Instead of seeing a person, we see the demons.
The problem becomes the identifier.
He's a drug addict.
She's a bigot.
“Homeless guy” becomes the only name we have for somebody.
Or we say, “that’s a gang-riddled neighborhood.”
Or a ”corrupt country.”
That is a demon-possessed man.
Now, let me be clear,
we all have our demons.
We are all, personally and collectively,
struggling under the thumb of forces or systems that bring harm
and tear apart.
They call this man “unclean,”
but none of us is clean.
Granted, some demons are more socially acceptable,
or more easily quieted, than others.
This guy in the scripture, though,
he's one of the ones who’s got unacceptable, noisy demons.
Other people in his community,
tortured by their own prejudice and fear,
have made this man an “other” and an outcast.
Luke writes that they physically bound him with chains and shackles,
isolated him and kept him under guard.
To his neighbors, this man was not human.
He was his demons;
his overwhelming, too-many-to-name,
Legion.

Who are the people,
where are the places,
who have become that dehumanized,
that isolated in our time?
Who is known only by what is wrong with them?
Who is kept at arm's distance,
so we need not notice them?

Certainly we don't have to go all the way to Haiti to find examples,
but it is one of those places that is frequently overwhelmed.
Known as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
Famous for poverty, for corruption.
People ask me all the time,
"What's the matter with Haiti?"
"Why can't they get themselves together?"
Anywhere we go,
especially when we're in this mindset that we need to fix things,
it's so easy to slip into the habit of looking at people or looking at a place,
and seeing only problems--
Seeing only the demons.
How about this photo from the Washington Post article on Haiti this weekend?
It fits right in with what we expect.
Or these, that we took this week?
It’s so easy to just see what is wrong;
to go to Haiti looking for abject poverty,
looking for trash on the side of a dirt road,
looking for kids without clothes
and houses made of mud,
and to find it all.
Demons are everywhere.
And remember, everyone has them.
Just as we look at this kid,
or this country,
and see desolation,
people in Haiti watching us come into their country
can easily look for the stereotypes of Americans
and find them written all over us.
Maybe they see representatives of the racism and elitism that has oppressed them for generations.
Maybe they see opportunistic tourists.
Maybe they see the learned prejudice that still lives in us.
As we walk back and forth every day,
across a border that people who “look Haitian” can’t cross,
we sure seem accustomed to privilege.

Demons are everywhere.
I’ve got them.
Our communities have them.
And, when we come across each other,
how often it is that only our demons connect.
I smell the alcohol on a person asking for money,
and my prejudice grows stronger.
We visit a community in Haiti where there’s relentless heat, hunger and thirst,
and our fear of failure,
or reluctance to be uncomfortable,
makes us want to turn away.
It makes me think of that bubble soccer concept--
I think our youth have played it--
where you roll around in these protective Inflatable bubbles,
so that your physical person
never comes into contact with another.
You just kind of bounce off of each other.
Fun for soccer,
not great for living in holy community with one another.

The Jesus we read about in Scripture, here in Luke 8,
he’s not so into staying in a protective bubble,
so he gets into a boat on a stormy sea.
He’s not so into lines that divide people,
so he crosses that stormy sea,
from his familiar home in Galilee
to the unfriendly territory of the Gerasenes,
opposite his home.
This Jesus,
he’s got a problem with chains.
He’s always standing with the ones who are forced outside
and so the first person he sees
is the person who’s invisible to everyone else.
Jesus crosses over where he’s not supposed to go,
and where everyone else just sees demons,
where everyone else is too overwhelmed by what is not right,
Jesus sees a human being.
Under 6,000 demons,
demons that speak for the man,
who take away his name.
Jesus sees a child of God of sacred worth.
and values him.
He loves that child of God so much,
that, with a love beyond our comprehension,
Jesus casts out every demon.
He blows them out of the water.
and brings healing.
Now, your guess as to what that looked like
is as good as mine.
Because it’s hard to imagine.
This man had no words to ask for healing,
no concept of what it would look like.
We too, overwhelmed by our demons,
personal and global,
don’t have words.
We can’t fathom the kind of healing that God’s love makes possible.
It’s hard to imagine, in the throes of an addiction,
that it can ever be overcome,
It's hard to imagine, in the midst of an epidemic of violence--
--violence against women, violence targeted at people
because of their race, or their religion,
their sexual orientation or gender identity,
Political or random violence--
It’s hard to imagine what peace could possibly look like.
And yet, there’s this hope.
There’s this hope that God’s love made human in Jesus
Is actually powerful enough to do something.
And with that is a hope
that the people who believe in this God,
will live differently because of it.
Right?
Believing that God has power that we don’t have
 does not give us a free pass
to sit back and say,
“well, God will clean up this mess one day.”
It should change us to follow a God whose business
 is breaking physical chains,
giving spiritual healing,
driving out the demons that threaten to destroy.
It’s no small thing to say we follow this sort of God.
Earlier this month, 17 confirmands professed their faith right here.
and that same day, 3 more people took baptismal vows in the Potomac River.
And I don’t know how many,
but a great number of us here today,
have also taken vows of baptism or confirmation.
And when people are baptized or confirmed,
the United Methodist Liturgy--look for it on page 34 of the hymnal
 asks this question:
“Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you
to resist evil, injustice, and oppression
in whatever forms they present themselves?”
And, again, I don’t know exactly how many,
but a great number of us here today,
have responded to this question.
Affirmatively.
Even if the words weren't exactly the same,
we have said, yes.
We accept freedom and power from God.
Freedom and power to resist evil, injustice, and oppression.
That means that the power of Jesus lives in us.
That means that we stay on the boat, even when it storms.
That we cross over to communities opposite our own.
It means that we walk with Jesus to the outskirts,
to the places where people are kept in chains
or told they are less than human.
We have accepted a power to see like Jesus,
to see and connect with the person,
and not the demons.
It's not our job to cast out all of the evil from this, or any place.
but it is our job to resist it.
It is our job to unbind where we can,
to witness and follow.
It is our job to recognize people for who they were created to be,
to allow them to reach their full potential.
Notice how the Gerasenes in this story respond to Jesus’ action.
They can’t deal with it
Once the man is healed, sitting at the feet of Jesus,
and wanting to be a part of their community,
the people, who only saw the demons,
want nothing to do with the person.
No photo opportunity or news story there,
just a man with a different perspective,
whose very presence shakes what they thought they knew for sure
about clean and unclean,
about the power of God.
It turns their world upside down,
and no one knows what to do next.
The pigs fall off the cliff.
The swineherds run away.
The people ask Jesus to leave.
And the healed man begs Jesus,
“Let me come with you.”
It seems he has nowhere else to go.
But Jesus says,
“No.
Return to your home.”
Jesus heals and transforms us, casts out our demons,
and sends us back where maybe we’re not welcome anymore.
Jesus sends us back as a challenge to people who won’t believe in change.
“Return to your home and declare all that God has done for you.”
That is witness.
Witness is saying to our community, saying to the world,
That the power of God in Jesus Christ has cast out of us
demons of fear and prejudice.
It is affirming that, at our baptisms, we accepted power
to resist evil, injustice, and oppression,
in whatever forms they present themselves;
In whatever demons, too many to name,
cover up individuals’ or communities’ humanity.
It can be overwhelming.
But when we don’t know where to start,
we can always start with somebody’s name.
Somebody’s story.
How many chances do you think you'll have today,
or this week, or this year, to connect with a child of God and learn their story?
Whether you are called to go far away,
Or to the person on the outskirts of your own family,
We are called, today, this week,
And every day of our lives as baptized people,
To connect with God’s light in each person,
To love them.
Jesus calls us out from under every demon,
To bear witness to the light that shines in and through us.
The light that shines in the darkness,
And was never overcome.

Tuesday, Thoughts versus Action

Our group was tasked with listening for direction on how to best help the refugees and greater Anse-pit-re population when working in Haiti today.  Several of the people we have encountered this week have big ideas and have begun small projects to move toward the larger goal of improving the lives of those living in this remote part of Haiti.  As a group we have asked ourselves, and each other, how can we help an area with so many problems with little understanding of the history, social structures, and political climate of this area?  I have been reading about refugee camps for a class I took last semester as part of my Master's program, but it was entirely different to visit one in-person.  I felt overwhelmed reading about refugees' problems and this feeling intensified when seeing the faces of these often forgotten people.  Our group came together during dinner to continue our conversation on how we as individuals and as a church can best help the people of Anse-pit-re.  We all wished for better understanding of the problem and a clear way to move forward, but God does not present answers in a neat package with easy to understand instructions.  A common thread in our discussions was a wish to increase the unity of those doing good works in this community and finding a more formal role for our church.  Up to this point, Kara and the groups she has brought have been "walking the path" with the Haitian people, but we all agree that we have reached a turning point and more action is needed.  We are all still trying to decide how to best move forward and will continue to listen for God's call.  Please pray for our understanding and the ability to continue making connections in this community that will exceeded our greatest expectations.

-Sarah

Monday

The border moved today to allow for Haitians to go to the twice weekly market on the DR side!  A simple fence with 2 sleepy looking guards surrounds that market. We walk through without as much as a question having paid facilitation fees on the first day).   It is 7 am in Haiti (8am in DR) and there is already a crowd of people on foot and motorbikes and considerable quantities of bananas and used clothes getting arranged.

We walk to the home of Santhonax, one of Kara's (or Carla as she is generally called here) many friends in Anses-a-Pitre, who has a goal of planting 10,000 trees. It is hard work. You need to make the top soil first since there is almost none. Just parched stony ground  following decades of deforestation.  It takes a long time to dig a big hole put in alternating layers of dried leaves maybe fruit scraps and the existing poor soil. Then you put a PVC pipe down to channel water to the hole three times a week. And then you wait a few months before you mix it up and plant a seedling of a type of tree (mayanut) that provides shade and also helps establish the soil around it.   We learn all this as we take baby steps: Collecting mulch and peeling seeds out of fruits for planting. Turns out they turn your hands dark brown kind of like henna - oops it does not come off!

Mid-morning we move on to the Sadhana forest project ( the one we got to know yesterday) to help with their reforestation efforts. We join resident volunteers from around the world all in their 20s and work in 3 groups : 1 - scoping out sites in town where people would like us to plant a tree, have a fenced in space to protect it from animals and commit to watering. 2 - designing frames for signs to give a presentation on the mayanut tree, 3 - Cook food for everyone. On the food:  the place is strictly vegan and uses solar power only for the water pump. All work is manual. They use NO processed food. Everything is made from scratch and quite an undertaking. Glenda, Phuong and Daniel are on kitchen duty and a couple of hours later we all enjoy delicious  rice and beans with coconut and a huge salad of cabbage, tomatoes, broccoli, onions, peppers etc!  It's also a very organic farm where human waste is put to good use - the 'bathrooms' take getting used to!  The place tries to have no trash at all.  You live with the earth and try to improve it so it can nourish you. I am reminded of the Martian and think trying to make soil and reforest Haiti by using such sustainable farming may be good practice for colonizing less hospitable planets!

Our second trip to the refugee camp is by riding/standing on a bigger truck than before - hold on as the driver maneuvers the bad gravel road. It is either this or hopping on the back of some motor bike. There are only a handful of cars which are useless anyway given the road conditions and the fact that the only road out of town( other than across the border to DR if you have a visa) is in too bad condition for cars.

So we think we are roughing it until we remember where we are headed.   This is an unofficial camp of forgotten refugees. The ones who could have left and services seem to have stopped but there are still 49 families here who have nowhere  else to go. We don't know the full story clearly ( much remains lost in translation) but are told that a lot of them are of Haitian origin with no ties left in Haiti having lived in or even been born in he DR - when they were expelled they had neither Haitian not DR papers.  What can we do?  The kids loved singing songs with the camp pastor (one of Kara's  friends) and us, making bead necklaces and playing soccer. We will bring more supplies tomorrow. There is no structure or organization here other than what the pastor provides, so we are a welcome distraction!

The truck that brought us left unexpectedly and so we are temporarily stranded ... And very tired ... Until another one shows up magically a long while later and takes us back to the border crossing before it closes at 5pm. Just another mile or 2 to walk to the nice cold shower in our charming little hotel in Pedernales!  We wonder whether we have ever been dirtier and sweatier!

Number of steps in the 20 to 30,000 depending on the job you were assigned today !

--Heidi