The weekend was a succession of three great Masses. Anyone that thinks a 10 minute sermon is long ought to try listening to a 45 minute one in Creole. There were many exotic dishes to try at the feast. I guess I wasn’t careful enough because I had some GI problems afterwards. Shirley got a good look at the kitchen conditions and decided not to eat much. After the Sunday Mass I had the honor of baptizing two babies.
Monday was the highlight of my trip. After being on the parish grounds for most of the past three days we had the opportunity to drive around the area. We started with the local dispensary that cares for minor health problems. We gave them an electronic thermometer and some first aid supplies that were donated. We gave some more of the same supplies to the new home for elderly women that was built with our parish’s donations. When we looked for a supervisor a young women volunteered that she could help us. When her talk seemed strange Fr. Al told us that she was a resident that had gone crazy in the midst of the earthquake. The building is small but is home to 8 women and serves lunch to others like the elderly blind man we met. Bernard was our translator for the day. He wants to go to college and study English but needs assistance since his father died in the earthquake.
Next we went to Goiun and met some of the people that go to the small chapel made of palm branches there. A priest comes to the several chapels served by the parish once or twice a month for Sunday Mass. Building a permanent chapel here is Fr. Herve’s next goal. The parishioners took us to some of their homes which are in the foothills. A lady grabbed each of Shirley’s hands as we walked the cow paths along the steep slopes. We saw a typical mud hut that is smaller than most of our bedrooms that is home to 6 people. A man knocked down some coconuts and opened them with a machete for us. We had a good laugh as an older lady tried to teach Shirley a Haitian shimmy. We saw two more chapels; one was also a palm branch cathedral that hopes to start a better building by their tenth anniversary later this year.
That evening we went to a beautiful beach. Haiti does not attract the tourists that other Caribbean islands do because of the lack of adequate services and the instability of the poor nation.
Tuesday we visited some of the students again, handing out toothbrushes and a couple of soccer balls that lit up the eyes of the young ones. Then we headed back to Port au Prince. Slowed by town markets that filled the highway and the big city rush hour it took us 5 hours to go 90 miles. We would spend our last night in Haiti in rooms at the national Caritas center which administers many types of Catholic charities. Fr. Herve provided a Valentine meal at a nice restaurant in the company of the national director of Caritas, the Chancellor and auxiliary bishop of the diocese. It was an American style restaurant but the doorkeeper with the 12 gauge shotgun reminded us we were still in Haiti.
Our trip home was delightfully uneventful and filled with the joy of being on home soil. . It had been great to see the progress we have been a part of in our sister parish. But it was also good to reconnect with the people there and introduce them and their very different world to Shirley, Jim, and Maureen. We look forward to sharing our pictures, videos, and stories.
Deacon Tim
No comments:
Post a Comment