As my sister and I exited a “shop” in Haiti today, there
were several men outside in the hot and humid sun shoveling gravel and dirt
away from the building. A young man
named Peter stopped shoveling long enough to cheerfully greet us. After teasing us and asking us our names and
where we were from, I commented that I hoped he was getting paid fairly for the
hard work he was doing. He happily
responded that he was making what translated to $5 US dollars every two days. Inwardly, I was shocked. But
yet, he seemed grateful to have a job and wasn’t wasting a moment feeling sorry
for himself, but instead, appearing to be facing every day filled with joy.
Later, we were having a conversation with Elder Moreland,
the wonderful gentleman who runs Terre Promise School in Cite Soleil, the slums
of Port au Prince. He explained that his
students need to go to a different school for 12th grade, because he
can’t afford to pay the salaries required for 12th grade teachers, $5.00
per hour. How amazing that $5.00/hour
in Haiti was considered an exorbitant amount of money to pay for a high school
teacher’s salary.
During that same conversation with Elder Moreland, we were
discussing setting up a college scholarship program for some of his graduating
students. We learned that sending a
Haitian student to a local University Port au Prince for two semesters costs
less than the price of books for a college student in the U.S. for two
semesters.
There’s a part of me that is filled with guilt over the huge
difference between the “haves” of those of us in the U.S. and the “have nots”
of the Haitians. There are moments as
I’m parading through their world that it’s almost hard to make eye contact
fearing what I assume looks to them like we spoiled Americans. But yet, I’m continually amazed at how accepting
they are of their own lives and how accepting they are of us. I have so much to learn from them.
Blessings,
Ann
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