Yesterday, Monday May 18, was important for 2 reasons. First, May 18 is flag day here in Haiti, a national holiday. Second, it was the day following First Holy Communion in the parish. 224 kids made their communion, and I did not know it when I went to mass, but it is tradition that the day after First Communion, they all come together again, in all their finery, and receive communion again. This time, a lot of them come alone, since it is Monday and many parents are back at work.
This particular Monday, a lot of them arrived late. The rain here has been brutal, and a lot of these kids clambered through some incredibly muddy streets and alleys to arrive at church, every one of them still looking beautiful, perfectly white and lovely in their gown or white shirt.
After mass I was talking to Sister Mary and a girl came up and said Liz! to me. I thought at first she was Philomène, a little girl I met in the market, who had appendicitis last summer when I did. Her face fell a second, and she said, no! I am from Bons Samaritains!
Bons Samaritains is having their own separate communion at the end of this month, when Dr. Mortel comes to town, and I had not realized that some of our kids had gone through the church program. I commented on how lovely she looked. They wear long dresses, as though for a wedding, and headpieces, too.
I talked some more with Sister, and then as I was walking out, here she was, the little Communicant, waiting for me at the gates. She took my hand and we started to walk up the street together, and she said, “I’ll walk you home.”
I asked about her big day yesterday. She was so happy. She had a cake. I asked, “And a special dinner, too?” Oh, yes, they had meat (a little sigh and a smile.)
Having a conversation like this is very humbling indeed; she was walking along with me, holding my hand, and I felt unworthy. Compared to hers, my life is so effortless and easy. I felt bad that she would go out of her way, since she was wearing a long white dress, with lace at the sleeves and hem, and we were walking around a lot of mud puddles. One of the motorcycle guys was eventually going to fly by and splatter her with mud. I said, look, you shouldn’t walk me home! Don’t walk further than you have to!
Then, did I want to walk with her? Well, sure, I could walk with her! So we turned the other way, toward the market. Then she said, I know! Would you like to come to my house? And have some cake and Cremasse? I said, “Real Cremasse, with the cream(and the rum)?” “ Yes!” “O-kay!” I said. “I would love to share a little bit of your Cremasse.”
So hand in hand we walked through the market, taking care to avoid all the low spots. After awhile we turned back an alley, perhaps 4 or 5 feet wide. It was concave and muddier than the street, and the houses were very poor. Then after 50 yards we turned off again into a smaller alleyway, between houses and fences. We were getting into desperate territory. A mix of rusty corrugated iron, boards, wire, chicken wire, broken stuff, people standing around staring. Very rough. At one point my little friend slid between a concrete wall and a gatepost, an opening maybe 6” wide, and kept going, (dress still white) and I had to call out, “I am too fat for that!” I had to take a long way around which involved a gate and a puddle. I skirted the edge as best I could. More mud, another turn and another, the way getting narrower and narrower, and then we were walking around a hole that someone had dug in the middle of all this mud as a kind of neighborhood landfill.
Then we entered her family’s compound. It was an open courtyard at the center, maybe 15 feet by 20 feet. Her extended family was all there; I met her grandmother, grandfather, aunts, uncles, mom and dad. There were a lot of little cousins, and her little sister- I think. It is hard not knowing créole at a time like this.
They had so little. The families each had a room or two, which opened onto the yard. Everything was dirt, the yard and the floors to the houses, which you could see through the doorway. And of course, it was all wet, having rained buckets the night before. I was given a chair, so I sat down, under a little roof, and they all stood, except for the 3 or 4 that sat in the remaining chairs. There were about 10 or 12 people standing around, all looking at me. I noticed guys up on the neighboring roofs looking down at us.
My student brought out a piece of cake and a cup of cremasse. The cremasse was really good and I asked if they had made it. Her grandmother said yes! So I asked what was in it. As she was telling me, I was trying to repeat what she said. She told me coco-eh, (cocoanut) and I said, “coco?” without the “-eh.” Ah, apparently an obscenity, as 15 people promptly burst out laughing. I said “Oops! I’m sorry!” but no one offered to enlighten me. I will have to ask around.
The cake was good, too. It occurred to me that the kids must have only had a little taste of the cake, for there to be any left over like this, and I started to break off little pieces and offer them to the kids standing around. Some of the little kids had clothing on, some only had shirts on. I think one or two might have been naked. They were very dirty from the mud, and very grateful for the cake. One little girl snatched her piece away and ran into her house, as if she were afraid I might change my mind. We all laughed at that.
How was her communion dress so white? Where on earth did she keep it? It was still white after walking around and serving me the cake. I would have had 20 spots on it by then, after all we’d come through to get there. When I was done I thanked them, and she walked me back out to the market. She was going to walk me home, but I assured her I knew the way from there.
It rained really hard again last night. Tuesday morning about 1/4 of our kids were not at school, on account of the mud coming into their homes. I thought sure she would be among those missing, but there she was, as beautiful and as kempt as ever, down to the earrings in her ears. She thanked me for visiting. Absolutely humbling.
