I woke up this morning with wool socks. They're probably the only pair in Haiti, but I doubt I could convince anybody to take them unless I paid them. "But they're warm, even when they're wet!" Yup... somehow not a selling point here. I was also wearing fleece pants and a gray hoodie. Basically I was the polar opposite of the Haitian that refuses to believe in snow. Get it? Polar opposite? Good one.
The story: I woke up at about four this morning from a lovely dream about kickboxing with jackrabbits and remembered quickly that my sheets were being washed and hence were not with me. I did not remember because I was cold, but because in the last several hours my feet had become an aerial view of the the Pacific Ring of Fire. I had so many bug bites that plunging a knife into my foot to scratch them was beginning to sound attractive. And so I decided to protect myself.
And it worked. No more bites. A little hot, but no more bites.
When those things happen, I like it. I'm the type of person that doesn't feel engaged by life unless he's doing something. Routines are like vitamins to me; they're necessary to keep me running, but they're not the part of my diet that I enjoy. That's an issue here, because in Haiti, routines are a luxury. Routines mean security and predictability and safety--real assets in a city with more per capita kidnapping than any other place in the world.
But I see walls topped with broken glass and razor wire and think, "how could I climb over that?" There's a locked metal door between me and a piano, and I spend fifteen minutes finding out that I could fit between two bars if I was stark naked. Jean wants to move his projectors off-center a few feet, and I spent the next two hours learning about keystoning. Frankly, if it's not a challenge, what's the point?
The point is that I am here to be an asset to Jean in any way that I can, not to entertain myself. There are plenty of challenges to be had here, but I came here for a purpose and the purpose is not me. How natural it feels to focus on myself. How inevitable. I've taken to recalling my true focus every morning just to start off my day the right way.
We humans... no, I'll speak for myself. I, as a human, am capable of thinking about three or four things at once, and concentrating on about... one. That means that I remain precisely the same distance from my goal until I refocus. It's a chilling thought.
Makes me want to find those wool socks.
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Haitian Creole, anyone? Me too. Today we'll just jump right in and pick up some new vocabulary and grammatical familiarity.
Is that the one you want? : Eske se sa-a ou vli? (ess-kay-say-sah-ah-oo-vlee) "Eske" turns any sentence into a question. "Sa-a" (a little tricky to pronounce) is equivalent to the English phrase "the one." Literally, it means "the this."
Other : Lot (loht)
The other book is really good. : Lot liv la bon anpil. (loht-leev-lah-boN-ahN-peel) Note the implied, but omitted, "to be"
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If you are new to this newsletter and would like some background, please visit my blog, which contains an archive of all my updates. Here is my contact information:
Phone Number: 011-509-617-7720
Address for Letters : Pastor Jean Petit-Frére, P.O. Box 407139, Ft. Lauderdale, Fl, 33340
Address for Packages: Pastor Jean Petit-Frére, 2525 NW 55 Court, Hangar #24, Ft. Lauderdale, Fl, 33340
Important: Remember to address it to "Paster Jean Petit-Frére" and write "Attn: Dan" on the back of the envelope or package. Thanks!
God Bless,
Dan
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