Becoming a socially awkward American

This evening I was talking with a pastor when I noticed a mosquito on his face. I immediately reached up and gave his face a small smack to ward off the malaria-carrying insect, to which he quickly responded, "Merci."

Earlier this week, I broke the same American social norm when I stuck my finger out to wipe flour off the face of one of our cooks. Thinking about this tonight, I wondered if after spending time in Haiti, I'm becoming a socially awkward American.

Here are some things that are now normal to me:
1) touching someone's face (see above examples)
2) carrying everything in a bag when I go out (a pair of shoes, a can of soup, anything)
3) close-talking
4) asking "how is your family" every time I talk to someone
5) touching while talking (generally putting an arm around the other person's back)
6) shaking hands at the end of every conversation
7) paying by handing crumpled up money to someone else with a closed fist
8) close-sitting
9) talking loudly to others across the room
10)arriving fifteen minutes "late" to everything
11)close-standing and generally just being too close

So if ever I reach up and hit a mosquito off or your face or insist on shaking your hand every time I leave your living room, please forgive me. I am now a socially awkward American.

God Can Do Everything

They were both squatting down on the cement slab, large metal wash basins at their knews, as they scrubbed clothes and towels and asked me their usual twenty questions of the day. "Ki le ou prale peyi ou?" (when will you go to your country?), Mme. Ovner asked in a sing songy tone.


When they heard my answer "Avril," both the wash ladies gasped a surprised, high pitched oh. We've had this conversation at least five times, and the response is always the same. How long will you stay there, will you come back, when will you come back, nap priye (we're praying).

This morning, however, it went a little different. When they asked if I'd come back, I decided to explain my financial situation and how I can't come back without the help of the churches. I then asked them to pray God helps me come back. Maybe I did this to try to break the stereotype here that all Americans have unlimitted resources. Maybe I was just worrying about fundraising again. Or maybe it was a little bit of both.

Either way, their response blessed me. They both emphatically committed to praying for God to help me. Then they said to me, God can do everything. Mme. Ovner even started singing, "Bondye ka fe tout bagay, tout bagay, tout bagay." (God can do everything, everything everything.)

And as she did, I looked down at her. This stick-thin mother of three, who was wearing the same faded orange t-shirt and navy blue skirt I saw her wearing yesterday outside her two-room house in the poorest part of town, was looking up at me with a reassuring smile. I watched her hands scrubbing back and forth over the clothes, knowing how much her forearms must ache when she finishes work each day, and wishing I had her faith.