So, here I am in Honduras. For three weeks. You know, I already love this place. After driving for several hours, to get to the Choluteca community in the southern part of the country, I realize that every house has a hammock. So it’s an ideal place! I tell myself this while gazing at the river, the Rio de Choluteca.
I have a lot to do in only a few days, starting with learning Spanish! But that’s okay – I brought my handy pocket reference dictionary.
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Yerson came to get me at the airport, with Miriam and the driver, Don Martin. You know, there’s something amazing about coming out of an airport, getting through customs without being searched, and seeing a lovely white piece of paper, no bigger than a piece of printer paper, waiting in the hands of a friend.
In big black letters,
EL ARCA
JONATHAN
It warmed my heart and de-stressed my brain!
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I said to myself—leaving the two-room house full of nothing—that, in truth, the whole world is searching for a normal life.
I had been at Ronal and his grandmother’s house. He has always lived with her. They don’t have much, these two, but what they have, they share. Smiles, above all.
And I find that beautiful, the ability to share a smile, a laugh, joy, happiness. Even in the worst of living situations, when your only family is your grandmother, 98 years old, or your 24-year-old grandson, who has an intellectual disability. In fact, a little bird tells me that this is not the worst of living situations at all. There are people who spend their entire lives without ever having learned to share a smile.
It’s hot this afternoon. And I think the little bird is right.
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The world is made up of communities of people trying desperately to simply live.
Deep down, what the whole world is looking for is a normal life.
And let me say that I hope the communities of the Ivory Coast are all right, as well as those of Japan and New Zealand. And those of Egypt, Palestine, Israel, and Mexico ... We are all searching, seeking—whether we have an intellectual disability or not, a physical handicap or not, easy or difficult days—we are all searching for a normal life.
Photo-galleries
Send to a friendThey warned me:
“You’ll see, Jonathan, the landing is a little dangerous!”
It’s true. I don’t remember anymore who said it to me, but he or she was right. In the mountains, literally, we land on a runway that is not long enough. I finally understood why a seatbelt on an airplane is useful (I couldn’t see how I was in any danger of falling out through the windshield ...) and I laughed—hard!
Jonathan Boulet-Groulx is a self-taught student of humanity, a reporter of joy, a wandering photographer, a writer about things human, an artist who captures human fragility. His blog, Mwen pa fou, dedicated to the cause of intellectual disabilities in Haiti, has become a touchstone for those who wish to follow the inside story of Haitian life since January 12th and, in particular, the situation of people affected by intellectual disabilities in the rebuilding of Haiti, his second home. Since May 2009 Jonathan has lived in the small community of L'Arche Chantal, in the Cailles region of Haiti.
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