Today I decided to go for a visit down by the beach. Some of you may remember that two weeks ago while driving us back from mass at the outlying chapels, Father Alcide stopped off at a parish family who lives a little bit north of town along the beach. So today I walked and walked, and there was the gate, and I went in, and the oldest daugher, Linda, remembered me and I asked her if I could visit a little bit, and she said yes.
There is a seawall now, about 8 feet high, and Sister Mary said that it was built 3 or 4 years ago to protect the coast after some bad storms destroyed houses. At the time she told me this, she looked down from the top of the wall and said, "We're miles from the sea, here!" I said I thought I might be able to climb down someplace. Sister said she thought her climbing days were over. I asked the girls if we could go down onto the beach. (There was a big black pig down there, by the way, poking in the debris. I thought the children were a lot more photogenic and fun.) They said "Sure!" and just like that they all three scampered down. Like little mountain goats. I went down very gingerly and I thought there might be problems getting back up, but I decided to worry about that later.
At first it was just Linda and her little sisters, then about a half hour later their big brother Jeff came home. He is 13 and attends school up the street from me, at the school facing the Place where I watched Carnaval one night. Everyone refers to this school as "The Brothers." It is run by the Order of Cluny, I believe, and there are some Brothers who teach or administer in the school.
I don't know if it is the excellent teaching he gets at his school, or his innate intelligence and curiosity, but I was blown away by Jeff today. His real name, he told me, is Jefferson, because his father loves history, and that is the name of the President who wrote the Declaration of Independence. Then we had a talk about presidents, and he asked me what I thought of President Obama. I said we are all hopeful that he will be a good president. "But what about that cartoon this week, of the policeman shooting the monkey, and saying it was Obama?"
Wow. I said I could not account for it at all, I thought it was terrible. Then I explained to him the original story behind the cartoon, about the pet monkey that went crazy. "Oh, I know," he said. "In Connecticut." I almost fell over. I had forgotten it was Connecticut where that happened. He said, "Connecticut is an indigenous name." And it went like that all afternoon. I can't say I understood everything he said, but I think he must be brilliant. How many American 13-year-olds followed the news that closely this week? (Or could tell you the origin of the name Connecticut?)
We talked about the environment here in Haiti. He agreed that many things needed improvement. I asked him what he thought the problem was, and I think he said it was that too many Haitians want stuff. I forget the word he used for it, but it implied consumerism, the hankering after better things, like so many of us do sometimes, and ignoring the things closer to home that need to get done.
There is a town beach, it turns out, another mile north of them, called Gros Roche, big Rock. It costs money to go, but Jeff thought it might be better to go up there if I wanted to swim. So he walked me to the beach and we checked it out. 50 Gourdes, $1.25 a person.
So I invited Jeff and his sisters to go to the beach tomorrow with me. Their mother was a little suspicious when I asked, I think, but she gave her permission. So that's the plan, and maybe tomorrow at this time I will be sending you a picture of my first swim in the Caribbean Sea.
Oh, and I did climb back up the seawall from the beach, with a little help from my friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment