Wednesday, July 25, 2007

the Gabriela day

It's the Gabriela day but it should actually be called the Matt and Esther and all our friends and family and the whole community of Dezam's day because it's the day we got so "lucky" (in the most divine sense), that Gabri came to live with us and we came out to Dezam and Dezam started to fall in love with her. (that's how WE see it: we're the ones who got lucky but we'll save that for another post.) So just because she's been so wonderful, we forced her to wear earings for her, our party.

Here's who helped us celebrate the anniversary: Rocky, Rubenski, Fafa, Dawonika, Jazline, Serena, Solène, Karlens in spirit (and their Mamas) and Kurt from Port au Prince, Don and Donna and Holly from Oregon who not only choose the right sparklers and balloons and party favours for the occasion but also made the place look festive with "Haitian" streamers. You can see them here (beyond the guy with the knife).


The blocks and bubbles were big hits but the water balloons were the best. . .

. . . and the pineapple upsidedown cake with aerosol whipped cream was even better. That's fresh pineapple and get this! we made it ourselves. At least one little person was impressed.







It was a precious moment when we all shared one thing we love about our babes. I asked Matt to go first just to start the ball rolling and he said how wonderful it is when he comes home and Gabri hears the gate and hears his voice and runs to edge of the balcony to greet him, busting with joy. Then one by one the other Mamas said the same thing and I thought "oh brother" because this is so what the Haitian educational system teaches it's students: to repeat. Repetition isn't always bad I guess. I can't complain when the sun comes up every morning against the bluest of skies and 1031+ days later I still love rice and beans for lunch. It's pretty cool that water I use to cool my face is the same water that cooled Toussaint Louverture so he could lead the Haitian revolution without a sweat and that a lot of tropical trees "reboujane" (grow multiple new trunks of good wood to replace one that's cut). And it's alright that we can keep coming to God and/or our friends for forgiveness when we've made the same mistake. I can't say I'm a big fan though when my phone card runs out mid-converstation again or I fall in the mud (i can't count how many times i've fallen for lack of 2 hands since my other hand is often supporting Gabriela in the sling) or big countries repeatedly take actions that hurt smaller countries and related, some countries could benefit from a coup d'etat cap to avoid the redundancy. Anyways that's all history and so is Gabri's party and I'm a little sad because it was really a lot of fun.

Monday, July 23, 2007

seriously

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

A Year on Hispaniola.

Back in November when I was hiding in our house wondering what to do with a baby and how to become anonymous in the most extraverted culture in the world, I don't know what was worse: the minutes dragging or how hot it was getting by the minute in our little Haitian house with rock walls and corrogated tin aka a griye pen (toaster). But the minutes and days, weeks, months have passed by and by the graceful and surprising ways of God we've gotten better at loving our neighbours and the day before yesterday marks a year that I've spent on this lovely little island of reality and dreams without leaving. One of the dreams we were having back in the day was to make our family grow...here in Haiti a dream has come true for us when we met the angel Gabriela and and she agreed to come live with us. 2 days from now marks a year of me and Gabriela and Matt living all together.
Here are a few things that happened this year, the first of G's life.

The war in Iraq is STILL going on and no one (well almost no one) thinks it's a good idea...still.



Henry David Thoreau was reincarnated in a washtub in Waterloo, Ontario.


















Tim Hortons became Fonthill's official donut, and Grayson Van Geest, Fonthill's official dutchie (well ~50% dutchie).









A baby popped out of an eagle's egg in
not-so-rural Manitoba.














And Jane De Lange turned 85 !
That's at least 3x your age Tiger (Woods) Happy Birthday OMA !


. . . and OMA, here's a message from your
6th great grand daughter:



Did any of your dreams come true this year?



Post your dreams here:
Please, we want to hear about them ; ) or send us an e-mail to: greatspirit@fastmail.fm if you don't want the world to see them yet.


love Esther & Matt & Gabriela
(cousin of Grayson, Ronin, Eily, and Zavi)

Monday, July 09, 2007

The Vagaries of Weather

Esther and I both grew up in families with deep agricultural roots, in fact, her parents still run a garden centre in Sarnia () Both of our families come from Holland and both were farming families. I spent much of my childhood, even into university, working in agriculture. Esther does a lot of gardening. We love nature. We love eating it's bounty. We love planting trees in our work now with MCC.

But it wasn't until last month that I started to feel like what I think farmers back in North America feel about the weather, specifically rain, and or lack thereof. You see, our work is very cyclical and is based on weather patterns. We start planting seeds in the nurseries in January and from then until early June, the committees are taking care of the trees in preparation for the big planting season when the rains start in June. We plan the tree distributions, but they are always based on the rains. If it hasn't rained the day before, we will not do a distribution on the next day, because we don't want people planting in dry conditions. Watering the seedlings after they are planted out is not an option, so we don't want to waste 6 months of work - so we wait for the rain.

This year, we had our 3 week schedule perfectly worked out, 2 distributions per day to do our 23 nurseries. We had a nice rain before the first distribution day and day one went off without a hitch. But then right away we were hit with 3-4 days with no rain, so we got behind almost from the start. But then the rains came and we were able to catch up after week two. Week three was a whole different story. The rains just stopped - completely. We went through that whole week with no rain and so our plans were thrown away. I had a planned trip to go visit friends back in Ontario ( for just after the distributions were to have finished, but because of the rain, they were to continue after I left.

While I was in Canada I felt this deep, gutteral emotion for Haiti, especially thinking about the rain. Is it falling? How much fell? Did they do the distribution today? How many distributions are left? How is the planting going? Are they all going to get done this week?

I checked the internet for weather patterns in the Caribbean. I emailed and called to get updates. But no rain. I didn't fall for 10 days. The distribution schedule was thrown into a tizzy and our staff were wiped out from having to deal with it all.

And I found myself relating to farmers in Ontario worried about the rain. Or too much rain. Or too cold. Or too hot. Or hail on the peaches. Or bug infestations. Or whatever vagaries of the weather Mother Nature would throw at us.

Or God, right? Yes. Still, despite the problems the lack for rain posed for us, the rains DID come, the distributions HAPPENED and over 400,000 trees were PLANTED! Thanks be to God.

Matt

Friday, July 06, 2007

Happy Birthday Gabri!


Gabriela took us up into the mountains above Portoprens for her b-day and then down the other side, give or take 2190 meters!!!!!, to Perido where we bought a candle and then took a taptap to the hotel in Jacmel where we met the other delegates (including the Minister of the Environment) for a 2-day environmental conference. The hotel kitchen was closed but Christophe turned a banana into something we could put Gabriela's candle into. Mèsi Christophe! Here we are singing "bon fet" (Happy Birthday) --left to right: Nahomie, Jean Remy, Estè, Matye, & Frantzo. Earlier that day Gabri's cousin Zavi was also having a party somewhere in Manitoba. . . . . .