Vialet

I just did a pretty dumb thing. I laid down to rest at about 5:30, and didn't wake up until 11:oo. I'm not going to be able to sleep.

Luckily, I awoke vividly remembering my time in Vialet: a small community about the size of Corner Brook a 45 minute drive away from Petit Goave, in Haiti.

Specifically I was remembering a little girl. I don't really remember her face at all. There were so many children. The face I keep remembering her with is wrong: it's one of the two girls I dubbed "The cutest two little girls on Earth." I certainly don't remember her name. If I had ever asked (which I'm sure I didn't), I had a hard enough time remembering the four or five working men's names over a week period.

Somebody made the joking observation that there were no two kids with the same names in Haiti. I believe it. From seemingly common names like John, to awesome names like Romulus, and the even more crazy Messiah. There might have been doubles though. When you ask a name, you're never quite sure if they're going to give you their name, their family name, a nickname, or something else.

Anyways. The girl. I remember she was wearing a dirty white undershirt. Some sort of shorts or pants or something. I don't remember that so vividly, other than the fact that she was wearing pants. I was paying attention to that. It seems that only little boys are allowed to run around pants-less. With four or five exceptions. And this girl wasn't one of them.

I didn't remember what day it was, but it must have been a Tuesday. A crowd of us who hadn't seen the marketplace on Saturday went to check it out. With the exception of four or five women selling charcoal, the main marketplace was empty. Near the road people were selling fruits, drinks, and other "marketplace" things.

During our entire walk through Vialet, we had a steady flow of children following us. I don't remember this specifically, but if every other day of the trip was an indication, they were pointing at us, laughing, and yelling "Blanc! Blanc!" White is exotic, it seems.

I turned around to look at the kids following us, and caught the eye of this little girl in the dirty white undershirt. She was following close behind me, and watching my every step. I decided I would try to be silly, and I began to walk funny, with sweeping arm movements, and a dramatic knee dip in the middle of every step. She tried to mimic, but couldn't mimic and keep pace at the same time. She looked at me. She looked at the other local kids. She was giggling hysterically. Everybody was laughing at everything and everybody else. White his hilarious, it seems.

We got back to the church, and a crowd just hung around near the gate. There was no reason for them not to come in, but they just waited out there in the road around the massive sheet metal door. They must have been shy or something. The Canadians had sort of stopped working for the most part, and were hanging about with each other, and with the children. But the kids in the road wouldn't come in. White is intimidating, it seems.

Another encounter might have been after the market experience, or before. I don't exactly remember. The girls and boys had been separated to do their crafts for children's ministry. I was sitting among a group of boys trying to show them how to do an Elephant stick puppet. I was frustratedly demanding "Regarde! Regarde!" but in retrospect I'm not entirely sure I was saying it right. Vialet didn't have a school either. The kids present might never have learned French.

Anyways. I was gluing together a kid's Elephant for him, and half a dozen hands were constantly demanding my attention, showing Elephants with noses for ears and tongues for eyes. The boys' eyes were inquisitive. At first all I had said was "Non, non, Regarde!" I was laughing in my head at the silly boys. I had joked after about how bad their Elephants were. But really, even if they had listened, they would not have been much better. I never could get Sunday school kids to follow instructions in English. How much more-so when they only understand Creole.

After a while I stopped trying to fix their mistakes. Another kid would hold up an Elephant and I'd hold up my thumbs. "Bon! Bon!" As I began to realize that these kids were exactly like the kids back home, I began to mean it.

I had just stood up from the ground from where I was sitting, surrounded by boys and their Elephants, when I saw a sad little girl in an immaculate white dress. The girls had made little flower necklaces instead of Elephants, and the center of her flower, a shiny jewel-like thing you buy from the buck-or-two in bulk, had fallen off. Her mother, or her older sister, or somebody, had brought her to Jen or another girl on the team.

Half a second with a Popsicle stick and glue, and the flower was fixed. The girl was beaming. She was sticking her flower-adorned chest out so far it was almost parallel with the ground. She looked so happy. She went to run around with the other girls. I saw her later and the jewel had fallen off again. She didn't seem to notice.

Oh, also, it was about that time that I declared the girl in the white dress "one of the two most beautiful little girls earth." The other one was wearing a pink dress with flowers on it. I think I might have pictures of the both of them, which I'll post later if I do.

Haiti is just beginning to hit me. My last night there was probably the most incredible night for the past year. Maybe I'll post on that later too.