Brush with Haiti (31 page)

Memories of an evening on the porch of the teachers' house in Jeremie flooded my mind. I had finished for the day. The air was warm and clear and preparations were underway to run the generator for the evening. But there was no need yet for electric light. The sun had not quite set and it was good to be off my feet and rocking in the chair for just a bit.

Micheline's daughter stepped onto the porch, just as my eyes began to close.

"There is someone here to see you," she said.

"Who is it?" Before she could answer, Francois of the Agricultural Ministry walked through the door from the kitchen. I had enjoyed chatting with him a few days before.

"Hello," he said in a soft voice. "Is it okay to visit you now?"

"Sure," I said, rising clumsily from my chair. "Please, do not get up."

I had become accustomed to the practice of people dropping in for a conversation, imagining how life was before television and telephones. My kids enjoyed friends dropping by but had usually made arrangements through their smart phones, leaping from the table after reading a text alerting that a friend had arrived and was waiting in the driveway. To simply rest, thinking with one's eyes closed and having someone stop in for conversation, was nice.

"So, how is your class going?" he asked.

"Well, I think. The students are wonderful. Just wonderful." From there, we discussed all sorts of things, from our families to global politics.

"So, you are divorced?" I was hoping he had not picked up on that part. It was not worth mentioning.

"Yes."

"For how long?" he asked. "Nine years."

"And you never married again?"

"No." I'd been amply warned about Caribbean men and possible expectations of U.S. women, and tried to remember what I had been told about Haitians, particularly their attitudes toward marital relationships. But he seemed genuinely curious and he spoke very fondly of his wife.

"I do not think people should be alone." His comment struck a nerve. "Do you?"

"I don't know," I replied. But I did know. For some time, being alone had been the right thing for me. It was a necessary part of the process of detachment, and, in my case, of proving that I could make it on my own. But I was detached now, and no longer had anything to prove.

"No. People should not be alone." He was certain. In another time in my life I would have objected to his assertion and his certainty, arguing that someone might very well choose to be independent. Yes, arguing. But I did not argue so much anymore. There was a time when I might have believed that his position was one of an old-fashioned male and that he should try harder to understand the modern age, regardless of whether this was a cultural difference and that Haitians were more comfortable with traditional gender roles.

But his words did not seem to originate from any sort of male stance. Rather, they were simply human. In a heartbeat, I recognized something soulful. He was not suggesting that a woman could not survive on her own. He needed only to look around any Haitian neighborhood to see how women had taken responsibility. Rather, he seemed to say that women needed men just as much as men needed women. Or that the ideal relationship was one in which two people complemented one another, and were there for one another, and brought out the best in one another. But all he said was, "I do not think people should be alone." What I heard was much more, and undoubtedly stemmed from my own need to hear.

"I'm waiting for the right person."

"I understand. But do not wait too long."

No one could substitute for the right person, and no apartment in the city could substitute for the person who had introduced these emotions to me.

"I could live in a box on State Street with you," I once told him. And it was true. The trappings of the material world seemed meaningless in comparison to the raw connection I felt with him. And he was more intellectually stimulating and entertaining than anyone I had ever met. And he filled my soul. Living with a city view that we once shared could not replace him. It could not fill the void. I realized it would only make me feel worse. My house was large and empty but a city apartment would be small and empty.

It was good to see the members of the Westminster Mission Committee at the brunch. The turnout was wonderful and they asked me to get up and say a few words. I did. Then I happily sat with them and we talked about kids growing up and the process of returning to who we were before they entered our lives. We would be forever changed by the experience of motherhood, but there was pleasure in rediscovering ourselves once we were less busy and had time to breathe. My life of running from school to baseball practice to my own classroom to soccer practice to research to piano lessons to committee meetings to swim meets had gradually wound down. I had to get used to it and I began to see emptiness as something completely different. It meant just less full.

Once a sense of stillness set in, I realized how grateful I was for having once had a home for myself and children. And again my thoughts turned to the women of the Grande'Anse who were overjoyed with each home that was built.

In the fall of 2010
a colleague asked if I would serve as keynote speaker for the local annual meeting of the American Association of University Women. They were interested in hearing about my work in Haiti. I hesitated for a number of reasons. First, I did not feel as if I had done anything remarkable, at least not worthy of a speech. Second, I had spoken to this group before. While the membership might have changed somewhat after these ten or more years, I feared the essence of the group remained the same and I had bombed with them the last time. I did not confess this to my colleague, hoping not to jar her memory in case she had been there. Third, I was not sure I would have anything wonderful to say. It was difficult to determine how much progress we were making on the UNOGA project or in Haiti in general. She assured me that whatever I could report would be much appreciated. In any case, the date of the luncheon was many months away and I could hardly tell her I had something else scheduled.

What made this particularly awkward was that university politics in the past had drawn battle lines between the two of us, and we were barely speaking to one another. The situation had been bad, and I came to distrust everyone in her court. I wondered what her motive was, and then admitted that an opportunity to speak about Haiti far superseded any personal issue at work. So, I said yes. By the time the date of the speaking engagement rolled around, my sensitivities regarding the earthquake had subsided and so, too, had my sensitivities regarding office tensions. This seemed a gesture of mending on her part, and for that I was grateful. An added appeal was that the luncheon was to be held at Innsbrook Country Club, where I had planned to speak when my father made his last trip to the hospital.

I arrived early, in order to place my feet firmly on the ground and get my bearings. Indiana's Saturdays in May can be the most beautiful days of the entire year, and this one was gorgeous. The walk up to the club house was lined with tulips and daffodils and the flowering trees were bursting with color. The golf course was as green as anything I had ever seen. I looked off into the distance trying to see where the houses of my father and his mother were situated. I scanned the horizon, imagining farmland. My grandmother once told me she was warned by her father that unpickled cucumbers would make her sick, so she would sneak out into the fields to eat them fresh. The farm must have reached for many acres because low-growing cucumber vines provide no place to hide. I liked thinking of her as a little girl. I also liked to think she told me that story as a loving acknowledgment that I did not always obey my father, her son, and it was ok.

Inside, I made small talk with the women in attendance. Some faces seemed familiar, but the atmosphere was not at all like what I had experienced before. It was not so much that they were more kind; rather, I was considerably less angry, or at least less unsure of the world and of myself. They appeared to be enthusiastically anticipating my talk. That fact did not make me more nervous, or less so, for talks are what they are.

Talks. It was simply my purpose to share experiences in Haiti, and describe the teaching project. Many of them were well-traveled and were curious about the country and its culture. Others could identify with the efforts of our post-secondary education program, I hoped, as they were university women themselves. There was really nothing for me to prepare, for I had reached a point where I could talk about Haiti for hours on end.

After reaching the microphone I hesitated for a moment and turned back to gaze through the wall of windows behind me. Smiling, I turned forward, and looked at my audience. The expanse of spring wrapped around my shoulders like a cloak of comfort.

"This used to be my great-grandfather's farm," I told them. "I've driven by many times, but never walked on the earth here before. My grandmother was born in a house down there on the highway and my father in the one near it." I paused for a moment and took a breath. "I'm happy to be here."

The talk went well and many questions followed. The energy was good. Life was good. Good things were happening in Haiti. Neither the situation nor the culture could have differed any more from what I knew of the Caribbean, but both worlds lived inside me.