She is forever in me

I fell in love in Haiti.

I fell in love with the city of Port-au-Prince, with its sights and its sounds, so vibrant, intensely colorful, foreign; with the gaudy, intricately painted mobile works of art called tap-taps (street taxis); with the ebb and flow of traffic and pedestrians; with its smells, potent and noxious, of open sewers and burning trash (for there's little infrastructure and no curb-side garbage pick-up in Port-au-Prince).  I fell in love with the outdoor markets, and the dirt, and the grit, and the din, and the constant commotion.  There were three amazing days of riding in the open-bed truck to and from our chicken coop construction.  Standing behind the cab, facing forward literally and figuratively, riding what felt like the city's stream of life, I couldn't process all the stimuli fast enough.  I was always somewhat disappointed on reaching our destination, as I wanted more.  I never thought I would want to be intimately familiar with a city again.  I was wrong.  I fell in love. 

Most of all, though, I fell in love with Haiti's people.  Not just those with whom we worked directly--Alex and Victory, our construction team leaders; Elena at the guest house; Bennes and Moises and Deliris, our drivers and interpreters.  And not just the children at the orphanage, those beautiful youngsters so eager for touch and comfort and interaction and attention with and from adults.  I fell in love with her people on the street, the marketers and the water tanker drivers, the street vendors and shoe-shiners, the school kids in their pristine uniforms on their ways to school, the tap-tap riders with whom my gaze would lock in traffic, who would almost always smile, frequently shyly, and wave or speak in return.

I fell in love with her people

And I know the moment, the exact moment, at which it definitively, irreversibly, irrevocably occurred for me.  We were homeward bound after our last "day on the job," and had just enjoyed a respite at Deliris's apartment high up in the hills overlooking the city--a swim in her complex's pool, which was pure luxury and bliss, and a few of us had even indulged in enjoying a Prestige (Haitian beer, oh now that was a treat!!!).  We were threading through those twisting, winding, narrow streets, stopping and starting, our driver weaving in and out and around other vehicles and pedestrians.  Still I was craning this way and that, to see, to drink in, as much as I possibly could.  I knew we were leaving the next day.  I wasn't ready.  I still wanted more.

As we slowed to a stop I looked to my left at a young woman--15, 25, I don't know, to me the Haitians are ageless and timeless in their beauty.  She was standing at the top of a set of stairs, wearing a dress, dark brown with pale patterns, lovely against her dark skin.  As our eyes connected, the gaze she returned to me was level, unwavering, gently curious.  I nodded, I raised my hand in greeting, and smiled her way. 

In the next moment I was stunned, left breathless.  Her face broke into a smile so brilliant I was filled with an ache I could hardly bear, a gratitude so immense I could hardly hold it.  I saw her, and she saw me, and in that moment we shared what it was to see another, to say beyond and without words, "Ah.  There YOU are.  There YOU are."

I fell in love in Haiti, with her people, with their beauty, with their laughter, with their resiliency, with being "a Blanco"--no slur, instead a statement of fellow-recognition, even a term of almost-friendship.  I fell in love with their tenacity, with their need, with their acceptance, with the difficulties they face--and I know I understand very few of those--with their generosity of spirit.

As we were on the first leg of our trip, Jen and I talked at length about what we might find our encounter, how we might be "cracked open."  In jest she said, "So, Ada, do you think we might become two of 'those people,' you know, people who start going on mission trips and can't stop?"  At the time we laughed about it, tee-heeing in a tentative way at the prospect.  And yet, now I understand why our companion David, having just made his 4th trip into Port-au-Prince, his first being the day of the earthquake three years ago, has said he will return again, and has even shared it is his utmost desire to move to Haiti once his girls graduate from college.

I too will return.  Haiti, her hurts and her anguish, her joys and her scars, her laughter and her amazing faith, are in me and in my heart.  For I fell in love in Haiti.