Love

The way I love Steve. The way I miss him from the minute I leave his presence. It's like my dearest dog, Oskar. Or my maw maw. Both dead in the past two years. When I think about going home, there is an ache in my heart where their presence is absent. A longing. To be with them. But more than that, that they knew. And that they still know, from heaven. How much I love them.

I've put my heart in two places. And when I leave these children, this family.

I miss them. My heart aches.

And I hope they know,

How desperately I love them. 

"And he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore most gladly I will boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

II Corinthians 12:9

Presence

On the other side of the mountain, a half naked baby sits contentedly on a pile of white rubble. Babbling and rummaging in the rocks. Men with shovels and axes hack away at rough terrain, building a wall flush with the mountainside. Sweating and grimacing in the dust and sunshine. Chickens flutter and scurry to get out of the way as a boy hustles down the narrow path with a string of goats.

Little boys throw a tennis ball that I gave them, last November. A soccer game is going on between small rocks for goals. Shoeless or clad in flimsy sandals, they laugh and shriek gleefully, the ground crunching beneath their feet. 

Like those plastic homes for ants, so much life is being lived, on this two-dimensional mountainside. A plane.

And I see it all. 

The mundane and the daily.

The exceptional. 

Work ethic and satisfaction. Contentment and joy.

The daily.

They are not waiting. They are living. 

Now. 

Falling

I sit in the early morning, Friday sunshine.

Drinking coffee, waiting for the world to wake me up.

William falls out of the chair beside me. His body taught, and seizing. 

He convulses and is rigid. The cup shatters as I lunge to catch his head before it hits the tile.

I wake up everyday, 

With blessings I don't even consider.

But I want to. 

Love

Soft voices

Babet, I think you need to change your shorts. They're dirty, the pastor says.

Oh, no. That's just paint. They're not dirty. 

If there's paint on your shorts, they're not clean. Go ahead and change now. 

Oh... 

For the rain

In creole, the word for an umbrella is 'parapli.' Literally translated a 'for the rain.' And in a place with so much cultural ambiguity and chaos, I am thankful for this simple and easily understood translation. In fact, so much of the time. When I am out walking. When I stumble into this conversation or that. When I am left scratching my head, and wondering, no matter how well I can speak this language, how much do I actually understand of this life. 

I walk the same route every day. About an hour and fifteen minutes, the first 45 being entirely up hill, and turning around when I arrive at a small baptist church in a little town up the mountain called Fort Jacque. 

I've made many friends along the way. A tailor who always shouts, is that you, Isabel. To which I reply, no, it's a different one. 

Two litte girls, their mother dead, working with their grandmother, selling bags of pistachios and popcorn. I pick them up at the corner near their house, and they walk the last leg of my journey, to the church, before turning back and cutting across the field to go home. We part ways, and they turn to me expectantly.

Tomorrow if God wills it, Izabel.

Yes, see you tomorrow little ones. 

And I walk home. 

Wondering what God wills. For me. For them. 

And why.

More than anything. 

Why me? And why them. 

90 days

When the time passes slowly. When I am homesick, or when the water I pour over my head is too cold. When I am unsure about the future. Of having divided my heart between countries. When I am reluctant to leave and anxious to be home for the holidays.

I think about Michael. Who has spent ninety days in prison, today. 

The what's next. The fear. No, the terror. The heartbreak. The discomfort and anger. The injustice. The blatant audacity of the entire thing. The laughing matter.

Except this isn't a joke. It's only absurd. 

Hiatus

I haven't been writing as much as I used to. As much as I should. And part of it is simple. That, the day to day ongoings here. The shock of everything. Well, I'm used to it. And part of it is that it's not easy anymore. 

It's not new. I'm not in a constant wonder at my surroundings. The thrills of speaking creole, or the interactions in the market where I successfully buy vegetables.

And yet, while I don't stand in awe.

The sufferering in so many regards is much the same.

And that, I cannot get over.

This is their life.

I watch it.

And I'm a part of it.

But there's no end in sight. There's no arrival at the airport terminal.

Christmas cocktails or hugs from my parents. Kisses from my boyfriend and presents under a tree. 

There's just tomorrow. the ongoing, ever present. Living. 

And sometimes, it's so hard here, I think.

Well, what is left to say?