Elijah, Opa & Oma's house, August 14th, 2013

good morning Elijah

Maudline hands me Elijah (the second longest baby born in Haiti, after Niko : )

Photo by Sarah Gentry Aubry 

big brother

age old wisdom, beautifully illustrated

Add caption

bananas going fast

Dear Wisdom, this is the fifth time I'm writing you this letter so it's different now.

Let's not give up.   I've been intentional about my sitting and eating these days.   Sitting activities include sewing, organizing, rubbing your round house with home-pressed extra viraginous Caribbean coconut oil, and sipping Prestige (that just started).    Stephanie's generous wisdom and prenatal expertise struck a chord with me and you.   Being myself and all, I'm just not likely to have a 7 lb baby.     So I'm trying to get 10 more oz on you if that's what you need to make yourself a little more ripe.   Fortunately, the Papa came home with our favourite bananas and they are still on their mother branch but going fast.

Dear WISDOM, since Sunday we/I...

arrived back home in Cap Haitian
marvelled underneath a very starry sky
taught a yoga class
arranged your clothes (all 3 of them : )
put up some photos for you of lovely things
made pads for the bottoms of our beautiful Haitian mahogany chairs
demanded more respect on the street
took three bumpy mototaxi rides
dreamed about having a job with a paycheque
pelvic rocking x 1000 rocks
read 12 books to Niko
petted a goat
realized that Haiti is not Holland nor is it run by me and a sustainable transportation might yet be a eons off in the future
biked Gabriela to school twice anyway (b/c I still believe in it and like to do it)
enjoyed 45 minutes of acupuncture at Mama Baby
ate fresh pineapple
cursed at the moon
noticed the moon gentle smile back
rubbed coconut oil all over your house : )
figured out how I can still be mobile when you arrive
daydreamed about snuggling up with you

shoes

Dear Wisdome,

Easter in Dezam.    Easter in Haiti.   Easter here is bouganvillea and palm leaf hearts, music, the churchy kind and the Ra Ra kind, & homemade kites decorating walls and the clear pre-rainy season sky.   It's a BEAUtiful time of year, my favourite Christian holiday.   I am thrilled to spend these two nights in Dezam.   Niko and I pulled our mattresses off the beds over to the other side of the room so there's nothing between the stars and us.  

Tomorrow morning, Jesus rises ALL over the world.   Today I listened to a sermon on living like Jesus.   Walking in my neighbourhood outside Cap Haitian, I feel like I have the persecution thing all figured out.   Fear, intimidation, misunderstanding, fear, defensiveness...is this what the people sending Jesus on the cross felt? Jesus knew that THIS on earth is not the whole scene.   But it must have hurt a lot to see people acting like idiots.   I bet it hurt more than the nails.  I bought some new shoes in Dezam.  Pink crocs.   And a friend of mine sewed up my birki's nice and tightly.    Plastic in it's most unrefined state (oil) has been around for a long time.   Maybe Jesus feet touched some of this oil that made my shoes.   I need Jesus in my shoes.  

timelines

Hola Wisdom,  

The timeline looks like this:

January 2nd- Haiti independence day. 
July 1st- Canada Day
July 2nd- Gabriela turns 6 
sometime in early July- your conception date
July 28- I figured out we are pregnant
July 30th- Google says your due date is April 4th 
August 1st- your parents 14 year anniversary of XOXX
August 8th- we get our Extracycle bike in the post
mid-August- we take a nearly 270 km family bike trip from Winnipeg, Manitoba to Boissevain, Manitoba  
September 23- we fly to Haiti
September 30th- we tell Oma & Opa and Grandma & Grandpa that we're having a baby 
October 4th- your Mama turns 37
October 10th- Niko turns 3
November __ - 3 consecutive days of rain in Cap Haitian.   7 people die in the rushing water and flooding.  
early December- we decide to leave Haiti in January
December 31- Melissa Jonas does an ultrasound for us.   You keep kicking the probe that makes us see you.  
late December- we decide to stay in Haiti until at least your birth
January 10th- you and me run 2.6 miles with Run for Life Haiti
February 1st- an OBGYN in Port au Prince does an ultrasound on you.  His machine says you're due March 21st because of the size of your head and femur.   I encourage the doc to look at me and my head and my femur.   We are long people with big heads, afterall.  
February 1st- I start to wonder about your due date because of the femur and because I was never really happy with the conception date Google stated.
February- Stephanie confirms her plans to visit us and the police in Haiti
March 7- Oma comes to visit bearing diapers
March 22- I read on Google that A SPERM REALLY CAN HANG OUT IN THE FALLOPIAN TUBE before getting fertilized.   I heard this in high school figured it wasn't true anymore since that was 20 years ago : }   
March 24- we travel to Port au Prince and pick up Stephanie at the airport
March 24-28- we all have a lovely time in Port au Prince : ) 
March 25- we, your parents, agree on baby names for boy and girl   WISDOM(E) is your middle name.  
March 27- full moon on a cloudy night
March 28- I admit to myself that I actually was trying to people-please by birthing you on a schedule.   I CALL OFF ALL NATURAL METHODS OF INDUCTION.   We go hiking and take Stephanie along and have a great time.

(photo coming when EDH turns the power back on)     

What up WISDOM?

Dear Wisdome,

Getting her Police Clearance! The real thing! (Stephanie)
Eating mangoes, reading the newspaper (Papa)
Hanging with Rose Berlyn, watching too many movies, eating Andrena's diri sos pwa, sos kalalou (Gabriela)
Going out with Mama on the streets of P-vil and especially playing with Gigi the puppy (Niko)
Electricity right out of the wall most of most days, privacy!, Andrena made the bed (mwen gate wi!), Zumba at Energy, talking to sweet Stephanie on the phone anytime of day (Mama)
Sunny and clear with cloudy over colourful Jealousie this afternoon that have just erupted into showers.  Full moon with clouds (Port au Prince)

Wisdom and Luminescens

It's a gorgeous night in our neighbourhood in Port au Prince.  Noticeably more luminescent every night featuring an increasingly large ball of moon.  After at least 15 nights of challenging nights, I am feeling that this is going to be a good one.    After a few frantic hours this morning punctuated by on-the-hour-doses of blue and black cohosh, I decided to give myself and babe permission to not deliver the baby before Friday which is the day Stephanie leaves.   As it turns out as much as I like and CAN make things happen is as much as I LOVE the surprise and intricacy of natural cycles is as much as I LOVE it that this babe has it's own plan for landing on the earth with the rest of us.     THANK YOU for THINKING and PRAYING for us.  

So far since we've been in Port, we've enjoyed many moments including:   hanging out with friends (planned and running into people we know, swimming, eating greens, privacy : ), dancing Haitian folklore at the gym (be still my beating heart...folklore is AWESOME pregnant and pretty much impossible to do while holding a baby), belly painting, walking & not driving (!!!!!!!!), mangoes.   These gifts are many already and give us energy (in particular greens & folklore) to imagine returning to Cap Haitian on Friday.   To Imagine.   I'm already negotiating with Matt our three weeks in Cap, one week out.   (I so miss the bustle-ing and metropolitan life of Port au Prince.)     

One of the other ripe Mamas, Myrielle, IS IN LABOUR at Heartline as I write.   Every baby born at Heartline is another baby going home with her more empowered MAMA and family.   

Somehow green paint got onto the lens of the camera...how else would it have got on a mango?     

Bonswa WISDOM

If only all of life was as fun as being pregnant and dancing Haitian folklore.   If you every come and see me and are like "who is this old and tired Mama?" get me to a dance class.     Too fun! Too relaxing.   

Today, once we figured out who was boss (= both of us AND neither of us) things got a lot more fun (see post above).   I don't know that you noticed because you seemed to be sleeping away most of it.   A big highlight was ART.   Augustin MONA is the Haitian artist who painted you up so beautifully today.   Rose Berlyn is the melon painter while I was her assistant.   Mona says your destined to be a great artist.  No worries, that doesn't make you want to call you Destiny.   I LOVED the belly art AND I hope we can share more artistic moments together.   In the meantime, sleep and pack on a few more oz.   

Mona's improvisation

watermelon in a shepherd's purse

Dear Wisdome,   

In the middle of last night I was absolutely assured that you will be born this week.    On the occasion I went to look at the Foie Gras at the supermarket.   Foie is super rich in iron should I need iron.   My iron is 12.6 which means "no chance of anemia" but with the perfect labour of Niko, we did experience a hemorrhage which we are attempting to avoid this time with the friendly herb of Shepard's Purse and Petocin (whatever it is : }   

Today is a day where it's hard to be reflective and spiritual.   I feel at the same time totally poze and...frantic.   Actually that pretty much sums me up...often poze and often frantic.   We'll see how you turn out.   Please be okay and assertive as we try to coax you out these days here...now.  

I want you out and I want you to stay in.   I want to be loved and I want to be alone.   I want your Papa and I to agree on your name (we almost are).   I hate Haiti and I love her.   I want to hold you all day and night and I want to run really fast away from the wonderful intensity that is you. 

Tomorrow I might paint my belly again like a watermelon and go and by some other lovely fruit to be beautiful with you.   Or I might find the Haitian artist that we've been looking for to ground me again to this "ti zile".    Wisdom, the moon is looming large.         

Typically the lines do in fact go the other way.  

Word from the belly and below.

Dear friends, Stephanie is here!!! She is great and we are thrilled to have her here again.   She's likely sitting somewhere in a government office as I write hopefully making progress on obtaining her police record which will make it possible for her to work in Mozambique.    Imagine that, the Mozambique government requiring a paper to prove she's has not committed any crimes : )  She also agreed with the Mozambique authorities to only train and hire locals in the hospital and eventually maternity clinic she will be running.   Great idea!!!!!     

As for me and baby's progress, the words of the day are EFFACED...almost (just cm to go), PELVIC ROCKING, and some EPO.   Baby is posterior (which was a comfortable position for Niko too) and we're trying to get baby anterior.      

Otherwise, Matt's out looking at motorcycles with a friend who thinking of getting one, Gabriela is at her friend Rose's house around the corner, Niko and Aldine are chasing a ti pousen (little chick) around the yard, and rice is cooking in a pot.  

We also learned yesterday that there are two other women about to give birth at Heartline.   We need prayers for these women as well.   They look great, don't they.   I'm going to try to laugh like that tomorrow or sooner : )   Photo by Tara Livesay (I think : )  

Stephanie arrives!

Who knew Port au Prince has a Denny's!!

Greetings and a Prayer Request from Haiti

Dear friends and family,  On the last day of my first trimester, we flew to back to Haiti.   A tumultuous re-settlement here characterized by mosquitoes, rain, and boredom made us wonder if we would stay.  During Christmas holidays with friends in the Artibonite and PAP, the growing baby made it clear that it is here in Haiti where she/he wants to be born too, just like the big sister and brother.    Since then we've been kinder to each other (us and Haiti) and HERE WE ARE just about 2 trimesters later.     At noon today (Saturday), we will begin traveling to Port au Prince spending a night in Dezam on the way.   

Here we are in Corridon, another lovely spot in the Artibonite (photo by Thea DeGroot)  

Sunday we will welcome Stephanie at the airport.   Stephanie is OUR midwife extraordinaire who since Haiti has practiced midwifery in southern Sudan and Mozambique.    She'll spend 5 days in Port au Prince picking up a police record in Haiti and God willing, delivering our bambino with us.   She'll fly out Friday back to Las Vegas to continue preparations for moving to Mozambique in mid-April where she will be running a hospital!  

We would absolutely love to have another baby with Stephanie.   Heck, just for the acupressure she used during labour, I'd walk to Port au Prince.     But we don't NEED to.  There's a midwifery clinic near our house in Cap Haitien and a beautiful hospital with Haitian and foreign doctors nearby.   But, if we are in Port au Prince, we'll get to have the baby at Heartline which is a wonderful and growing midwifery centre in lower Port au Prince that you can read more about here: www.facebook.com/bethmchoul       We're ready for next week !!!!  March 27th is a FULL MOON.    We are praying that this healthy moon baby will be willing to be born on the 27th or the 28th.   Please join us in our prayers.  We know that God, babies, full moons, and a critical mass of praying folks are POWERFUL.   We will be posting news here on our blog: vangeestdegroot.blogspot.com   We encourage your prayers etc. ON OUR BLOG as we will make a book out of it.  

much LOVE from us here to all of you, Esther, Matt, Gabriela, Niko  










RIGHT: The belly enjoying some shade in Gabriela's forest in Dezam.   

Dear Wisdome

It's getting harder to call you Wisdom now that your personality is become more apparent...(we might end up calling you elbows).   Not that I don't think you're WISE, I just think you might be more than WISE, like maybe you're WISE and tricky.   Like, maybe I don't get to decide who you are.   

I know you can hear so you're hearing the belly commentary as we are about the neighbourhood.   At this moment in Canada, most 14-year-old young men don't notice pregnant women (or women over 25 years) and certainly, to generalize here, don't talk to them, certainly not initiate any conversations or yell out "Hey Mom" to his Mom sitting washing clothes across the yard "There's that pregnant white lady.   She's definitely going to have a boy don't you think?"    There was an 18-year-old yesterday who, as I approached said, "You've got 3 babies in there!"  "3 !!!"   Sometimes the commentary is funny and even kind.   Over the past days, i've been thinking you might fool everyone and be a girl.  Know that whoever you are we will love getting to know you, love you and learn to love you as you will us.     

clues

March 18th

Dear Wisdom, I wasn't thrilled when I spent my whole time in Mole not having a baby and I got back here only to try to not deliver you still.   My de-stressing, re-stressing, and languishing lasted most of today.   Then I got a grip of whose in control here and I remembered that I'm not totally not in control.   I am carrying you.  You're not carrying me...although you have sustained me in so many ways these long months.   I went to the roof which is simultaneously humbling and empowering...sitting under the stars.   

Clue 1- On Sunday, March 17th, I wrote to midwife Extrordinaire, Stephanie Williams, saying that I'd be ready for our deliverance in 10 days.   Today I realized that 10 days is March 27th when we'll be in Port au Prince with Stephanie.   I didn't have to run downstairs for the iPhone to tell me that March 27th is a full moon because I didn't know that it was but then, I knew it was/is.   

Clue 2- during the past 9 months, when I've tried to do yoga and sun salutations, it's always the moon salutation that come out  

Clue 3- from most angles, you look like a FULL moon

Clue 4- One of my favourite Aboriginal tales is called When Coyote was the Moon.   So when I realized you are about to be born on the full moon and in light of the fact that we can't seem to think of or like or agree pm a boy's name, I ran downstairs and said to Papa: what about Coyot (with a silent "e") for a name and he said "that's not bad".    Had I been more awake and lucid I wouldn't have dared suggest that we name you Coyote but then I wouldn't have heard Papa's response which is the most positive I've heard in response to my boys names suggestions.   Coyot(e).   

So there you have it.   In the light of the FULL MOON of March 27th or 28th, we will welcome you to the full light of life outside the womb.   We are excited and nervous.   We are ready and not at all ready.   

Boukan Guinguette

Dear Wisdom,

You're my hero. Thank you. We made it all the way to Gonaives, Anse Rouge, Marre Rouge, to Mole St. Nicolas and back threw Bombardopolis, Baie de Henne, Mon Pierre, Gonaives to our home here in Mon Rouge all in ONE piece.

While there, I didn't write you even once at least not on paper or screen.   While we were there, I was definitely believing that if I ignored you, you would not suddenly come out. So sorry about that and again, thank you.

I am pretty sure I was having Braxton Hicks (sp?) on the Monday before the Tuesday when we left for Mole but I convinced myself that it was you doing somersaults : ) Then in the hotel (Hotel Fritz) where we spent the night in Gonaives, I about called the whole trip off.    I stumbled on to the beach hotel at Mole (Boukan Guinguette) around 3 PM, family and tow, and said to the proprietaire, Julian, so do you really have a doctor in town?   He said "yes" he's Slovakian.   And I breathed out.   And we unpacked our bags.   We saw the doctor  saw him at the beach and thankfully not in any other place although he did look like he'd made a fine doctor.

So Mole was lovely although short on greens, rich in spaghetti, seafood, and daytime relaxation. The sand was incredibly soft and perfect making it sacrilegious to wear shoes and my often aching feet didn't ache once. The bungalows were built out of rocks, housed modern but simple plumbing, and were intriguing for their artwork by a local Haitian artist who style reminded me of Norval Morrisseau's because of the energy lines. They also recycled plastic bottles to serve cold water...miracle of miracles.

The nights were less relaxing but expected...I woke up frequently both counting down the nights before we could leave and counting up how many more nights we would indulge in the lapping of waves on the shore that put me back to sleep each time.

The water was several shades of blue but each seemed it couldn't be bluer and we all had a heavenly time in it.  

At 10:30 on Saturday morning (and with renewed trepidation speaking for myself) we got back in the SUV we'd rented for it's space and padding and headed for home. We left Boukan G. drove through Mole St. N. and once outside of town came to an abrupt and sudden stop on 3 tires and the rim of the front, right wheel.   The tire was gapping in two spots.  We called Julien from Boukan and he came with the torque and a strong Haitian man (excuse the redundancy "strong Haitian man").   We returned to Mole and continued our education on tire repair.     By noon we were back in the SUV and heading out.   The return was long and beautiful.   (I kept my legs tightly cross until at least Mòn Pierre.)   While I'm not sure I'd choose to be born in Anse Rouge or a post-earthquake camp, I can't help but love the dry, cactus beside ocean landscape of the north-west.  

We had dinner at the same hotel in Gonaives and arrived home 12 hours after we set out.   Exhausted but cured at least for the short term of our adventurism.

Wasabi Baby

I went to Potoprens to accompany Oma back here and bought Hot Wasabi Rice Crackers so that I can sit at my mahogany table and eat them while write my Pilates/Yoga lesson for tomorrow night. Then I moved on to a history book about Phaeton and Paulette with Prestige (Haitian beer) and bread & guava jelly on the side. I hope you like Wasabi baby or were you kicking for the Prestige from which I sipped lightly. I don't like waiting in traffic (can't stand it one bit) or in line at the bank but I do like waiting for a type of food that I might be craving and can't get at the local market OR even better waiting for the fruit of next season. I like waiting for a book like The Big Truck that Went By. I like waiting for an expected visitor. I like waiting for an expected baby. Waiting can be spiritual...it is mid Lent-season as I write. Learn to indulge in anticipation. Wait with me Wasabi baby.

Dear Wisdym

The name choosing has re-started in earnest.   This time Papa is leading the way almost every day coming up with another girl's name (Indira, Lunise, Magdelena).  But, then, we're not having trouble coming up with names for girls.  

As for me, I was born with a fascination for names, changed my own name several times in my growing years, gave myself a middle name, and once for entertainment invented an entire school directory listing names of the members of more than 100 families.   Age 13, I addressed my diary to Samantha who would be my first daughter.   

While in France I discovered new little gems like Cappucine and Maximillian, Senegal opened up the world of Muslim names like Safiatou, Ndeye, Maguette (that might be French), and Haiti presented a fusion of French (Jean Rémy), Catholic, modern (Rocky or Lovely), old-fashioned (Dieufèl, Bondyela), and invented names (Jeanida, Nifta) many which are only revealed by a birth certificate since most folks here have nicknames most often having nothing to do with their official first names (For example, our friend Marie-France has the nickname Cynthia, our former MCC cook Lusilya is called Kapab by everyone she knows because she is truly capable of just about everything.)     

To narrow down the options, I devised the following criteria to be included in a first name, a middle name, and the unwieldy Van-Geest-deGroot as last name: 

·      -part Biblical 

·     - a name that has meaning related to the time and place you are born 

·      -pronounce-able  in several languages (at least English and French) 

·     - beautiful, of course

·     - the meaning of your name to resonate with us and our values 

To the list Papa suggested that we take out any names with "S" since both of us parents slur our S's (although i'm pretty sure it's the S's in words that we slur).  Anyways, Niko can't currently pronounce S's at all.   So that would take out: Sofi, Soren, and Solendon (which I do love but a solendon is an extinct-? indigeneous Hispaniolan rodent).   Hélas! 

Dear Wisdom, my right, index finger got caught in my coconut oil making press.   When it happened it hurt incredibly and then i had a double panic thinking about you being inside me and the SOS response my body was having so i went and laid in the bed for an hour under the blankets because it's been chilly (in the low 20's and overcast).   After the finger-crushing everything else became hard if not impossible to do e.g. writing you letters, washing dishes, cutting tomatoes except for reading books to Niko : ) 
 In any case, you weren't born from the trauma and I still have a day to recover before my soap-making workshop on Saturday with SOIL.   

Mystery

Dear Wisdom, lately I've been thinking that I should be calling you Mystery because somehow I just feel like I know less about you than I did about your siblings this close to when we met you face to face. It might just be that I forget what it was like not knowing them like we know each other now. I've had a couple ultrasounds, one was official and in month 7 (January); I didn't drink a cup of syrup to find out if you have gestational diabetes; I didn't do a test to find out if you have Down Syndrome or another physical difference; We don't know your sex. What's more mysterious than a bunch of lab test is not knowing if we would, could, wanted to have a third child and then having one growing inside of me for 8 months.

My Haitian Grandmas

One of my two grandmas left today.   I don't actually know her name for 4 months now, we've been growing close so that in the past few weeks I've been calling her "Gran" along with Gabriela and Niko.    
On Saturday, in the all too typical style of grown-Haitian children living in North America, they called her and told her that her plane ticket was for the plane on Sunday giving her just a week to collect herself and her things and make her way to Port au Prince.   She spent the week grilling and pounding coffee, drying and sifting cassava flour, & making cocoa to take along with her to Florida where her daughter and 3 granddaughters await her.   She is excited to see her grandchildren but doesn't like being "stuck inside" or "not having any way to make some money" and "not having anything to eat".   She is 75.  

My other grandma is leaving next Tuesday.   She is Marilyn, semi-retired tour guide who was raised on the east coast of the US but has lived 40 years in Europe mostly and currently still Geneva.   She came to Haiti to volunteer for a month because "I wanted to see Haiti" and related because her friend's daughter died here in the UN headquarters during the earthquake (Jan 2012).    She is a grandma to one granddaughter who lives in Singapore and a grandson in London.  Marilyn and I have been chatting about once a day to check in and report on the cultural clashes of the day.    She is a seasoned traveler and street-wise, the kind of visitor to Haiti that doesn't jump to conclusions or solutions : )   Marilyn leaves on Tuesday and I will miss her.  

Haiti is a place where, in many cases, several generations can be found sleeping in the same lakou (yard).   I don't know any of my foreign friends who desire to live with their parents and I wouldn't want to live with mine or Marilyn for that matter.   But when the Gran told me she was leaving, my immediate thoughts were: how can you leave me? who is going to look after us? who is going to send food over once in a while and bring Gabriela and Matt coffee on Saturday mornings? who is going to tell me not to lift buckets while holding a baby? who is going to greet my kids with joy?  who is going to instill order in the household without a word?  
Having a Haitian grandma around was really nice and I hope now that I am the matriarch of the house, I can keep her spirit of stable presence and traditional values alive.  


  

Dear Wisdom

Travay se liberte. Work is freedom.

Near the iron market, entire streets were lined with beautiful Haitian paintings for sale, the vendors waiting patiently for the tourists that had stopped coming 30 years before. (from Haiti by Philippe Girard)

Art, in my experience, is organic. It's creation is organic. It's creation can be spontaneous and tedious and independent of time. For the artist, creating art doesn't usually feel like “work”. You'll know what work you've been designed to do because you'll can't help but do it...it will be feel like freedom. It will be your “work”.

I love the Haitian expression: Travay se liberte. Work is freedom. Coming out of physical slavery in the 1800's and descending into economic slavery, Haitians, in my experience, tackle the work they choose to do with enviable enthusiasm even when I question whether or not they have earned a profit at the end of the day.

While I have encountered many many Haitians who are unemployed, I haven't met but a couple who don't know how to work. Even young people who, like the teenagers I've observed in Canada in recent years, seem to spend their days looking into their cell phones, will jump to their feet and climb up a coconut tree, harvest, and skin the fruit on request.

I've spent a big part (but not all as some of my ventures have led to contract involving money) working but not getting paid for it. Sometimes my work was obvious: wash diapers. Other times it was more indeterminate: go to the Iron Market, like I did several times in the first half of 2012, to buy gifts and play kitchen pots (and yes I saw many lovely paintings and no I didn't see any tourists). I can not pretend to understand the economic insecurity that the majority of Haitians live with daily but I do commiserate with unemployed Haitians because working is good for people. Work is freedom.

I dream of working. And, I get it why Haitians flee to other countries when they can find work there.

I want to work (and one of the biggest reasons why we are leaving Haiti again this year, at least physically leaving). I crave the freedom of structure and deadlines. And, I just want to give of myself to the world at large. Extroverted ENERGY. I want to give because when I give out, I get a lot back. Travay se liberte.

Wangari's Wise Mama

My mother told me that leopards would lurk in vegetation, their long tails draped across a narrow path in the forest...'If you are walking on the path and you see the leopard's tail', my mother said, 'be careful not to step on it. Instead, as you keep on walking, tell the leopard, You and I are both leopards so why would we disagree?' (from Unbound, a memoir by Wangari Maathai. “Wangari” translates as the possessive form of the leopard). I would love to teach you as wisely as Wangari's mother whose daughter became a leading environmental and political activist and the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her contributions to sustainable development. But no doubt my advice will not come packaged up in the slow and lovely English of anglophone Africa and extinctions are, these days (or hours : }, much more common than the likelihood of walking over a leopard's tail even in Kenya's central highlands. Last night after my after-dinner-siesta on the mahogany couch, I went upstairs to the roof. The sky was, unlike the previous night, dark and cloudy with a shifty half-moon. I searched the grey clouds for stars and found one. I kept looking because I know this little trick...if you keep looking for stars even when it looks like it might be too cloudy to see them, you will find them. I did find 3, 5, 6, 7...10 stars last night just by looking into the same sky that had at first look only hosted one. The same is true for finding other amazing things (beings) like frogs, beauty, angles from which to look at an issue, hope. If you look intentionally, you can find anything that you are truly looking for.

Dear Wisdom,

The moon, who I normally love, looms over these mountain and me these days.  This week, I’ve been cautiously checking over my shoulder to see where it’s at: from less than half to half to more than half to nearly full. . . tonight.   I am too keenly aware that this waxing and waning is a 30 day process and that this is the 8^th full moon I’m seeing with you still inside.   I am already thrilled to meet you fas à fas but we happy to count the days  o n e  by  o n e, sunrise to moonrise, until you just can’t help it but arrive.   

Pointy Belly

 The word on the street is that you're a boy.    Folks (many women but also men) are so convinced that the other day a woman exclaimed "Kile w ap fe gason sa a?"  (When are you going to have that boy?)   Others say to each other: she's having a boy, she's having a boy.   Others ask: Are you having a boy?  And others just say: GASON.  Blan yo (white people) have lots of ways of telling the sex of a baby still inside (watermelon, basketballs, footballs, and swinging gold chains with wedding rings on them, morning sickness) but when boy Niko was inside and we were walking around Port au Prince, no one ever said anything but BOY.  And they were right.   Some, as I stroll around our neighbourhood here outside Cap, say girl but it seems to be related to related to seeing boy Niko with me.  And, every Haitian I've met aspires to the nuclear family including one boy and one girl.  We already have a girl, I remind them, and they say oh yeah but that's another important subject altogether.    I adore Gabriela and I love little boys.
Boys, I've learned from Haitians this time around when I'm walking slower, come in POINTY BELLIES.


  

fear

Dear Wisdom,

Things are great: a day in sand and salt (the ocean), good relations with our housemates, an upcoming workshop on soapmaking with Haitian coconut oil that we make ourselves, with SOIL staff and friends, teaching YOGA !!!! at Breda, new blan in the neighbourhood if not new friendships at least deflecting just a little attention from us (me and you not to mention blondy and our sassy big sister), OMA coming in less than a month...

As for planning for your arrival things are also good. We've been putting some old furniture back together like a mahogany day bed and we've ordered our first ever table and chair set; today I ordered a sheepskin rug for you as we're expecting the rainy season to come shortly after you.

With all things exciting (like your arrival ate) there are also fears. In an effort to keep these fears at a reasonable level, I am writing them down, in random order...that:

• you will fall out when I'm in the outhouse (I get nervous now every trip I take). (Fortunately we also have a pee bucket for night-time and for nervous pee-ers like I'm becoming.)
• you will decide to be born on a the boat that is taking us to Mole St. Nicholas and the boat breaks down
• you will not survive your own birth and I'll have to make this journal into your memoir
• you will not survive and it's presumed that you would have survived had we decided not to stay in Haiti and it will be all my fault for deciding to stay
• you will get meningitis or something equally scary and we won't notice early enough or take it seriously enough to get you appropriate care
• you will have some unexpected condition or defect that Haiti can't handle
• you will have Down Syndrome which I've heard once we get used to the idea is more a blessing than anything else.
• you will be a girl
   
• tomorrow I will get hit by a Mac truck one day b/f our international medical insurance takes effect.
• I will fall while carrying you because the floor gets wet from night rains in places we're not used to because it's the beginning of the rainy season that we haven't experienced in this house yet
• everything will happen beautifully and more or less perfectly and I'll just feel so incredibly blessed that I'll live in fear that something awful is bound to happen to us. We have already been so blessed, maybe that's why I'm fearless & fearful already
• both Gabriela and Niko will re-turn into babies and I'll be holding on to you will trying to keep them from clawing everyone else including you
• the sheepskin we just ordered for you really is related to SIDS
• Matt dying
• someone stealing our new solar panel...the one that makes my sewing machine work :

Writing these fears is different that what I have heard myself saying: that things just happen as they were planning on happening e.g. the earthquake in Haiti. So I'm a little surprised.

But we can handle these fears.  We ARE handling these fears...

with prayer, meditation, breath, and silkscreening (why not!)

AND

committing to living life fearing God (not that fearing God prevents challenges)

AND

fearlessly living out our passions

AND

learning

Stay safe in there my wise one.

After two days and nights of rain or threats of rain, the sky is clear in all directions, calm, and absolutely glorious.   But you my dear have been reminding me all day of the earthquake.   When the earthquake reached our little house in Pètionville it was a low rumble that reverberated through the earth until it reached the floor under our feet.   For less than 30 seconds we watched the earthquake make everything around us tremble. 

You are deep within me

moving

in water

beating

in good rhythm

your bony elbows and knees jutting up against my skin

like the jagged mountains that characterize this island  

allowing us to see you from the outside

Today I am in awe of your presence within me.  Several times today I just had to stop doing anything to let you move.  I am also and suddenly reaching this point where I’m wondering how are you going to get out of here.    I am hoping for little earthquakes and a few medium-sized ones too.   I don’t mean real earthquakes and I don’t mean to make light about the January 2010 earthquake that was fatal for hundreds of thousands.   I just mean contractions.   I mean life force.   Feeling life force. 

Dear WISDOM,

incredible clear nights where the stars just entice us up the stairs to the roof where we can stare and hyperextend our necks in amazement

garbage the stuff that was already here...the garbage Carnaval crowds dropped here

cools mornings where we play tug-o-war with our duvets and shiver in our underwear

a woman holding a cell phone away from a guy tying to get it from her

the best papaya ever ever

discussing money in Haiti with Haitians

when mountains are the backdrop for stars

when we find out TiCoco, Pushlene, and their brother's dad died last year

feeling you kick inside me several dozen times a day, darling

walking by the exposed body of the dog beside the road

boiled breadfruit with the right amount of salt. rock salt from around here

reading about and remembering the earthquake...pretending it's a story

solar lighting

microwaves, TV that are always on, every man to his own car

ying yang and day night and 11 AM

imperfectly beautiful

wisdom and force

After two days and nights of rain or threats of rain, the sky is clear in all directions, calm, and absolutely glorious.   But you my dear have been reminding me all day of the earthquake.   When the earthquake reached our little house in Pètionville it was a low rumble that reverberated through the earth until it reached the floor under our feet.   For less than 30 seconds we watched the earthquake make everything around us tremble. 

You are deep within me

moving

in water

beating

in good rhythm

your bony elbows and knees jutting up against my skin

like the jagged mountains that characterize this island  

allowing us to see you from the outside

Today I am in awe of your presence within me.  Several times today I just had to stop doing anything to let you move.  I am also and suddenly reaching this point where I’m wondering how are you going to get out of here.    I am hoping for little earthquakes and a few medium-sized ones too.   I don’t mean real earthquakes and I don’t mean to make light about the January 2010 earthquake that was fatal for hundreds of thousands.   I just mean contractions.   I mean life force.   Feeling life force. 

Carnival in Cap Haitien !

No shortage of things to look at...Carnival 2013, Cap Haitien

Dear Wisdom

 

Where are you from?  

When you were just a twinkle in our eyes (aka a ravenous grasshopper in my belly), we took an outrageous trip from Winnipeg to Boissevain on bicycles.   I planned the trip as I plan trips...planning to do more planning en route, except that the whole family came and because it was summer and because it was gorgeous and because we sent some of our stuff ahead when we got to the first Canada Post office (outside of the big city) to make our paniers lighter, it worked.    The trip was more than 300 km of which we did at least 270 as far as I remember. 

 

You were conceived in this incredibly vast prairie land of golden wheat, endless blue skies, green green grass.    But you’ve done the visible kind of growing on avocados, breadfruit, oranges, dust, and diesel fumes between two mountain ranges.  

 

What do you see from inside there?...morning?  

What do you hear?...market women enticing us to buy eggs and pumpkins? blaring music in the back of a taptap? soap suds rubbed between hands and clothes? blan blan blan? aluminum cups falling on our newly ceramic-ed floor? me swearing at the fridge?

 

NINE months to get used to each other is blissfully long.  

I usually give myself TWO weeks to try out a new job, new neighbourhood, new schedule etc.    

But if you change everything at once, TWO months, I’ve learned again this time is the bare minimum.    The last day of 2 months and 3 months I was still jumpy for airplanes.  Five months has me wondering how I will leave.   

 

Why wisdom matters (part I)

Dear WISDOME

 

At the MamaBaby clinic yesterday, the Haitian midwife who saw me found my lina negra.   I couldn’t find it because it’s more like a lina blanca.   So I made a joke that my lina is white because I am having a white baby.   “Would you want to have a brown baby?” she asked.   “Of course” I said “I would LOVE to have a brown baby!”   She looked surprised and so I told her how white babies and white people are more sensitive to sun than brown babies in particular if they are bald (like Niko was for 2 years).    That’s just one reason that I’d LOVE to have a brown baby.   The other reasons is because I know intuitively that your skin colour can take you different places and that to me is fascinating.   What I didn’t tell the midwife is that Matt and I have been praying and pondering the decision of whether to have a brown baby or a ti blan for a good two years, two years which we’re abruptly interrupted by the surprising news on a little white stick with two faint lines.  Here’s the issue.   We don’t want race to matter.    And yet, race does matter.   Skin colour (not to be confused with race).   I LOVE colour and variation.   I think different colours whether skin or hair, boo boo or halter top, or the underwings of a bird, are essential to living a full life.   But I’m white and at least once a week whether in Haiti or in Canada, I benefit in apparent ways from white privilege.    In my nuclear family, everyone looks more or less like me.    I am not black in a family that is piling on white people.   I don’t have a visceral clue of what it might be like to be a visible minority in ones own family.  

The wisest way to make hot chocolate

 Wisdome,

We live in 3 rooms of a house with ARCHILLE Milien and his Mom but I don’t know her name.   I don’t remember if I/we ever learned her name.   She is a mother of 3 and grandmother of 5.  Two of the grandchildren live in Turks and Cacos the other 3 in Fort Myers, Florida.   Once a year her daughter calls her, like many Haitian diaspora daughters & sons do, to tell her when she can get on a plane to come visit.   She’s been a few times.  

At first I didn’t talk much to her, intentionally really, in the interest of establishing good boundaries b/t our families.  Then I called her Madame ARCHILLE when I realized that the son we were calling ARCHILLE was called Milien by everyone else b/c that’s his name and ARCHILLE is the family name, said first as is Haitian practice.   So in Haiti I introduce myself as DEGROOT, Esther.   

But Gabriela and Niko call her ”Gran” and they love to go sit outside her house with her while she prepares delicious food or treats like “dous”.   So yesterday I started calling her Gran too.  

Today, after we madly cleaned the house b/f Papa got home, I went to sit out with the Gran.   We talked about C-sections, breastfeeding, peanut butter, and chocolate.  Get this...she makes her own chocolate.   No I don’t mean that she melts down chocolate circles and drops it onto wax paper.  

She harvests cacao off her trees in Limbe.  

She hulls the cacao seeds.

She washes and dries the seeds.  

Drying takes a while. 

She roasts them.  

Then she pounds them into powder. 

She adds cinnamon.  

She forms a cylinder of chocolate with the pounded chocolate flour. 

She shows me a stick of chocolate that she’s made herself.  

I am in awe.  

We smell it.  

She tells me it’s full of vitamins. 

It’s divine. 

The other morning when it was only 25 degrees, she grated some of the chocolate stick into boiling water and added some sugar.   Milien brought it to Papa and Niko who were home.   Hot chocolate.   Chocolate. 

Returning home : }

Dear Wisdom

I bought two bus tickets for my trip home from Port au Prince.   When I got to the door of the bus and handed the tickets to the woman, she asked “Kote lòt moun?”  (Where is the other person?)  I pointed at my belly.   ”Wow” she said which is also a word in Creole and on the bus I went.   My long legs appreciated the extra foot space.     

I am always amazed when I arrive somewhere in this country especially when traveling solo, solo as in with all the other people traveling.   It’s not that it’s so scary or dangerous although sometimes there is that element.   Traveling on public is already a privilege.   Traveling on public within another culture is like two trips in one.   Two adventures.   One is the physical journey, through the traffic and haze of Port au Prince, past the cactus trees of Gonaives, up and  a r o u n d  the mountain roads and down the other side.   The other trip is being included (with or without questioning) in a small crowd traveling together through time.  

wisdom

a haiku

 

Swiss chard

bright green

fresh

with balsalmic vinegar

in January

 

from a chalet in Port au Prince

Dear Wisdom

THE MOON

The moon is round

as round as round can be

Two eyes,

a nose,

and a mouth so sweet. 

The moon is round

as your little head

as round as you go around and around inside me

at 4 AM

as my belly grows rounder

as the earth rounds the corner 

to where we greet the glowing sun

Tonight the moon was round and glorious. 

Wisdom while Pushing

Once when I was in a race, a fellow runner and friend told me that when you think you can't go any further, you always can go quite a bit further. I've only really tested this out brain-wise...when I was in teacher's college. I guess I've used it to climb a few mountains too.  Many Haitians, especially rural Haitians, especially during planting season test out their physical capacity b/f breakfast. I think pushing physical capacity is good for us blan people but pushing emotionally or mentally takes an uncomfortable toll our typically under-served and serviced physical selves.

Run for Life

Dear Wisdome, Tonight we found out that Run for Life Haiti will run in front of our house and Gabriela's school on Thursday morning around 9 AM. Run for Life Haiti is Barry McDonald running 12 marathons across Haiti to raise money for a new larger maternity centre of Heartline Haiti. Heartline is the long-standing organization in working in lower Port au Prince, Haiti whose midwives helped Niko be born in 2009. Heartline was just opening it's first birthing centre then. Since Niko, many many babies have been born at Heartline (77 babies were born in 2012) and hundreds of mothers have received pre and post natal care at Heartline. You might be born at Heartline too but...it's seriously not time for that yet. In the meantime, I signed us up to run with Barry from our house to Gabriela's school. It's 2 km! I'm totally psyched.
Heartline had a vision that's it's running to achieve. Martin Luther King had a dream. Barry had a vision of running across Haiti. Having a vision or dream is an important, beautiful, and grounding tool for living a good life. It can be anything from improving maternal health, climbing a mountain, learning to speak Khmer, helping children read, knitting a sweater, forgiving someone, reversing climate change, fighting against racism, qualifying for the special olympics, making the best banana creme pie, building a bicycle from scratch, writing a book, getting off drugs or discovering new ones. As long as you believe in it, it won't matter how hard it is, or what anyone else thinks. Can't wait to run with you.

asphalt and ritual

Dear Wisdom, they are paving the roads for your arrival...you and Mardi Gras (Carnival). Carnival is in Cap Haitian this year February 10-12, 2013. This is the second year that National Carnival is held outside of Port au Prince. I've heard some folks are renting their houses in Cap for $3000 for three days. We're not going to pave our house for you but we're getting a ceramic floor put in on top of the cement. We're also taking you to all the rah rah bands we pass by. We're scooping out a second solar panel. We're brainstorming on how to make more room in the bedroom. We already bought you a mobile! Today I made and drank nettle tea and sat on the rug for two hours to honour your request. I'm thinking about paint. What colours do you like? (Skin colour?) But most of all, we're preparing for you by living here, here between two mountain ranges, in the dust, in the sun, in the rain, in the moonlight, because we want to share with you the dust of these mountains, the pain of contrast, the joy of living with others, and the ritual of making fresh juice. In Haiti, paving a road is a project for special occasions. Something like lights at night could be ordinary but is most often extraordinary. Haiti has shared many extraordinarily sacred moments for us, including this one. Ritual and asphalt. May you know the value of both.

pyjamas and seeking counsel

Dear Wisdom,

Your brother Niko is pretty sure that you'll want to use his diapers when you come out. He says when you do (come out) that he won't need them anymore. He'll wear JUST pyjamas to bed. I hope you don't mind if we take your presence as an opportunity to grow up a little? Well we are in any case. So, thank you.
...that reminds me to tell you that there are all kinds of right ways to grow up. You get to choose the right-est ones for you. Of course, we won't expect you to choose EVERYTHING on your own. Seeking counsel from "wise" people is always a good idea. No hurry though, let's do the diaper thing first.

Sleep in peace dear one.

Black, White, and Grey

Dear Wisdom.    We read the Solomon story in the children's Bible again last night.  I definitely need to dig a little deeper especially for your sake as I wouldn't want to burden you, a baby, with excessively high expectations.   Knowing the difference between right and wrong seems pretty black and white.   As far as I can tell there's a lot more chocolate and cream and cinnamon and honey and not to mention grey around here (and anywhere I've lived) than black & white.  Sure, stealing is wrong.    But, what about foreign companies from high-tech countries coming to low-tech, low-resource countries and mining for gold (this is literally on the table currently for Haiti) without paying enough for the gold or labour to extract it or for the environmental repair.   Hurting people is wrong.  But what if the people you are hurting by buying a T-shirt for $10 is a cotton farmer that you've never met?  What if you are helping your neighbour who works at the store where you bought the T-shirt?  What if the government of your country of citizenship is making policies that hurt people in your neighbourhood, country, or another place?   What if you don't know how to reach or relate to people that are hurting?  

I'm going to dig deeper into the meaning of wisdom.   We'll see what I find.  In the meantime and for the moment, there are a few things that I know for sure are right.  

Tree-ripened fruit is definitely right.   Vine-ripened fruits are also right.   Chadèk (Haitian grapefruit), zoranj dous (sweet oranges), and grenadya (passionfruit).   Enjoy these as they come to you as you are sharing your full season with theirs.    

(Clean) Water is by far the right-est drink to date.   Drinking it regularly goes a long way to health and healing, as does being honest with others but especially with yourself.  

Feelings are not good or bad, right or wrong but they are feelings and they are important.  

It's right to apologize when you feel sorry.  

Right is the opposite of left.  

Doing the right thing will not necessarily earn you accolades.  

If you don't get accolades, it doesn't mean it's wrong.  Look at Jesus for examples of this.   The writings of Shane Claiborne may also help.  

Sincerely, your ally in love and righteousness-seeking

W I S D O M

Dear Wisdom, now that you are kicking inside me and the whole neighbourhood is watching you grow daily as we walk or ride by, I know that there are what will only feel like a handful of days left to write before my hands will be holding you instead of hovering over this keyboard.   You are 28 and a half weeks old, so the BabyCenter's e-mails tell me and if I remembered better how long you are expected to be in there for (40 weeks?), I could calculate how many days approximately you might be kicking inside yet, but I'm not ready for that yet.  I am not impatient for you (to come out).   You are already here.   I want these days to savour you just where you are, to marvel at your flexibility, to be grateful that you are so well-packaged up, to get to be kissed too when you're older siblings are kissing you through the skin of my belly as they do spontaneously, to talk to you from the inside, to feel the curviness that you've granted my lower spine.      

WISDOM

Dear Wisdom, when we discovered that we are expecting you in the summertime in Winnipeg, we were shocked, surprised, and nauseas : } I was working on a renovation team gutting a friend's house, Matt and the kids were getting re-acquainted and inhabiting the local park, we were applying for jobs in Africa that we weren't getting, we were getting used to Canada again, we were making new friends (and missing old ones), and praying that something more long-term would fall into place by September.

Unlike the other two bambinos, you dear one came wholly unplanned. We were/are excited but no longer naive to the reality that growing a child from a mustard seed-size to at least age 6 and more likely 16 or 17 is a full-time job whatever way we share it between each other and our community. We needed WISDOM. We need WISDOM. And so we call you WISDOM.