Day of Thanks

We started the day Thursday with a nippy bike ride on our 70's-era Motobecane roadies, pulled out from their storage spot above Ben's parent's woodpile. Whenever we get on these bikes, I marvel that they once took us all the way across the United States. (Check this video out. That's us!). And I give thanks for my best friend, the adventures that we've had and the adventures that we keep having.

This week's adventure? Thanksgiving in America. It's been a few years since we spent a holiday here  and I didn't grow up in this country, either. So, there are things about "the holidays" that seriously creep me out. Like lines of kids waiting to talk to people dressed up as Santa Claus. And Black Friday. Driving to my sister's house Thanksgiving night I was amazed (and let's be honest, a little bit self-righteously horrified) by packed out store parking lots.

I also think dedicating an entire day to the glossing over of our nation's history is weird. Did you know that the original Day of Thanksgiving was declared by the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in celebration of the massacre of 700-some native peoples? Just saying. It's important that we acknowledge the truth about our heritage and holidays...

So that we can then reclaim them! Because I think it's wonderful to have a day once a year to dwell specifically on the things that we're thankful for. We probably need more than one day. I came up with quite the "thankful for" list, myself.

Near the top of my list, I give thanks for our families. Spending time with them these last two weeks has been fantastic. My parents are in Cameroon and it's very sad not to be able to see them, but we've gotten in good quality time with my sis, Ben's parents and some of his siblings (big family, 10 kids). The food our families have been feeding us has also been fantastic. (Seriously, that bike ride was not just for fun. And we probably need to go on about ten more, except that with broken front brakes and a chain that needs replacing, my bike is sadly more out of shape than I am). My brother-in-law went so far as to brew beer and butcher a rabbit in anticipation of our visit.

Maybe with enough coaxing, Ben - who tonight is sleeping in the JFK airport en route to Haiti - will post a picture or two of family time.

North Carolina in November

Livin' it up in Carolina

Prelude to a restoring and energizing (though not entirely relaxing) month of vacation, in which we:

Why do we leave everything to the last minute?

On today's to do list:

• Clean and pack away our camping gear, which we sadly do not have opportunity to use in Haiti
• Clean and pack away Ben's mountain bike
• Cut Ben's hair
• Clean downstairs bathroom, post-haircut
• Laundry, 3 loads
• Drop our little diesel Rabbit off at my parent's house
• Final internet downloads before we leave the land of fast internet
• Take one last hike in the woods
• Scour attic for Ben's health insurance information
• Call my grandmother
• Make lots of other calls
• Pack
• Weigh suitcases
• Re-pack
• Print flight itineraries 
• Rest up for our 4 AM departure for the airport. Who ever thought 5:50 AM flights were a good idea?

We both fly out tomorrow, but Ben is leaving me to hand-carry motorcycle tires and smuggle a kombucha scoby into Haiti on my own. He's headed to the Dominican Republic for a 2-day photo assignment for American Airlines' in-flight magazine. I'll be cuddling with Luna and cursing mosquitoes and our slow internet connection by tomorrow afternoon.

Pictures of our fun vacation month coming soon...

Hello North Carolina

And hello family, fireflies, friends, gin and tonics with orange mint, bluegrass music, Abe and Karen's chickens, peaches, woods, bicycles and whole wheat waffles.

And now we're off to Virginia to go backpacking. Later 'taters!

Martha

My sister Martha passed away yesterday after her two year struggle with ovarian cancer. Her death is very sad for us, but a relief for her given her physical condition.

A friend said yesterday, "part of me is smiling knowing she's already planted a garden and painted a masterpiece in heaven" and it reminded me of the page in her sketchbook with a drawing of her dream house in heaven. The house is two thirds studio space and most of the rest is a greenhouse...  She has had a very rough past few weeks and knowing that she is in a better place is a comfort. She is already sorely missed, though.

I put together the video posted above a few weeks ago. Editing it created meaningful time for me to remember her and process her dying. She was able to see an unfinished version and was happy with it, which was really cool.

Meanwhile, heading out of Haiti...

We are not likely to be here for any of the drama looming on Haiti's horizon (not even for election monitoring this round). Ben left for North Carolina on Friday and I have a ticket on hold for Wednesday. Martha is at the end of her earthly life, which we know is a relief for her, but it's a pretty sad time for us and the rest of Ben's family so we'd appreciate whatever prayers, thoughts or energy you're willing to send up for us.

Martha's Prints

My sister Martha just finished this awesome painting, titled 'Through the Veil of Tears,' and gave it to Alexis and me. Martha is starting to sell prints of her work from an Etsy store and prints of this painting are the first to be posted in the store. More prints will be posted in coming weeks. Proceeds will go to Arts for Life and Doctors Without Borders.

We've been absent from the blog while we visited with M and other family in North Carolina, but we returned to Haiti today. A power surge this past week fried our fridge and water pump and from the street party that sounds like it's in our living room, it would seem that Port-Au-Prince slipped into carnival season while we were away. Ah, welcome home.

the grass is always greener (or purpler) on the other side

My sister Martha paints a mural on my niece's bedroom wall in Asheville, NC

I often find myself dreaming about the quiet, green, peaceful mountains of North Carolina. Basically, I dream of the opposite of the over-populated, de-forested and often stressful mountains of Haiti. And then I mosey over to craigslist to see if there are any deals on land (not that I have the money for mountain land) where Alexis and I could chill, build a tiny house and live off the grid and off of the land. After an hour or so, I come back to reality and get back to work on whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing.

Oh, Shopping

I could spend all day in a thrift store, but put me in a Target or one of those other stores and I feel like I’m five years old. I am so overwhelmed by quantity and choice and a cheapness that can’t possibly reflect the actual cost of production that I want to curl up in a fetal position and cry.

Our flight on Monday left Charlotte at 10 PM, so we had time to run some last minute errands. Ben dropped me off at a Michaels to look for embroidery thread while he went to some electronics super-store to look for a laptop for our neighbor and a microphone. As if 20 minutes in Michaels trying to find the embroidery thread aisle and choosing among hundreds of colors and shades of thread wasn’t bad enough, we went to Best Buy next. After that, we stopped by Radio Shack and Ritz Camera (still in search of a microphone). A final stop at Harris Teeter where none of the sullen employees I asked knew where to find the maple flavoring… When we enter big box stores, we feel confronted by a spirit of consumption. We both wanted to take showers by the time we got back to Ben’s parents’ house.

Here’s what I noticed when we went out to get groceries in our Petion-Ville neighborhood on Tuesday (choosing not to go to the new Giant that opened while we were gone, which was probably wise since I was still reeling from trying to buy thread at Michaels): The market ladies that I buy vegetables from ask if I’ve been traveling because they haven’t seen me in awhile. They ask how my family is. They let me buy on credit when I don’t have enough change and they give me a bunch of green onions as I’m walking away. At the tailor shop where we buy eggs (weird, I know), the tailor gives us three extra eggs and painstakingly wraps them in two halves of an egg carton tied up with red string so that they won’t break on our way home. The security guard at the grocery store greets us and helps us stash our motorcycle helmets and the checkout clerk knows that we’re the freaks that bring our own grocery bags. The owner waves at us from behind his desk. As we ride home, the moto taxi drivers at the end of our street honk and wave to let us know that they know we’re back. Later, Ben takes a few empty beer bottles to the old lady down the street and exchanges them for full ones. She knows us, too.

All of this takes place within walking distance of our house. In Haiti, if feels like we shop as part of a community and that – flights to/from Haiti and some imported foodstuffs notwithstanding - our consumption footprint is much smaller. I even buy most of my clothes from piles of used clothing on the street, from women who know my name and my size. This kind of shopping feels healthy to me in a way that the dominant consumption model in the States never has. In Haiti, there are no box stores to lure me in with cheap prices and I never come home from the grocery store or the street market feeling disgusted with myself. Although I do think that it is possible to shop in a healthy way in the States – to buy directly from farmers, to barter with friends, to frequent locally-owned establishments, etc… in most places it takes a lot more effort and planning than it does here.

Leaving North Carolina and our families this time ‘round was harder, partly because of Martha’s cancer and because most of our closest friends in Haiti have moved away this year. But, the contrast between our shopping experiences on Monday and Tuesday reminded me of one of things that I most appreciate about living here and that we have, however unintentionally, become part of the community of our neighborhood.

A few highlights from our trip

Karen and Abe's muscadines

Caleb grocery shopping

 Martha and Alexis

Martha

Coffee

 Jody's baby shower

  Jody's baby shower

 Charlie

 Alexis and Sharon

Pisgah Brewing Company

Charlotte area farm tour with the Erkerts

Martha and my mom

What We Did

Martha (Ben's sister) has the most amazing tattoos. 

8 days (for Ben, 12 days) was not enough to see everyone and do everything we would have liked to see and do while we were in Waxhaw, Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Asheville and Nashville. But, we did such a great job making the most of our time home that we came back to Haiti yesterday more exhausted than when we left.

p.s. If you are a friend in or near one of those places, our apologies for not getting in touch! Our trip was short and was packed with family time and also some unpredicted excitement like missed flights, last minute mammogram, etc. More pictures are coming soon.

Back to North Carolina

Moving from one environment to another so dramatically different in the space of a couple hours is a strange experience. When did flying become cease to be enjoyable? The bright spot in this trip for me is Dunkin Doughnuts in the Fort Lauderdale airport.

Hurricane Earl

Sounds like it should be a bluegrass band, which we would love, but is actually a Category 4 hurricane, which we do not love, especially with 1.5 million people in Port-Au-Prince living under deteriorating tents and tarps. Thankfully we haven't gotten more rain or wind here than usual. The hurricane itself seems to be headed to our other home, North Carolina.

Incidentally, we will be following ol' Earl to North Carolina next week. Ben leaves on the 7th and I on the 11th to spend some time with our families, especially Martha.

Mixed Feelings

It has been wonderful to see our families, relaxing to have two weeks of (almost) no work, restful to spend lots of time sleeping, therapeutic to talk about our experience with family and with a therapist. It’s also been frustrating to be in the States for the reasons that being here always frustrate me combined with post traumatic stress and a whole host of complex post-earthquake feelings that I’m in the process of sorting out.

I’ve been afraid to be alone since the earthquake. Ben and I both startle easily these days and continue to feel the earth shake, even here in North Carolina. We’re grieving and I find that I can finally cry from time to time, which feels really really good. When I think about what happened though, I mostly get angry. Some of this is anger at myself for things I did and didn’t do after the earthquake, though most of it is anger at God and anger at the pre- and post- e.q. injustices that I'm constantly faced with in Haiti. We also both feel guilty (and have learned in our therapy that this is called “survivor’s guilt”) – guilty that we’re alive when so many others were killed, that our house is standing when so many others aren’t, for how little we lost, and that we were able to leave for two weeks to recuperate simply because we are not materially poor Haitians. More injustice.

Many people have asked if we’re ready to go back to Haiti on Wednesday. The answer is yes. In Haiti we don’t need to try to explain what we’re going through. Everyone around us in Haiti was there and gets it. Having had this experience has bonded us to Haiti (not to mention to our friends, neighbors and colleagues there) in a new way. For the time being, there’s nowhere else I want to be. And in spite of the earthquake, I miss what has been my home for a year and a half. I miss my cat. I miss being in my own space.

I think I also need to be in Haiti to see what I can only hope will be the redemption of all of the loss, destruction and suffering caused by the earthquake. I hope that being back in Haiti I will see and experience continued healing, both for myself and for Port-Au-Prince.

Remembering

Today, 30 days after the earthquake, was a national day of mourning in Port Au Prince. Crowds gathered to mourn, pray and sing. More than 200,000 people have died. It's insane for me to remember the moment 30 days ago when most of those people lost their lives. And it's even more troubling to think about those that died under the rubble in the days that followed. It seems like way too much grief for one country to have to handle. Even as we see people going about their daily lives, I wonder how it is they can move forward. I met one woman last week that had lost four of her five children and she seemed numb, another guy who had lost his pregnant wife and had been drunk for days.

At the same time, we've lost so little and yet are also finding it difficult to move forward. Today we flew from Pennsylvania to Charlotte. It was strange to be among people on business trips, vacation, traveling to visit family... since our own lives have been totally consumed by what happened in Haiti on January 12th. Being out of Haiti has intensified our grief in a way that we didn't expect.

This evening we were sent a copy of the following corporate prayer, held at the MCC office in Akron today in honor of Haiti's day of mourning:

At 4:53 pm a month ago, a magnitude 7 earthquake hit Haiti. We gather together today to remember the lives lost and those forever changed by this event. During the times of silence we will have bells ringing to remember the 200,000 lives lost and the millions homeless and or injured. Let us pray.

We mourn the death and destruction in Haiti, And we pray for each person who died and the life left behind;

Silence.

We pray for the living - the survivors.
Be with them, Lord, in this traumatic time.
May they experience Your healing,
In their spirits as well as their bodies.

Silence.

We are so thankful for the way individuals and communities affected have come together in solidarity. We are awed by the resilience of the Haitian people. We are grateful too for the world community as they have responded to this crisis as they offer aid and comfort.

Gracious God, we pray that the depth of despair felt by the people of Haiti will be buoyed by the many who care. We pray that as we walk along side that we can be your hands and feet to minister to all those in need, as life builds up from the ruins.

Silence.

Grant us the strength to do what is needed, the wisdom to do it with care, and the endurance to do it well.

Bless the MCC staff in Haiti and the myriad of volunteers going and coming - we pray for travel mercies and safety as they work along side Haitians and others from the world community.

God in your mercy, hear our prayer.

When in North Carolina,

On Vacation

We'll be back later...