Bathing

This afternoon Anna Ray and I sat by the river with the women bathing and washing their clothes.  An older woman spent her afternoon in the cool waters of the river meticulously scrubbing her sandals clean with river rocks- washing her body and rubbing it smooth with river stones.  The people here take great pride in cleanliness. They sweep their dirt floors, wash and iron clothes that will inevitably be soiled shortly thereafter in the mud and the dirt that surrounds us.  They are careful not to fall and take great lengths to walk around any mud or water so as not to get dirty.  At first, it struck me as odd all the attention that is paid to cleanliness.  I am used to a world of Spray N Wash and clothes that are easily replaced if soiled. Our lives in the US are ones of ease and convenience.  In Haiti, life is so hard.  Washing clothes for a family requires a sometimes long walk to the river, hours of scrubbing them clean and rinsing out the soap, the long walk home, drying, and ironing.  They iron their clothes with irons that are filled with hot charcoals and still manage to keep them clean and free of the ashes that would inevitably spill if I were to attempt this task.

I let Luc and Anna Ray get dirty.  They love splashing through mud puddles, playing in the sand, building houses with dirt and rocks, chasing chickens.  But, of course, I intend to leave our soiled clothes and shoes behind as we will be able to replace them when we get home.

It is only a culture of great wealth that pretends to be poor.  I often think of the college students driving around Colorado Springs in their SUVs and Subaru wagons while wearing torn and tattered clothes.  Here they have very little, but care for what they do have with great attention.  It still continues to amaze me that people have hope here.  They do hope.  They hope and wait for better roads, for clean drinking water, for medical care, for food to feed their families.  The weight we bear here is their hope.  They hope that we are here to change things, to make them better, to cure all ills.  Of course, we are powerless to do all these things.  But, we will continue to hope with them.