Color in a Dark Place

Sunday August 12, 2012

A day to chill.  We aren’t working today which is nice but hopefully we can somehow stay cool.  The heat is always so suffocating when you aren’t working.  We’ll see what trouble we can get into today.  Juuuuust kidding dad…

We have one more day in Cite Soley tomorrow to finish up the painting, but yesterday Caitlin finished the mural.  I can’t believe it went up so fast as we had 5 workers helping us each day.  The mural is beautiful and is located in a kind of central area of the zone so so many people will see it each day.  Hopefully the colors and words and message will lift some spirits.

 

So, it’s the last week.  I’m hoping I can finish the trip well.  It’s been different this past week with the painting work.  The days are longer because I’m not painting a lot as there are more than enough hands to help (that is an understatement).  It’s exhausting as my body drags a bit in the beating sun and the brightness of the sun reflecting off the white cement ground makes me feel so tired.  And the people are a whole ‘nother level.  The kids constantly swarming around you, hanging off your shirt and grabbing your hands as you walk.  You can’t go anywhere without a following and kids asking “pick me up!”.  The kids are hard; not listening, pushing every limit but they are so hungry.  Hungry for attention, hungry for love, hungry for opportunity to participate, hungry for food…  It tests my patience for sure. 

Thursday I was helping sand down the cement border of the “canal” aka the sewer, the garbage dump, the toilet, etc., which they wanted repainted.  Some of the guys came up with words and sayings to write on the top to encourage the community and as I passed by one of them yesterday the irony of it all was almost too much to bear.  The words written in clean white “Kenbe zon nou a pwop pou nou ka avanse” (keep our zone clean so we can develop).  I stared at the word “pwop” (clean) and shifted my eyes directly above to where all the contents of the canal lay – full of every garbage under the sun sitting in a lime green and brown murky water and has a stench so ripe you think everything thrown away in Port-au-Prince passes through here on the way to the sea.  It’s hard.  People living in this space.  It’s difficult and exhausting for me to be here for 6 hours a day sometimes.  Imagining living my entire life here lets me know how weak I am in comparison to the people here.  They do it because they have no choice but they do it with a strength I do not know.  It’s obvious everyone is in desperate situations but their outlook on life was reflected in another set of words we wrote on the canal: “Fe byen jan ou kapab, kote ou kapab, fason ou kapab, le ou kapab, tout tan ou kapab, jiskaske ou pa kapab.” (Do the best you can, where you can, the way you can, when you can, all the time you can until you cannot.)  I think I can learn a lot from this place.