HAITI!! DAY 8 AND REFLECTION

Sunday, November 1, 2009-Last day in Haiti  Day 8

 

            This day in Haiti was quite short, as the morning was totally booked with getting the entire clinic clean as a whistle and packing the car with all the luggage for the trip back to the capital.  We ate our final breakfast of eggs, hotdogs, onions and peppers, then settled into the car for our last trip down the long road between Port au Prince and Jacmel. 

            We all fit into the car extremely well, except for the poor girl we had hired to cook.  Mr. Valentine wanted her to come along, but made her sit in the backseat with all the luggage, with less than one inch moving room on each side of her.  I felt very bad, but he said she sits in tighter spots on the public transportation busses, which I know is very true.

            The trip to the airport was very uneventful, as we all were dozing in and out of sleep.  But we eventually made it to the airport.  After one week of being in extreme heat and no AC, I was ready to be back in my Miami home.  We checked in through the hundreds of metal detectors, insuring we did not purchase anything illegal and try to bring it in, then got in line.  Everything was very smooth as we successfully check in on standby and got a flight about 4 hours earlier than scheduled, getting us home in the mid afternoon instead of later at night.  With work the next morning, this was a great change in plans for me.  I had lots of preparing to do. 

 

Conclusion/Thoughts after the trip

 

            While being in a place like Haiti, I feel that lessons are not really learned or realized until arriving back to your comfort zone.  You have to take time to process what you really experienced and were a part of for a week.  While still submerged in the culture, it is hard to see what exactly you have until you get back to it and see what you take for granted. 

            While only being in Haiti for a short week, compared to those who go overseas for a year or two, I still felt like I saw enough and learned enough to really have an impact on my life and how I view things.  Growing up, we all had basically anything we needed in life to make it easier for us.  When it is hot, we have an AC, and when it is cold we have a heater.  Electricity is something we no longer think about.  We don’t even process what all happens when we flip a simple switch and the light comes on.  It just happens.  Well, for a week, that didn’t happen.  We were forced to adjust to a lifestyle, creating ways to get tasks done without the appropriate tools we are armed with while living in such a spoiled culture such as the one in America.             

            Coming back home, I look around the house at all the things that fill our walls.  Things we do not need or use, yet, we have them just lying around wasting space.  We have things such as electric fireplaces, because we now are too lazy to even strike a match to start a fire.  Strike a match?  Honestly?  We just turn a knob and instant heat.  What is the point?  Why do I live in a culture that is rich enough to buy a riding lawn mower AND purchase a monthly membership to a gym?  Even a push mower!  Anyone I saw last week would love to have one of those.  If I were to take a machete to anyone in the states and tell them to mow a lawn with it, they would look at me like I was stupid.  If I did the same in Haiti, or other third-world countries, they would respond with, “Which lawn?”

            The fact that we have everything at our fingertips and we do not appreciate it drives me insane.  I come back to my school, where the kids were living in the cultures of Haiti just about 9 short years ago.  However, they have forgotten everything and think the world owes them something now that they are American.  They forget about their old friends and family members who still walk 4 miles a day just to get some water to cook or bath with.  Now, they just turn a knob and complain when the hot water is gone.  And drinking water?  It is ice cold at the touch of a button.  What happened to boiling water to clean it, then chilling it in a fridge that runs 12 hours a day before you are allowed a chilled drink of water?  What happened to that?  Getting caught up in our lazy, spoiled and too wealthy culture is what happened!  Why does God spoil us, to make us want more and more things.  These are all thoughts that ran through my head as I brushed my teeth Monday morning, as I washed it out with tap water, and then hesitated to put it in my mouth afraid of parasites.  I then reminded myself I was back home and it was ok.  Had that water picket not produced water at the turn of the knob, I would have been furious as I had to walk to the kitchen and give it a try.  Yet, the rest of the world knows nothing like this exists.

            It hurts me to think of my brother and sisters in Haiti who eat food out of the ravines next to dirty hogs and cows as I pull through a drive through or pop in a Pop Tart when I want a tiny snack.  With the price I pay for two cheeseburgers, one workingman makes that much to support his family of 5 each day in another country.  Yet, the world still owes me something because I grow up in America.  Then, we as Americans wonder why the rest of the world hates us.  If I saw a country come into my home and take our produce for dirt-cheap, then charge 10 times the amount in America and keep the profits, I would be furious as well.  Why the world is not fair is a question that will continue to haunt me until the day God calls my name. 

            I will not soon forget my experience in Haiti and how just a short time in its borders will touch me for a lifetime.  I learned more from people that I speak 3 words of the same language than I could learn in a lifetime from people who live the same sorts of ways I do here in the United States of Spoiled America.  While I say this, I still love my home and country, just wish I could bring back some change in people’s hearts and their ways they are living their lives.  Why do we deserve to live in peace and comfort when others go through hell and back each day just to keep their baby from crying?  I want to change the world.  Even if it is only by changing the feelings in one person’s heart, I will change the world!