Haiti

Haiti has fallen apart, so I am told. One of the greatest people I know sent me a text telling me that much. A quake, 7.0, chaos, no food, no water, 100,000+ dead, more lost. It hardly seemed real (especially when it comes as a small, polite text message in the wee hours of the morning).

You hardly remember that you are disconnected from the world when you are in village. When the news really does not impact your day to day life, you often do not miss it. The bubble of your life shrinks until it encompasses a group of villagers numbering less than those that showed up at the last family reunion. News suddenly becomes something along the lines of how many times you said Bon Jour to Issouf today or who was not in uniform this morning during class. You even get excited when people bring up incidents about a group of wild dogs eating a goat, even though it was over two years ago. It is still big news.

So, when the world trembles and you realize that you never felt it, it becomes its own shock in your life. Suddenly, it is apparent that not only is the world not impacting you but you are not necessarily at the top of its list of Who's Who. Is that not what you set out to do? Help the world? Impact the world? Have it hit you back? See it? Feel it? Taste it? Get run over by it? Fall in love with it? Where is the world beyond this tiny corner? And what can I do?

So here are my thoughts:

What can be done? Go to PIH.org or Redcross.org and donate to the crisis relief.

---As PCVs we often do not have the means (physical or monetary) to do much, however many of us have asked our friends and family to hold off on sending us that next care-package and, instead, donating that money to an organize (such as above). While it means less Hershey Kisses and Trail Mix for us, it is one way in which we can help.

---Money is not the solution but it is the least we can do. If you want to do more, they can help you do more. I strongly recommend PIH.org (Partners in Health) as the group has been working in Haiti for a long time (run by American doctor, Paul Farmer) and will be there for as long as they are needed (before and long after quakes).

my kids don't learn in class

I happen to have wonderful parents that instilled a respect for handwork, honesty and kindness in me, as well as any number of other lessons. Over time, I have not so much discovered new stretches of that land as come to understand better many of the lessons they taught me. One of the greatest of these is independence in learning. They have always encouraged me to learn for myself. To explore the world of my own volition. To make errors and learn from those errors.

I do not have kids of my own. But I am surrounded constantly by my students. To me, they are my kids. I work with them, teach them, play with them and ultimately have to punish/reward them. They spend more time with me than any other singular adult in our quarter. From this, I get a unique perspective into their world and, in my ways, my own.

From a teaching perspective, I have at times felt inconsequential to their lives. I can teach and lecture till I am blue in the face and get nothing but blank stares in return. Questions and attempts at intriguing my students can bounce off those stares and disappear into the heavy, heated air. Then the next day, without a thought to yesterday, the faces will be full of knowledge and understanding, questions and answers. Where did it come from?

i may have posed a question in class but it is not until the kids can turn it over, explore it, make errors, chew it up and spit it out that they own it and send forth answers. In the classroom with over a hundred students, there is no time for this. They are trapped in a confined space with masses of sweat and odor where whispers turn deafening in their quantity. How can one learn in such places?

So it is the evening dusk and nightly stars that watch them trace over the questions I have posed to make them their own. It happens often through repetition. I can hear it outside my window. It is almost a song, a repetition of verbs and nouns in a singsongy tone. Sometimes it comes as a knock at my door and a few red marks of error. Then discussions, even debates, can ensue. At some point, they digest it and absorb some of the energy and vitamins from that day's portion.

So I have learned to look at my job in this way:

Indeed, I can only lead a horse to water but not make it drink. However, I can sure make that water look mighty enticing.

P.S. I now know a piece of what my parents must have felt all those years. I was truly a stubborn child that had to learn it of my own accord. Thanks Mom and Dad for sticking to it.