Contrasts

If nothing else, Haiti is a land of contrasts. Gray dusty rubble and trash piles amidst Caribbean tropical beauty and coastal splendor. Some of the warmest, friendliest, most giving and gracious people we have ever met interspersed with those who will manipulate, lie, and steal to get what they want. Displays of great wealth and resources scattered within the grinding poverty and lives marked with a lack of so many necessities of life. Shining examples of cleverness and entrepreneurial spirit balanced with ridiculously wasteful or dangerous superstitions holding people back. 

In our own personal experience, I paused this past week when I put 2,500 Gourdes of gasoline into the big guesthouse 15-passenger van. That's about $60US and at nearly $5 a gallon the needle went from 1/4 to 3/4 tank. The minimum wage in Haiti is $5/day. A partial tank of gas in a big van represents 2 plus weeks of full time pay for an unskilled worker here. Sometimes it's hard to wrap my head around that.

This week offered another contrast for us. Julie and I had the opportunity to get away for a couple of nights while the house had no reservations, and we had a friend familiar with the house operations willing to stay and keep an eye on things for us. (It is not recommended to leave a house unoccupied even one night in Port-Au-Prince.) We made a trip to the southern coast of Haiti near a small city called Jacmel and stayed two nights at a lovely small hotel.

Our room was in the second floor far right. 

View from our balcony. See what I mean by contrasts?? 

Obviously we enjoyed the amazing views and beautiful getaway, but it is also hard to be fully immersed in the experience without realizing how fortunate we are to have this opportunity. Here we are in Haiti - a terribly poor country - with a group of supporters providing the resources for us to be here doing what we do and on top of all that we get to go off on a beautiful get away like this. There is a piece of me that thinks no one deserves this level of comfort and yes luxury when there are so many who don't even have the basics. This internal conflict has been going on for thousands of years, and I am not about to solve it here and now. But honestly, the complexity of the issue is draining to mull over. 

We also took the opportunity to visit Bassin Bleu - a stunning natural wonder of waterfalls and aqua blue pools of fresh mountain stream water. We needed to ford a small river in our pickup truck and wind our way through a few miles of mountain dirt roads to get there, but boy was it worth it. 

Again.. contrasts.

So that's what is swirling around in my head this afternoon. I hope this note finds anyone who reads it enjoying the wonders of the advent season where we focus on a time of anticipation. I know I am anticipating a time when all the big questions are going to be answered once and for all. 

Blessings,

G.