Shifting Gears...Passe Catabois

Monday July 16, 2012

It’s so hard here.  We made it to Passe Catabois Saturday afternoon.  I’ve only been here one day and I can already feel the pressure.  The pressure to help.  It’s almost as if the people feel they are entitled to the help you are trying to give so it comes across as demanding or a guilt trip and that is just hard to take.  Everyone needs something; a job, food, money for school, a soccer ball… As we were trying to organize and prepare for camp on Sunday, it was person after person coming to the house to ask for a job or ask for something.  This is mixed in with friends visiting who you haven’t seen in so long, so emotions are so up and down.  You want to help but know it will never be enough and also know it creates a sort of dependency.  How to help by empowering them to have enough to take care of themselves is the ultimate challenge.  But then again, I have been born into prosperity so what is exactly my role in “taking care of the poor”?  It’s a question that will likely take a lifetime to answer.  But for now it makes sense to work to provide education, health knowledge, and skills that can support them to survive in the world they live in.  And work to give access to healthcare so they can live a life ailment-free or avoid “stupid deaths” and continue on pursuing what they choose or dream to do.  So I will soldier on in this even though maybe they get angry or we don’t have enough space in camp, or don’t give the clothes off our backs.  I hope I am somehow doing all this right.  PC is the ultimate place that always challenges my selfishness… in all things.

So…now sitting in the kitchen as the rain pours down outside.  The sound is deafening as it pounds on the tin roof.  I kind of love it when it pours here.  Everyone hides somewhere, whether in their house or under some awning (like our porch – I’m not sure how many kids are there right now but I hear a lot of voices).  I also feel a relative cool breeze, which I am welcoming considering the constant sweating that has been happening about 20 hours out of the day.  It is also pretty breezy which is good to air out the kitchen – we’ve been having rat problems, which actually started before we got here.  They put rat poison out because apparently the rats have taken over the kitchen in the absence of any guests for a while.  So we arrived right in time.  Dead rat smell mixed with the dust and left over evidence of the rats has been challenging for my clean-freakness.  But we are “degaje-ing” (making it work) as always and remembering what we are thankful for:

Soap.  Water.  Bread, peanut butter, and coffee.  Rain.  The sound of kids trying to sing American songs outside.  Frer Jal who might come later to look for the exact location of the dead rat.  The reaction and hugs from people I haven’t seen in a long while, hearing “Oh!  Miss Whin-a!”  The ease of being disconnected from the world for a time.   Sitting on the back porch.  Leah and her ability to pull out the energy even when we are dragging it. 

Pray for us as we have started week 3 of camp and are switching gears to work with people up in the mountains instead of the city and how we are tired and saying “we are getting old!”.  Pray that the community catches the vision of teaching, discipling, and making leaders out of the children.