Let me explain how the Haitians clean their laundry. There is no washing machine to put your clothes in (that takes too much water and electricity). Instead, you have a couple of tubs of water, two kinds of soap, and your hands. It is very hard work. First you soak the clothes in soapy water, then you take each item of clothing between your hands and scrub every inch of the article of clothing between your knuckles and make a squishing noise. If you don't make the squishing noise, you are doing it wrong (makes me smile every time I have helped). Then you wring out the clothes. Then you soak them in clean water and wring the clothing out again, and sometimes a third time. After that you hang the clothes on the line to dry. This doesn't sound like much until you think about the sheer number of times that this must be done for a family of 5. In Haiti we go through about two outfits a day because of dirt and sweat. So for a week that is approximately 210 articles of clothing (not including socks). That is a lot of scrubbing and wringing. It is by far one of the hardest jobs that the women of Haiti do. It is monotonous, never ending, and very hard on your hands.
1 Peter 4:10
Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.
These women were offering serving me, and my family, by offering to do an unfun job for us because of their love. What a beautiful picture of Jesus these ladies are to me.
They came this Sunday to serve us by doing our laundry and we were able to bless them instead with time spent together. We have a washing machine at our home so we didn't' need them to serve us in this way, instead we were able to offer them a place to sit, something to drink, and a time to connect as equals. It was absolutely lovely. My heart is overflowing.
The longer I am here, the more I come to understand how much I don't know about Haitian culture. My short time here has taught me that to do well in this culture and to love well I must always come as someone trying to learn. When I come with questions instead of assuming that my American way is best, I am able to partner with the Haitians to find out why they do things the way they do, explain the way we do things in America or the way I see things should be done, and then come to a way that works for both cultures. Sometimes I have found that yes, the American way works and is actually better; such as at Grace we encouraged our managers to have weekly one on ones and weekly or biweekly staff meetings.
Other things we find that although initially it appears that the American way is better, the Haitian way of doing things is actually the most applicable. For instance I didn't understand why each employee needed at least two days off in a row. However, the longer I was there, I realized that unlike America, transportation to their homes is very difficult to find, very expensive, and takes forever (everything in Haiti is MUCH slower). If they were not given two days off in a row then they were unable to live any sort of life outside of their job which in turn, was bad for moral. My Haitian manager told me this, but I didn't understand at first and so I had implemented some schedule changes to better cover the job. Thankfully, God very quickly gave me the eyes to see how this was harming our staff and we were able to change it again.
Now that we are no longer at Grace, our status has changed to one of 'boss' to one of 'friend'. This is completely different and when my lady friends visited me yesterday I asked them how to navigate friendships in Haiti. It is different and here is an example. We get daily and by-weekly texts or calls from our friends. They looks something like this;
Friend: Hi, how are you?
Me: Doing very well. How are you?
F: I am good by the grace of God.
F: How is Shane?
M: He is good.
F: How are your kids?
M: They are good. How is your family?
F: They are good. Thank you.
F: I miss you and your family. Have a good night.
M: We miss you too. Thank you for talking to me. Have a good night.
That is it. This wouldn't be unusual except this can happen 5x in one night as all of our friends call us and say the exact same thing. So I asked my lady friends why and what this is. They let me know that this is how Haitians maintain their friendship. They will reach out to their friends daily, or sometimes bi-weekly so that their friends know they are valued and not forgotten. The conversations are short because there is not a lot of money to be put on cell phones. They have long conversations with their very closest friends.
A part of me (the American) thinks this is silly. Why bother with this short conversation at all, how about a text or just seeing each other at the market? But the part (the one trying to learn from this Haitian culture) can see the value of a quick check in, because it lets the other person know they are important and valued. And since there is not a lot to do at night in Haiti, its a nice connection. So, I am learning.
Prayer needs:
-Continue to pray for unity for our family
-Pray that we have the ears to hear God's whisper as he directs our next step
-Pray that we can continue to learn about the Haitian culture and to be a positive impact for God.
Some family soccer. :)
Our drinking water is walking distance away from our house but to make things easier we fill this cooler. This is how Landen gets a drink.
This weekend we cleaned this little house which has four bathrooms and four showers. It is very near our home, so technically we now have 5 bathrooms and 5 showers. Ha!
A picture of the compound we live on. This is their conference area with the beautiful Haiti mountains behind.
No comments:
Post a Comment