Sensorial Experiences

First impression from friends remind us to look anew at our surroundings. I love the reminder.

This week we welcome a lovely group from Kansas City, MIssouri here to visit and learn about Haiti, teach in the CONASPEH Seminary and nursing school, play with and feed children in our partner orphanages and get a taste of what a day in the life looks like in this chaotically beautiful country.

We always enjoy visitors. Not only do they bring a little piece of the spirit of home with them, they allow us to see Haiti afresh as we watch and listen to their impressions. Emotional and physical reactions to the sensorial experience of Haiti are easy to read and remind us of our own first impressions not so long ago.

As a friend of ours put it, "you can read all about something in colorful words, you can look at pictures that cause even deeper reactions, but nothing really brings you into an experience like the smell of a place."

And oh the smells there are. Composting vegetation chokes the air with a sickly sweet smell as we drive past markets mid afternoon. Fish freshly caught and others cooking hours in the sun send up their pungent odors as we pass closer to the harbor. Burning trash can smell both herbal if leaves are part of the garbage or toxic if plastic bottles melt among the flames. Stagnant water sitting in clogged sewers, drying urine on pavement, and the smell of rot as we pass a dead dog on the side of the road challenge the strength of stomachs sometimes. Yet if the breeze is just right, you can catch the scent of salt of the ocean, washing the air of the its less-than-lovely smells. Cooking bread dissolves the smells of the street when we pass a bakery, allowing for a collective "ahhh" to rise up from riders in the car. Bright tropical flowers spilling over concrete walls send fragrant perfumes into the air as they warm in the hot afternoon sun. Grilled chicken on street-side bar-b-ques gets the salivary glands running, and the spices of Creole sauce paint the air around side-walk restaurants. When clouds release their cargos in a wet soaking rain, the earth smells organic as if you can almost sniff plants getting greener, dirt growing muddy, dust being knocked from the air.

The sights in a drive through the city are overwhelming and close in around us like a kaleidoscope of activity spinning past the car window as we wind through bustling streets. After 11 months, I always see something new. From our visitors, we are reminded of the physically astonishing feats observed in the people working on the streets. Men pulling wooden carts loaded high with crippling weight, pulling their cargo with sweat glistening on their faces, their feet straining in the dust to muscle another step along the bustling road. The sight of women carrying a weight-lifters load of supplies on their head sends astonished gasps from friends witnessing the elegant work for the first time. Most of all, the incredible mass of people that fill the streets, neighborhoods, markets, coastlines and communities in this country can be the most remarkable difference from the comparible wide-open feel of American life. Every second of a drive gives an eyefull of sights, faces, activities that can leave you dizzy with observation, and the smells bring a viseral feeling to the sights passing by.

But its watching the reactions of visiting friends to experiences after we step out of the car that touches me the most, reminds me of why our life here feels so emotionally raw at times. Shock, disbelief and numbness fall over us when we first come face-to-face with the realities of poverty spread out before our eyes. The surprise of Haitian hospitality dissolves our self consciousness about our foreignness and privilege. Smiles pierce through the heartbreak of seeing the brave and beautiful children filling orphanages, living lives we wish we could change. Spirit burns anew in churches filled with song, hands lifted, voices soaring, drums beating rhythms that dance with your heartbeat and force your body to move. Laughter surprises us as we get caught up in the jovial sense of humor of our Haitian hosts. We are inspired by the survivors, the innovators, the visionaries, the hard-workers that share their stories with us in the medical clinics, the classrooms, the churches, and in the the streets.

Thanks to RCC for sharing their adventure with us and awakening our own senses once again to the vivid world around us.