More 6 words

From a friend's book club. Amazing how much we can reveal saying so little...

"I love to cook and eat."
Ellen H

"Grab life by the horns today"
Angi C

"Life's a journey. Make it count."
Liz H

"Interested in everything, doing too much."
Becky F

"Just recently bloomed where I'm planted."
Sharon B

"One long road with many detours."
Dawn T

"Happy now. I'll just keep going."
Sarah T

"Get off the merry-go-round and breathe."
"Always question. Dig for the truth."
Bean K

"Good life happens at book club."
The Club

Six words to describe our lives

Ernest Hemingway was supposedly once asked to write a story in six words. "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Inspired by the idea, SMITH magazine sought 6-word memoirs from its readers, publishing them in a book: "Not quite what I was planning." (http://www.smithmag.net/sixwords/)

I emailed everyone I knew, asking for the same thing, 6-word memoirs, just an experiment. Here is the awesome response:

“ups and downs with little understanding”
Charlotte

“All questions with few important answers.”
Courtney

"Hope, believe, and most importantly love."
Megan

“slowing metabolism, learning how to party”
Dan

“whatever you do, make it funky”
Brendan

“Turn it up all the way.”
Anon friend’s Mom

“along the rail, finish line nears”
Anon

“family, faith, friends….love, pray, hope”
Katherine

“empathy, compassion, reflective, awareness, perspective, contributer”
Math Teacher

“The mountains lift up my soul.”
Mike

“Doubt talks, Brian writhes, God whispers.”
Brian

“God works through our weakness. Hope!”
Michele

“Love others well to serve God.”
Kevin

“Nothing is permanent, even sharpie tattoos.”
“Two years more, then life begins”
Laura

“Shooting for the moon, stumbles often.”
Andy

“go away and leave me alone”
Steve

“Rediscovering daily that life is wonderful.”
Nick

“Life to the fullest, family, God.”
John

“I live for becoming happy
I work hardly for keeping my life
I trust that God exist and He is present everywhere
I try to be cool with everyone”
Alain
Seminarian from Haiti

"life is just a true lie"
Sothearith, Cambodia
Currently studying at Dali University, China

“Winners never quit, quitters never win”
Chhim Sereypong
Royal University student
Cambodia

“too hard on myself, lighten up”
My Dad

“too hard on myself, it’s genetic”
Me (couldn’t resist...)

“Life is a box of chocolate…”
Sarah

“When all else fails, eat chocolate”
My Grandmother!

“70 yrs. I know He exists.”
Sister Bernadette Cordis, Maryknoll Missioner

“Plug and chug. Will it help?”
Anon

“Resisting cynicism: liberation, justice starts within.”
Me

Crushed

In return for a favor, I was asked to write "reflections on Haiti" for the ND College of Science webpage. I didn't want to. I didn't want another fluffy, kum-bay-ya, I'm-saving-the-world deal. Mom told me to "just be authentic." Here goes:

‘Global health’ has become a buzzphrase at U.S. educational institutions. When my parents attended college, undergraduates didn’t have summer internships in Ugandan clinics, or get research grants to study the traditional birthing practices of Bolivians. There was little established connection between ivy-ridden campuses and school-less villages. But now, I look at the paths set before me at Notre Dame: opportunities for my peers and me to travel to Thailand, Guatemala, Lesotho, basically anywhere. But what do we learn from these experiences? What meaning do we find?

As informed young people, we probably anticipate the grinding poverty. But I think we are often taken aback by more insidious perceptions, as I was in Haiti. After working with the Haiti Program for three semesters, I spent eight days over Christmas break in the coastal town of Leogane and the capital, Port-au-Prince. Reading Dr. Paul Farmer’s The Uses of Haiti drew me to the country. For the past year, I have devoured books and news articles on Haiti with near-obsession, trying to learn as much as possible about its political, economic, and social situation. I thought I was prepared to see both individual Haitians’ poverty and the oppressive structures that keep them so poor. I was wrong.

Underneath the excitement of finally making friends with Haitians and being immersed in their rich culture, I was crushed. A slow crush. I just hadn’t expected the level of hunger and desperation, or the ways survival-mentality can direct people’s every action.

I visited what used to be a premier healthcare facility, one of the best in the country five years ago. Now it is a ghost hospital. Its problems start much higher than the level of the patient-doctor encounter. Bureaucrats squabbling over money and structural issues results in unpaid doctors and nurses. Understandably, these professionals leave, and no one is available to care for the patients. So the patients don’t come. They stay sick.

Walking through the near-empty wards, I finally realized it takes more than resources and good intentions to build a public health system. Medical missions and money donations are not enough. If we—as smart, caring students—want to improve healthcare in countries like Haiti, we need to understand the structural problems such as those the ghost hospital experiences. We need to recognize the oppression that underwrites all poverty. And we need to voluntarily face frustration.

In a sense, Notre Dame’s ‘global health’ opportunities have crushed me. Thanks to experiences my parents never had, I have seen problems so big they seem unsolvable. But also thanks to my Notre Dame education, I’ve learned that problems may be extremely difficult, but not impossible. As long as we don’t oversimplify ‘global health,’ and as long as we’re willing to work against the challenging structural problems, I think we can deliver quality healthcare to sick people—in Haiti and wherever else we may go.

I left with a very different view of Haiti than what I expected to see. Not better, and not worse, just different. I’m still trying to understand. I wrestle with Haiti each day. I cannot wait to go back.

Give us this day our daily bread

God Our Father, it is you who gives us this food.
Help all people that you made find this food.
Thank you Father, thank you Father
for this food that you give us.
Thank you Father, thank you Father
for this food that you give us.


A simple expression of faith.
What, or who, keeps all people God made from finding food?
It must have been intercepted.

Uncomfortable Truth: READ THIS ARTICLE

http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HIP/2_10_8/2_10_8.html

This piece by Kevin Pina is about the recent deluge of articles about Haitians eating dirt cookies in the slums (see my Feb. 6 post). But it asks the question few do: WHY are they eating dirt?

Could not our feelings of charity be also feelings of justice?

Haitians eat dirt because we have robbed them of everything else.

Please read this article.

What is she saying?

I had a conversation with a friend today about whether it's right to take photographs of people living in situations very different from ours, of poor people in poor places. While I've often despaired at the exploitive photography--poverty pornography--that abounds in our media, my friend reframed the issue for me. He told me it's not about "taking" a picture and robbing someone's identity for personal purposes. When done correctly, rather, photography is about communication: people tell their stories through what they show the camera. We don't take. They give.

This is Phalla, speaking to you from Cambodia--half a world away. She is blind, but at the end of my weeks with her, she wanted me to take her picture. She told me to show people at home, so they would know our friendship. She also asked for a copy, so she could show people. This photo is all I will ever see of her again.

What is she saying to you? What story is she telling?

Haiti in Ashes

“Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Catholics around the world today heard these words and received the mark that begins a season of repentance, preparation for the salvation of Easter.

As I walked up the aisle—under the ornate, vaulted roof of the Basilica at Notre Dame—I couldn’t help but think of recent “news” from Haiti. “Haitians so poor they eat dirt” read the headline for an AP story run in publications across the country, even in my small community newspaper. Desperate Haitians in Cite Soleil and other slums eat dirt cookies to assuage the constant hunger pangs. Filling their stomachs with dust instead of nourishment.

Apparently, Haitians don’t even need to return to dust at the end of days. They have never left the dust. We are different. In our excessive material possessions, meticulously sanitized homes, and even overly decorated prayer, we need Ash Wednesday to attempt to return to humility—to faith only in the transcendent.

But in Haiti, children play in the dust, bare soles waiting for parasites. The old and frail sleep on the dust, offering no comfort to weary bones. And the hungry—the many many hungry—eat dust, simply having nothing else.

Where is the Bread of Life for them? I can’t help but wonder…

During Lent, Christians remember their charge to be Christ’s hands and feet on earth.

If we are to remember our beginning and eventual end in ashes, what better way to do so than to serve those who have never been allowed to forget their ashes?

Christ died for our sins and rose to bring us out of ashes. Haitians live in ashes. We are Christ on earth. So we must go to those living in ashes and offer them a chance to rise, as Jesus offered to us.

“Mwen te grangou, nou ban m manje….chak fwa nou te fè sa pou yonn nan pi piti pami frè m yo, se pou mwen nou te fè li.”

“I was hungry, you gave me food….each time you did this for one of the least among my brothers, you did it for me.”
Matthew 25

Shattering Perceptions

We choose what we see. Often, we don’t even need to see: our expectations act as a filter for our senses, and we fail to accept deviations from our idea of reality. I went to Haiti—where I’ve passionately wanted to go for the past year—and for the most part, I experienced what I thought I would. I had prepared by searching for photos and video clips online, reading articles upon articles. Without intending to, I had created my vision of Haiti before setting foot on the island.

Unsurprisingly, some of my preconceived notions did not hold. Underneath the excitement and fun of finally being in Haiti—and it was fun!!!—I was crushed. A slow crush. I just hadn’t expected the level of desperation, or the ways survival-mentality can direct people’s every action. Much more than in Phnom Penh, I sensed the hunger. Not that I know what hunger feels like in the least.

I left with a very different view of Haiti than what I expected to see. Not better, and not worse, just different. I’m still trying to understand. I wrestle with Haiti each day.

Many of my friends know how ANGRY I become when people view Haiti as “wild” “uncivilized” “violent” “lawless” “backward” and “forever dependent on our charity.” I get even ANGRIER when people look at Haitian poverty as a phenomenon of “Third Worldedness,” failing to recognize that it is OUR power that has oppressed and impoverished Haiti and so many other places. The public looks at Haiti’s “current situation” (long earning the country a U.S. State Department Travel Warning) in isolation. They don’t CHOOSE to see the uncomfortable reality of the relationships between Western powers and Haiti that have long blocked positive change.

However, realizing that I myself was not immune from faulty preconception, I don’t blame others for selectively seeing. Rather, I have a renewed desire to help educate, to offer up the understanding I continue to seek. I want to use my life to work toward justice, peace, equity, and brother and sisterhood. Impatience and anger won’t help. I need to bring people in, so more of us living in such wealth WANT to shatter our preconceived perceptions to finally see more truth about Haiti….and the world.

Living Haiti