Vacatioin – it is a lovely word. I would never have believed how much good a vacation can do. Brain switched off, a brief rest. And then we start off again, for it’s the nature of life that fulfillment comes with action.

I have thought about you, all of you, who take the time to think about these people, these Haitians, these friends.

Thank you for reading this blog. Thank you for adding your comments, your impressions, your personal stories, to it. I hope you’ll go on doing that – it’s the best way of creating a collective memory of and for these more-than-perfect creatures, for these people, disabled perhaps in terms of intelligence, and now confronted by an enormous challenge that will continue for years - to play a part in the rebuilding of this small, beautiful country, at once fragile and majestic.

The time is more appropriate than ever to talk to you about love. But the words only tangle themselves up in my head. So I suggest that we re-enter this blog together, slowly.

Here is a single photograph. Very simple. A picture of two lovers – because love is the beginning of a life.

Harold - The smile of a good-natured man, the goodwill of a Samaritan, and a girlfriend who loves him

Thanks to Harold for inviting me to his birthday party. To have lived for 45 years is not a very short time, but it’s not too long either. You would have to live 45 more years before I could say that you are old. The smile of a good-natured man, the goodwill of a Samaritan, and a girlfriend who is very clear that he is HER boyfriend! Love that’s strong enough to blow out the candles by its own force! Happy Birthday and my best wishes to Harold Lejeune.

See you very soon. I’ll post a new blog entry shortly after I return to Haiti (I expect to be back the morning of the 31st).

This is J, a young man who works at the State Secretariat for the Integration of Handicapped People. (SEIPH) In fact, he was responsible for the collection of data for the department in the aftermath of the catastrophe. Almost two months have passed since the earthquake, so I’m sitting down with this young, bearded academic, in the simple hope that I might be able to add to my articles by including statistics that are interesting, previously unpublished, exclusive, revealing ....

A man of letters, of the theatre, this J. You can hear it in his accents in all the right places – his French is a beautiful thing to hear. But I didn’t come here to see a play; I really need numbers to help me understand the scope of the catastrophe. So, after several minutes of casual chitchat, the first half of our beer downed, I get right to the point.

J, I would like to have all the data, all the statistics on disabilities and the condition of people with disabilities in Haiti, especially since the 12th of January.

If I understand you correctly, he replies in a serious tone, you want clear and precise numbers. Yes, you understand me completely, I say in an equally serious tone.

It is difficult to explain the Haitian situation to you, a foreigner, he says, a bit disconcerted. Oh, really? Why? I ask him, perplexed. It’s embarrassing, he continues, to tell all this to a Canadian ... I find it strange telling you all this because you will never be able to understand the truth.

The truth? I ask, curious. So he tells me the honest truth: There aren’t any statistics; no census has ever been taken in relation to disabilities. Never.

I repeat the word almost mechanically. Never.

The question of handicaps was never an issue for Haitians, J tells me.

And chances are that it will be that way for some time? I can’t keep myself from smiling as I ask the question.

His answer surprises me. The 12th was a serious wake-up call for people about the issue of disabilities in this country. Suddenly, from one day to the next, a business executive, a nurse, a university professor – in short, almost everyone has found him or herself affected by disability. Before, disabled people simply lived on the margins, apart from everyone else, for a variety of reasons. Since the catastrophe, Haitians have come to realize that everyone needs to have a place, to be included here. My aunt said to me a few days ago, “You know J, for the first time I have realized that, before the earthquake, no businesses had access ramps for wheelchairs.”

But if no census has ever been taken here, where did the figures come from? The official word these days is that there are some 800,000 people with disabilities in Haiti.

This is data derived by analogy, he tells me. On the basis of such-and-such a number, we deduce another number ... it’s deduction more than scientific research based on a precise methodology.

Then he explains it to me: These figures have been used since the 1990s. During the 1980s, an international consensus was reached that approximately 10% of the world’s population was affected by some kind of disability. Therefore, in our country, our very little country, the numbers were simply aligned with those of the rest of the world. We weren’t the only country to do this; many Caribbean nations did the same thing.

During the 2003 census, the most recent conducted in Haiti, no attention was paid to disabilities; no questions were asked about disabilities among the population. At that time, the census numbered some 340,000 people with disabilities. (I repeat the number - even though no census was in fact taken of this sector of the populace.)

That’s far from 10%, you would say to me.

You are correct, J would respond

Why? You would add.

Lack of interest, would be J’s comment.

Then, while you were still gaping at him, J would explain to you: The truth is rather simple. In government and government departments - in effect, there was nothing designed for people with disabilities before now. So, the question was - though it was never openly talked about - why shine the light on a section of society that we aren’t ready to help in any case? So we used the magic number - 10% - to be like the rest of the world.

And you, J, do you believe in that figure? Personally, I would put it at closer to 13 or 14%.

He has a direct gaze and very young eyes. He makes his comments, remarkably cut-and-dried and yet frank at the same time, in a soft voice. Before letting him go off with his friend who has been waiting at a table a little way off, I ask him if he is optimistic about the future.

I am fairly pessimistic about the future of Haiti, but I am more positive about the issue of disabilities in Haiti.

Are those your final comments?

Yes, he tells me unequivocally.

Well, mine will be different. I am fairly optimistic about the future of disabilities in Haiti, and this makes me feel very positive about the future of the country as a whole, since there are people like J who are working daily on behalf of the most vulnerable.When a society starts to reflect, even if it’s only tentatively, timidly, about its most fragile and rejected members, this is a society not only ready for change; it is a society that has already begun to change.

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The end of a gray day: Statistics don’t exist and the government could tell you that the numbers are anywhere between 1 and 999,999. I told myself this while I was crossing the street - my eyes fixed on the blog waiting to be written. And I also told myself that I was returning empty-handed from my hunt for numbers that would please white people. Then a child asked me for five gourdes (Haitian currency) - dirty from head to toe, but smiling as only a Haitian child knows how to smile. Sorry, I don’t have any more ... So he goes off, empty-handed from his hunt for the white dollar. I smile, because he smiled at me. Numbers, all the numbers, all the data will never replace the truth. And the truth is that it is high time we turned our attention to people with disabilities. Whether there is one or one million, it is the importance accorded each one individually that will make the difference and not the bureaucratic “why or how,” and the “if maybe there were fewer we could,” or “minus everything else, and with a bit more”, etc. ... ....


P.S. Speaking of statistics ... Did you know that the median age of the Haitian population is 18? Estimates are that the reconstruction will take a decade, so they will be 28 years old when it ends – if it ever ends!

Ti-Françoise - L'Arche Carrefour

You have to see her, happy as a fish in water. The first musical notes have barely been struck; the first voices have just begun to be heard, and a smile has taken up residence between her chin and her nose, joining up, among other things, her ears, and parallel to her eyes the colour of candy. Out of the simplicity of purity, offered as it must be by the most lovely, smiling Françoise that I know. The most striking element of this image of Ti-Françoise (“Little” Françoise) at Mass is this gentle, calm way she has of listening to what is going on around her, at the very moment it is happening – of being in the moment.

How often each day do we live in our heads rather than in the reality of the moment? We are at Mass, and we’re thinking about work. We’re at work, and we’re thinking about our vacation. On holiday, we fear the end of the pleasure. We eat and think about the dishes, then we do the dishes and think about our next meal.

One of the gifts (I say “one” of them, for there are many) of people affected by intellectual disabilities is to lead us inexorably toward the present moment, which can be so sweet. What is more, living in the present moment is truly the heart of "joie de vivre" - the zest for life that permits us not only to appreciate life but to respond more effectively to its crises.  (Do you understand this, you big shots out there?) When we see what is in front of us, when we hear about the real needs, we react more appropriately to a catastrophe.

I believe it in the depths of my guts - people “lacking” in intelligence call out of our beings a new humanity, which helps Francoise’s heart grow the way a sunflower does in the sun, and which builds more just societies, in the North as in the South. 

Our life, like dust of the universe Lived the wrong way round in this place Where our right to life Becomes king Without which we might believe ourselves only just Greater than the just men What are we, when there is no longer a “here”?

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Yes
Certainly
Sometimes good news is disguised as bad,
And
Bad news is disguised as good ...

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Road Trip

Nancy told me something with her eyes today, while I was admiring the countryside of her country, as we sat in the car that was taking us to Chantal.

“To be generous, loving, real – it isn’t about giving what we have, it’s about giving what we are.”

This was a magical road trip – Marie-Pier, Nancy, and me. The women will visit the Chantal community and its new residents. For the simple pleasure of sharing a meal, a prayer, a workbench, a snippet of the community life that we have lived, so truly and fully, for so many years, at L’Arche.

You should have seen us, with our M & Ms and our pink Tampico soft drink, flavoured with the sugar of the Antilles. Children happy as a pope in front of ultimate Truth. Hair blowing in the wind, smiles on our lips, sporting sunglasses, we hummed the chorus of the theme song of the great Creator – what joy!

Marie-Pier took the wheel - my feet, needing some air, rested comfortably on the windowsill. Sometimes, the call to live freely comes to us, so we take to the road and head off for parts unknown. The whole community was ready to welcome us with arms open wide and supper already hot ...

Because L’Arche is also voyages, celebration, smiles – life well lived, we would say!