Pride and Mangoes

                Delightfully, it is mango season around here. Mangoes of many kinds are everywhere and it is wonderful. I have been watching the fruit on the tree in our backyard grow since I got here in January, so I was pretty excited when they started ripening enough for us to eat them. They have been every bit as delicious as I was anticipating, although I have yet to eat one without getting at least some of it on my clothes. We joke that I eat mangoes like a baby. People in the neighborhoods we visit have been giving us bags and bags of mangoes as well. There is something humbling about receiving a bag of mangoes so heavy it takes two people to carry it from someone who, to my American thinking has so little.

I heard a number of negative opinions of the Haitian people when I was getting ready to come down here. Some perceptions came from the media, some from people who have only been down here long enough not to realize how much they do not know about this culture. I am not so naïve as to say something ridiculous like “all Haitians are generous and giving” or some such nonsense. I have no right to characterize all Haitian people as anything (other than Haitian). At the same time I want you all to see how the people I am coming to know, who I hope to be truly friends with one day, can be generous and giving, can share what they have with others.

                I am chastened a bit every time we are handed another bag of fruit from our friends. I catch myself falling into the trap of characterizing poverty as a physical lack, of thinking that the want of material things I see around me means that the people here have less to give me than I to give them. And I know better. I KNOW better. The people I am getting to know take resilience to a level I cannot fathom. Without making them seem overly simple, they know how to smile and survive in a way that I simply do not. Every time they share their mangoes, or coconuts or their homes with me a bit of my pride and sinful thinking can be chipped away, as I seek to appreciate what they can give in this relationship.

                So, will you join me in prayers of gratitude for mangoes? I’m kidding. Sort of. Seriously though, will you join me in praying against my own pride getting in the way of relationships with the people I am getting to know, and for blessings over them as they seek to give to us? Thank you.