Day 2: Stepping Over the Threshold

Post by Carla.  

More thoughts on Day 2 to (hopefully!) come tomorrow from Kevin, Gwynn, and Laura!

Even the longest journey begins with just one step.  Lao Tzu

Today, after a long and twisted trip through the mountains, we've arrived at our destination.   We are just outside of the town of Hinche ( ench)  in the mid-plateau region.  For the rest of this week, we will be staying here at Lakay, the training center for our partner organization, MPP ( Papaye Peasent Movement).  (I'm sure you'll be hearing much more about MPP.  I think I'll urge my very knowledgeable co-leader, Robert Ehler, to write a piece about MPP's organization and the visionary work they do here. That is not my topic tonight. )

Tonight I am typing while out on the porch of the house at La Kay in the peaceful soft 70 degree air, listening to the crickets.  I am sitting just outside the front door of the house. And I am thinking about thresholds. 

We, as a group, crossed a threshold today-we left the city of Port au Prince and drove to the countryside. We've literally crossed the threshold into the lovely, though simple, and certainly rustic, house where we are now staying.  The same house in which I've stayed twice before. We are also crossing a threshold into new perspectives on the world.

We opened the door to this experience when we made the decision to participate on this trip.  It requires a conscious choice to open a door to change in our lives.  Poised at the threshold, we needed to set other things aside, to let go.  We needed to put down the cell phone to hold the doorhandle.  We put aside work and walked out our office doors and closed them behind.  We put down some of our ways of thinking, judging, categorizing, to open our minds to new perspectives. Only by letting go can we enter into the new with a full awareness.

There is a satisfaction for me stepping into this place again.  I've had happy and meaningful  experiences here in the past.  This feels a little like visiting a favorite family cabin in the woods again after two years.  The house at LaKay, feels comfortably familiar now. Three years ago, when I first came as a participant on a UUCSJ Haiti Journey, this building seemed strange, oddly bare and a little uncomfortable.  I am aware that it may feel strange for some of our group, though their first response has been surprisingly positive.  Perhaps my tales of tarantulas and cold trickles for showers scared them enough that the reality looked pretty good by contrast to their imaginings!

There are surprises whenever one steps over a threshold.   And although this place has become more familiar to me now, there are still surprises.  Passing through Hinche, I was surprised, and delighted, to see how lively the streets of town were today.  Never having visited Hinche on a weekend day, I had not experienced the market so alive with crowds, the music playing and the motorcycles sailing recklessly down crowded streets. ( Did you know that four people fit on a motorcycle?) The people congregating to talk and laugh were dressed in Sunday's best- the little girls in their flouncy white or pink dresses, ribbons in their hair, all look as if they are celebrating their First Communion!  This town's dusty, ramshackle streets were depressing and troubling to me the first time I visited three years ago.  On today's drive through it felt festive, vibrant and alive. 

I'm also surprised by how at ease and happy I am to be with people I remember from previous trips, like Mayheeda and Juliet, our translators; and Mocsin, one of the MPP members who has welcomed us here.  And some improvements have been made to the house- including closets in the rooms and a railing on the stairs.  Each a pleasant surprise.

Stepping into a new place always leads to change- intended and also unpredictable changes. Coming to this place in the past has opened my heart once again and changed my vision of the world. Through my experiences of Haiti I feel as if I am forming a new version of myself, a person who sees the world in a larger perspective. I hope that I am growing a self who is more aware, and more able to make connections with people whose lives are so different from my own, and yet not so different at all.  

We've stepped through the door now into our new- temporary- home.  This step will change our surroundings, and change us in ways we can't yet know. I wonder what this journey will be for the others in our group, for whom it is their first?  I wonder what this third trip here will be for me?  What will be most beautiful, most challenging, most moving on this trip?  We can't possibly predict all that will happen when we cross a threshold.  The excitement of this threshold crossing is in the not-knowing.

Thanks to Rob for the map, and to Kevin for the photo