Anse-a-Pitre

         A four and a half hour drive into the mountains yesterday landed us in Anse-a-Pitre, where we held a community clinic. This was our first time in the area, and the people of the community demonstrated their gratitude with hand carved wooden plaques, thank you notes and a sumptuous meal. Their generosity made the bumps, jostles and headaches worth it.
       For obvious reasons, I spend a lot of time thinking about cross-cultural interactions, the ways the different kinds of poverty manifest themselves in different cultures, and the ways in which Westerners in general and American Christians in particular reinforce stereotypes and assumptions that worsen the respective kinds of poverty for both my Haitian and American friends. A repeated example of this is when Americans visit Haiti, are overwhelmed by the material poverty and make the mistake of thinking that because of their material poverty Haitians cannot do things for themselves. Whether it's getting to the clinic, or feeding and dressing their children adequately, we as Americans often assume that because our Haitian friends and acquaintances do not have access to the abundance of material goods that we do, they have less to offer in our cross-cultural relationships.
     The longer I am here, the more vehemently I disagree with those assumptions. I am brought up short again and again by the beauty of my Haitian friends' hospitality. Yesterday was a perfect example. When my American eyes looked at the situation my patients were in, I am tempted to think that because they apparently have so little, they do not have much to offer. That's a false assumption. Yesterday I saw a community working together to seek treatment for their sickest members, young men and women assisting in the organizing and flow of the clinic, pastors advocating for those that needed it. I community in action.
     The longer I live in this country, the more I learn about what generosity and living as brothers and sisters in Christ can look like done well. My Haitian friends have unique gift and talents to bring to the table of Christ that make all of us richer. I was (am) hesitant in posting this, for fear of the myriad ways I could be misunderstood here. This is not a "they're poor, but happy" post. I have spent too much time one on one with patients in the clinic to ascribe to that theory. My friends and patients are acutely aware of the ways in which their material lack makes their lives harder than their Western friends' lives, but that isn't the whole picture. My friends bring something beautiful, rich and deep to the table of Christ and I don't want that overlooked or missed in any way.  I pray that in my time here and abroad as I share about my experiences, in word and in deed, I would learn to do them justice.