Relaxing in my hammock after a long day of travel and getting to know our group, including meeting with a Pastor over on the opposite end of Port-at-Prince, cool breezes wash over me… Relaxing me as my mind wanders in every direction at once.
I’d never take a cold shower at home but I love them here. There’s something incredible about the cold water splashing you in the face, washing off the grim of a day’s travels, and cooling your body down.
The splashes of water cement the memories of the day in my mind.
Today was one of those days so long it felt like two. Thinking back, my espresso powered layover in Miami couldn’t have been today. Fighting through baggage claim couldn’t have been today. A mid-morning Coke couldn’t have been today. Seeing the progress at Pastor Jacky’s couldn’t have been today. Seeing Sister Mona, having dinner with the team, worshipping on the roof with distance lighting wasn’t today. But it was. Some days are like that… So long and so eventful that as you finally stop to think about it it couldn’t have been just a day
As I swing here I just can’t stop thinking to myself, “I love seeing lightning in the distance, thunder gently rolling by.”
The wind brings the smell of charcoal fires, the echoes of too many loud radios, the shouts of Creole, the honking horns.
I’m left to ask as I drift off… Where is silence? Amidst the chaos is it found in the crickets chirp? Is it found in the droning boat engine noise of a nearby cargo ship loading through the night? Is there silence found in the noise of the chaos? Or maybe silence will come from somewhere else tonight? And why does the swaying door in the wind calm me when it’d annoy me at home?
As I drift off I’m seriously debating sleeping outside in this hammock– reflecting on this long day until sleep comes.
The noise, the smell, the breeze, everything odd, yet familiar. The energy Haiti brings my soul. How is it that a place is so foreign that it feels like home?
Do you have a place like that so other in your life? Yesterday, before the trip began, was so ordinary and wonderful. A day with the kids, my daily work, dinner with the family. And then… 24 hours later… I find silence in the wind, swinging in a hammock, 50 noisy feet from the Caribbean.
Where do you find silence? Where do you rest in the wind? Where do the crickets call you to sleep?
For me, it’s this hammock, this place, this country. Where is it for you?
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