Experience, heart and soul

Being in Haiti for this trip was amazing, heartbreaking, encouraging, gut wrenching, inspiring, brilliant, and I feel an experience that has moved me as much as any experience in my life. I've lived all around the US, in Europe and in Africa, but this trip really moved me. First, Haiti must be one of the most connected places on Earth. At all times there are people walking, catching tap taps (trucks with benches in the back)...







...on and off and on again, riding bikes in tandem, motorcycles three and four on the same seat at a time, talking, selling, trading and simply making it work. The connectiveness of the people push the life there, make it possible to make a way, seemingly out of no way. But there is. This connectiveness I feel is the key to Haiti's future. We went to a school in the heart of Cite Soleil, one of the roughest cities on the planet.




garbage piled in the sewers

There were women, men, children, grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters in the same room...learning. The seed, that's the seed. The spark. It was breathtaking to me in the midst of the sea of turmoil an island, engaged, eyes cemented to the wall of a chalkboard. Ad hoc chairs, stools and whatever could be used to have a place in the room of the sun. Soleil means sun and the city, in that room was indeed shining. The surroundings however, where quite gloomy. UN peacekeepers spotted every quarter mile or so with grenades, machine guns, riot uniforms and all.


Heaps of garbage, much of it burning, as much of Haiti is perpetually burning. Pigs and goats rooting in the muck wherever they pleased. And the bustle of the people, constant movement was the glue that kept it all from collapsing, the weight and burden as heavy as any in history. But hope is where I found glory. There is much hope. I'll get into that in later posts. And there was of course Jimmy moving seamlessly and effortlessly from the high hotels, to the dankness of Wharf City touching hearts wherever he went.



And Josh "Rollin'" Brolin, connected as much and funny as ever, hanging off the back of a tap tap any chance he got.



Later posts, later posts...