Home In Unlikely Places

I suppose it has happened. Haiti has slowly become home to me in some important ways.

Home is where the heart is, and my heart over the last year has often yearned for golden wheat fields of Kansas, the snow-sprinkled peaks of the Rocky Mountains, or for the company of friends and family I miss.

But stepping out into the warm, sunshine-drenched air of Port-au-Prince after my plane landed Thursday was like a long awaited hug for my cold bones and numb toes.

I loved every minute of my wintery holiday in Kansas with the warm company of family and quality visits with amazing friends, yet all the while, I felt like a piece of myself was missing. On the morning we opened Christmas presents, one little elf was missing from my nephew's package-unwrapping carnage. When toasting around the room in celebration of a New Year, there was one special face I missed kissing. So when I stepped into the outstretched arms of my husband and let my son wrap his chubby arms around my neck, I reunited with those missing pieces of me.

Haiti has offered a gentle welcome with the kind of gorgeous days that remind me of the beginning of a midwestern summer: hot sun coupled with the lingering cool breezes of spring. The air fragrant with smoke and vegetation welcomes me back after leaving the sterile, scentless airport air. I’m happy to hear the gobble of the neighbor’s turkey who miraculously survived two major holidays. I smile at the sound of music that rides the wind day and night: kompa merging with hip-hop fading into church hymns and accented with the tinkling of the water trucks' endless tune (still either Celine’s Heart Going on or a Christmas medley that jingles all year long). After 10 days of broad white landscapes, the popping colors of Haiti look like an oil paint canvas of color: palm tree green, dusty street brown, the rainbow collage of market colors—tomato red, lime, leafy and chili pepper green, bean white, red, and black, and carrot orange all under a sky Caribbean blue.

With homecoming came unpacking and resettling into the routine of life with a 14-month-old. I was spring-boarded back into work activities with the arrival of our first group of the new year—an enthusiastic bunch from Tennessee who are mostly first-timers to Haiti, full of curiosity and open to adventure, learning and reflection.

Today we attended church in a familiar spot, a place we tend to gravitate back to now and again. The simple structure sits in a green field outside of City Solei. Patrick and I have been there enough times that our introductions are now, “glad to see you again” and the faces in the congregation greet us with smiles of recognition instead of curious stares. Thanks to a largely sleepless night with Mr. Teething, I snagged a seat in the back with the other mothers-with-small-children anticipating a restlessly tired boy. In all honesty, its my favorite seat in the house, and in that church especially, I feel welcome. From such a vantage point, I watched mothers nursing quiet their infants, little sisters holding the hand of their even littler brothers, kids wiggling and dancing to the music, balloons and silk flowers hanging from the beams of the ceiling above, hands clapping in song or waving in prayer, and from the front of the church our new friends taking it all in. On one particular lively hymn, when the entire congregation seemed caught up in the energy of the music and Solomon was clapping in my arms to the beat of the drum, I grinned in complete and simple happiness.

Haiti can certainly leave us tired and spent. Yet they say you have to leave for a while to appreciate where you come from. I suppose that also means where you find yourself living. So for me I had to go home to appreciate coming back to my home-of-the-moment. Lucky for me I have two great places to hang my heart.