We’re sitting here listening to Stuart Maclean on CBC on our satellite radio – it’s a story about Dave raising a Christmas turkey. It’s a worldly reminder that the season of celebration is here, but the celebration we anticipate is not so much the turkey dinners (even though the turkeys are piling up at the markets even here in Haiti), the caroling or the gifts. The Celebration we are always eager to celebrate is the birth of Jesus.
Christmas for us this year was a rite of passage. It was the first time since the day we got hitched in 1998 that we celebrated Christmas at HOME. Many of the years, we were shuffling between St. Kits and Sarnia, Christmas in Senegal, and the last few years here in Haiti always called us into the city or up into the mountains.
Home for Christmas was made possible by a visit from Oma and Opa who called in November and said “if you really want us to come for Christmas, we will!” Of course we “really wanted” and so they came. Everyone got along famously. . .
And we went all out for the occasion…Christmas cookies, tree, and an angel..
Highlights of Christmas at HOME were plentiful…
Esther- reading the Christmas story by candlelight followed by Handel’s Messiah, making and giving out Christmas cookies, the birth of Isabel
Gabriela- everyone staying home, going for walks, the birth of cousin Isabel (a fellow diva in amongst a pack of garcons).
Matt- finding ways to meld our Canadian and Haitian experiences into a fun and unique Christmas celebration, some much-needed new books to read.
You’ll have to ask Art and Thea about their highlights of Christmas in Haiti.
But the most fun and powerful was New Years at Gwo Jean, our fondest New Year’s ever - topping driving home from Florida once, being on an airplane back to Senegal, and drinking whiskey while Niagara Falls fell and froze onto us (remember Trevor?). What’s really special about January 1st in Haiti is that it marks Haitian independence. So while we were spending our 4th New Year’s in Haiti, Haiti was celebrating it’s 204th year of independence. There was drumming, strumming, dancing, and chopping (the vegetables for the pumpkin soup we and everyone else in Haiti eats for breakfast on New Year’s Day). The highlight was the dual bonfires, one representing 2007 and one for 2008. Into one we offered our regrets and thank yous and the other our hopes for the new year.
We are especially thankful for 3 lovely years with MCC in the countryside of Dezam, where Gabriela tasted her first sugar cane, took her first steps, made her first phone calls, and enjoyed country living; this ended in early October when we moved to Port au Prince.
. . .we said we wanted to stay away from Dezam for 3 months but we couldn’t resist showing
DEZAM to Gabriela’s cousin ZAVI and Matant (Aunt) Jennifer when they came for a visit in late November.
As for our hopes, they are in the making:
Matt: I started a new job with the International Organization for Migration (IOM). IOM is implementing a large US government stabilization program throughout Haiti. This includes short-term projects such as paving small portions of roads, rehabilitating schools, installing street lighting, fixing canal and water systems, etc. These are all simple projects, done quickly with the intent of making people in some of the most volatile neighbourhoods in the country feel that things are getting better in Haiti. It’s hoped that this stability will create the opportunity for other international organizations, the private sector and the government to make more long-term investments. My own role is on the management team in the headquarters of IOM in Haiti (we have six sub-offices throughout the country). It has been a big change – long days sitting at the computer – but a good challenge for me to work in a new kind of environment.
Esther: I couldn’t imagine living in Port au Prince but here we are. We have a lovely apartment that makes it possible for Gabriela and I to get around on foot and public to work, the gym, the market. My 2nd job after the most important job in the world (mothering, duh) is working with a group of people to promote buying, eating, producing, celebrating everything Haitian for the good of the environment, economy, and all that is in the Haitian soul, not to mention the Haitian stomach. The campaign, should you hear about it on CNN, is called Kore Pwodiksyon Lokal. And I’m not joking, KPL will be on National Television beginning February. My participation involves a developing a school garden and curriculum, promoting hand-woven djakouts (grocery bags), among other things.
Gabriela: Mama and Papa speak three languages to me: Creole, English, and sign language. After 17 months of this, they started wondering (out loud) if I was getting confused. So here’s my trick. Every time someone comes to the gate or knocks on the door, whether they are my mama or not, I call out “Mama. . .Mama”. It cracks them up every time and there’s nothing I like more than cracking people up.
Our favourite things about Port au Prince: staying in until 10 AM w/o turning into toast, trying to speak French, picnics in the Wynne Forest Reserve on Sundays, my nanny Martha and going with her to play with Ti Jo most mornings, ping pong at the gym, our swimming pool, the big mix of people.
Scary things about the city: traffic, motocycles, driving in traffic to work everyday, sometimes an hour.
What we miss most about Dezam: planting, hiking around the mountains, my MCC colleagues, knowing what my job is, those gorgeous bucket showers, rivers to splash in, Lusilya, Jean Remy, Tonton (Uncle) Brian, bean sauce every day for lunch at Edith’s restaurant
Favourite food (after soap): currently mandarins, bonbon siwo, akra and local chicken
Favourite past-times: playing ping-pong with Matt on the weekends, moving furniture, riding around the city in my sling, jumping on Papa at night, and dancing to the ringing cell phones, playing with Gabriela.
Aspirations for 2008:
Finish two children’s books I started in 2006.
Visit my Oma.
Get up the slide at the park by our house.
Meet my cousins.
Challenges:
Sleeping without putting my feet in my parents’ faces.
Staying focused
Having so much.
How to live well as a stranger in a strange land.
Stay tuned to http://www.mattandestherinhaiti.blogspot.com for other news and pictures. Thank you for your news and for helping hold up the sky.
G E M
