the anniversary

Man, this has been an emotional week.

I just got back from mass at St. Damien's. The service was beautiful and the perfect compliment to the mass we had last night.

Last night a huge group of us went out to Titanye, the same place we went on All Souls Day in November. Titanye is a city/area (labels are never definite around here) of rolling hills, not more than 20 feet from the beautiful blue Caribbean sea. It is about an hour's drive from our hospital, about 30 minutes outside of Port-au-Prince. This is the land where the Haitian government and hospitals took all the bodies of those who died in the earthquake to bury them. The bodies are buried in mass graves sprawled over the land, which you can only recognize by the upturned earth. There are no gravestones, no crosses, nothing. Since the earthquake, Father Rick has been going to the morgue at the General Hospital and burying there dead out here in Titanye. He feels very passionate about giving these people a dignified burial. He has spoken many times about the humility of poverty and that burying the dead in a proper ceremony is a last effort of grace we can give to them. It is a thankless job and one I was even critical of. I always thought-- why spend your time and energy here, when we have so many people who are still living to take care of? But when you hear Father Rick speak about this work, you realize this is what he is called to do. And you can't be critical of work like that. Anyways, we went out to Titanye around 4pm, so it was cooler and there was a great breeze coming off the ocean. The group was primarily Americans and Europeans, although I brought my Haitian coworker and we brought a small group of our kids from FWAL. Father Rick gave the mass in English, with a beautiful homily about our human nature and the desire to care for others. Tons of people recorded it, so if I can find a copy I'll post it on my blog.

After yesterday's mass, I was hoping to hear him speak in Creole and for people who experienced the earthquake to tell their stories. For many, many people I've encountered today, this day is too emotional and they are trying not to think about it. But today at mass, there were many hospital employees and other people who work from our organization. There was lots of singing in French and Creole and Father Rick gave the mass entirely in Creole. It was so nice to be there, to listen to him speak about moving forward and how we can all grow from the disaster.

I came home (and straight to Facebook, obviously) and found an awesome article written by a political strategist who came to visit with us a few weeks ago. The article is hilarious and definitely worth a read.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-mudcat-saunders/haiti-usaid-reconstruction_b_1199254.html