Ke Kontan

Ke Kontan

Thursday 19 April 2012

Tragedy can inspire..

In the middle of last minute packing, I had to stop.  As I was scattering around my room I noticed my hands were shaking, my heart was racing, and tears began to fill my eyes.  I have to write. Writing has now become a source of healing for me.  As the departure date is approaching (only 4 days away now) everything is becoming more real.  I have been on cloud nine for the last few months and I have been unable to really sit down and process everything that is going on.  I am completely overwhelmed tonight.  These next four days are going to be a rollercoaster ride, with lots of ups and downs, and the ride will only come to a halt when I step off of the plane on April 24th, and into the country I will now be calling "home".

 Not every story has a happy ending, and although I have been a part of some stories that have had remarkable endings, I have also been part of a plot that has ended in tragedy...

It was only a short year ago when I first stepped foot onto the Haitian soil.  I had no idea how much that trip would impact and change me as a person.  Before I traveled to Haiti I did not know one Haitian person, I did not even know where Haiti was on a map, but after seeing and hearing about it on the news I had this immense tug in my heart to get up, to go, and to help in anyway that I could.  During my time in Haiti I have experienced love, joy, loss, and grief.  In this line of work, you are not going to be able to save everyone, that is the sad universal truth.  You try to tell yourself this, you try to wrap your head around it, but that does not lessen the hurt and the pain you feel when you lose someone you have gotten to know, someone you have grown to love,  due to cholera, disease, violence, or unfair situations.  It hurts.  Since being home from Haiti I have had a few memories that have haunted me.  I have experienced the stages of grief, and some tell me that what I am experiencing is post-traumatic stress. Guilt consumed me, I felt like I had failed myself for returning home and also failed my Haitian brothers and sisters. I didn't want to talk to anyone about Haiti, I screened phone calls, ignored friends and family, I didn't leave my house for days, I pushed my university studies to the side and spent countless hours sitting in front of my laptop reading blogs, looking at pictures, trying to find anything that could connect me to the country and the people I had left behind. I felt as if no one here in Canada could possibly understand what I was feeling.   I felt as if my heart had been so thoroughly and irreparably broken that I could never feel joy again, especially in North America and that at best there might have been a little contentment with that.  Everyone wanted me to talk, to share my stories, and they tried their best to understand and comprehend what I was going through.  They wanted me to rejoin life and to pick up the pieces and move forward.  But I couldn't.  I became numb and my brain became dead.  I became emotionless.  I tried to step out of the rut I had fallen into, I wanted to, but I just had to lie in my own sorrow, in my own memories, with my arms wrapped around myself, grieving, until I didn't have to anymore.  It has taken six months for me to be able to open up and to share my experiences with people. I still experience this grief occasionally and I still hesitate when people ask about my experience.  I guess I just feel as if words will not do them justice, it would be impossible to make anyone truly understand, unless they had seen it with their own eyes and had felt it in their own hearts. But with the pain and the loss I have also had the privilege and the pride of knowing that through every heartache or down right shitty situation, I have met some of the strongest, bravest, most beautiful, most creative and most resilient people in the world.  I have met my best friends, my family, my children, and people that I will forever hold close in my heart.  When you are in Haiti, things are put into perspective for you.  The little things you once had worried about in the past, are erased.  Haiti teaches you about the fragility of life and it reminds you to be thankful everyday.  Sometimes tragedy inspires us and makes us come alive.  You realize that not all stories have happy endings, but with each story, you take a part of it with you, you learn something, and you grow and become stronger because of it, regardless of the ending.

So this is the mental mess that I am experiencing int he midst of this outstanding and amazing life experience.  I know this is what I am meant to be doing, that Haiti feels more like home to me than any place I have ever known before.  For some odd reason I have become more content with less food options, volunteering instead of having a "real job", dirt on my feet, bucket showers instead of hot running water, and playing with kids on the streets then having the luxuries and comfort of life in Canada.  I don't know how long I am supposed to be in Haiti, or what I will be doing next.  I am trying hard to focus on the now instead of the unknown.  I do not want to be distracted from my babies, from my children, from my staff, from my friends, from the volunteers I will be looking after, from the responsibilities I have now taken on and from the chances I have to make a positive impact in this hurting, but yet, so beautiful country.  I am going to miss all of my friends and family and it is going to be so hard to leave, but I am SO EXCITED to return to Haiti, and to feel useful again, and to live out this dream and this passion.  Waiting is a key part of our lives.  An aspect of living we often look down upon in a negative light.  Yet it couldn't be more true that the best things come about as a result of waiting.  A favoured dish is brought to your table by waiting for the cooking to be done.  A newborn baby is brought into the world after waiting nine months.  All of the waiting we do is always worth it.  The results are always so amazing.  And as I glance at the calendar, I see that I've waited to be back where I feel that I am needed.  All these months spent away from the people and children that I love, and I had left behind, separated by physical distance.  And here it is, about to pay off.  I can count on one hand the days until I return and get to see them again, until I can hug them and hold my babies and to begin this adventure.  This may have seemed like a long and painful wait to endure, but I know it will be so worth it when I get off that plane and know that they are waiting for me.  Mwen renmen Ayiti !

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