by Paul Farmer
Daily Mass with Manmi Dèt
Manmi Dèt and I left her house at four in the afternoon every weekday and walked through the neighborhood and up the steep hill to St. Clare’s Church for Mass. Luke preferred to stay at home with Nennenn. There weren’t any sidewalks, so we made our way in a zigzag pattern around dozens of one-room, concrete-block houses. This was our special time. Just the two of us. I looked forward to it each day.
Wearing colorful dresses she’d made herself, a matching hat, and low church heels, Manmi Dèt always dressed up for Mass. She held my hand the whole way and helped me navigate around broken glass, rusted cans, mud, discarded tires, and jagged pieces of concrete. As we passed her neighbors, she greeted everyone with an enthusiastic “Bonjou!” and a smile. “Bonjou, Manmi Dèt,” they’d call back, waving. When she introduced me, I felt warmly received. If I was a friend of Manmi Dèt’s, I was their friend.
The neighborhood felt calm and peaceful despite the rugged circumstances. There was a strong sense of community. Most everyone stood or sat outside their homes—all ages—chatting and watching the children. They all knew each other. The homes were so close together it wasn’t clear whose property we were on as we passed through. I tried to peek inside the houses, but they were dark. Sometimes I made out a small wooden table and chair. I rarely saw anyone cooking or eating.
We often passed kids Luke’s age kicking a deflated soccer ball around. I didn’t see many toys or bikes, and never a stroller, a swing, or anything electronic like a Game Boy. We passed women squatting outside their homes, scrubbing clothes with a bar of soap and pail of water. How they got their clothes so clean was a mystery to me. On Sundays, when the church was packed, everyone’s dresses, shirts, and pants showed no signs of the dust that seemed to fly everywhere and coat everything.
“Attention,” Manmi Dèt would say in French, pointing out loose, slippery rocks. She’d tighten her grip and help me steady myself when I jumped over big pools of mud. When we got to one of Tiplas Kazo’s main streets, Manmi Dèt would hold up her purse to shield us from the clouds of dust created by passing tap-taps and cars.
On the same corner every day, next to a family who sold grilled corn, waited Manmi Dèt’s good friend, Irène. Irène had a radiant smile and a beautiful face that didn’t show the stress of life in this city. She accompanied us up the final road to St. Clare’s. It was steep, but Manmi Dèt and Irène were in amazing shape for women in their 70s. They didn’t even break a sweat. When we finally arrived at the top of the hill and walked through the brown wooden doors of St. Clare’s, it was close to 4:30.
We always sat in a pew in the front left section of the sanctuary, the exact spot I chose each Sunday growing up in my dad’s church. There, waiting for us, were the same fifteen to twenty women, as though they’d never left. Faithful, committed, and holding their rosaries, they sat together and prayed every afternoon—some aloud, others silently. When Manmi Dèt arrived, the singing began.
Manmi Dèt had a great voice—not perfect in pitch, but strong and joyful. She loved singing and her enthusiasm encouraged everyone else to join in. There was no organ or piano, just these women singing a cappella. Manmi Dèt kept beat with her hand on the top of the pew in front of her. Sometimes they sang for fifteen minutes, sometimes an hour or more—it depended on when Fr. Gerry arrived. They just kept singing and praying until he walked out in his robe from behind the pulpit.
Not being Catholic or speaking Creole, I didn’t understand most of the service, but the energy of the women around me was always uplifting. Just hearing Fr. Gerry’s hopeful tone inspired me. Daily Mass became an important touchstone for me, a time to sit and feel.
The sanctuary was stiflingly hot. With no air-conditioning or even a fan, sweat poured down my face, neck, and back, mosquitoes always circling my ankles. After an hour or two, I’d get restless and thirsty, but I couldn’t jump up to get a drink of water—there were no water fountains. So I just sat there in the heat, my mouth dry and my stomach grumbling, and tried to quiet my mind so I could be fully present.
This is one of the reasons I visit Haiti—to make it personal. To feel uncomfortable—physically and emotionally, so that I remember. In Berkeley when I get hot, I turn on a fan. If I feel cold, I turn on the heat or grab a sweater. Thirsty? I turn on the faucet. Hungry? I open the refrigerator or go to the store. I never feel uncomfortable for more than a moment and can forget that these are real problems for others. Is being too comfortable one of the reasons the shade can be pulled down over an issue like world hunger, or hunger right in our own country? How can we get to a place where we care deeply about hunger or clean water—enough to act and make meaningful changes—when it’s not personal? When we ourselves are never hungry or thirsty and don’t actually see the suffering?
Mass always ended with the passionate prayer to St. Jude. I opened my palms and lifted my arms high above my head along with the other women. It didn’t take me long to learn the words. As the prayer closed, the intensity built as the women cried out for help. They prayed fiercely day after day for Haiti, even though it didn’t seem like the rest of the world ever heard them.
“Osekooooooooouuuuuuuuuuu.” S.O.S.
Nighttime
Manmi Dèt’s neighborhood didn’t have streetlights, so at night the only light came from the moon. Bedtime was early for Luke and me, because the electricity was usually not working. We tried to use the dim lightbulb on the side of the wall that hooked up somehow to Nennenn’s generator, to play cards or read, but it usually wasn’t bright enough.
Our room was hot, making it difficult for me to fall asleep. Luke had no trouble. He was exhausted from playing soccer with the neighborhood kids and fell asleep as quickly as he did at home. I was relieved that he transitioned so smoothly into life at the Dépestres. He seemed comfortable with the heat, loved the food, enjoyed the new friends he was making and the slow rhythm of his days. He didn’t even complain about the growing number of mosquito bites all over his body. He was quiet when it came to talking about the living conditions of people in the neighborhood. I knew he was taking it all in, and assumed he just hadn’t found the words to describe what he felt.
I often lay awake for hours listening to the sounds of the neighborhood—dogs fighting, roosters crowing, people singing at late-night church services, babies crying. Sometimes Manmi Dèt’s daughter Nérie would come over to say prayers with Manmi Dèt and Magga. I never actually saw them, but I guessed they were sitting around a table in the room just below me, perhaps with a candle between them. Sometimes they’d pray for an hour, sometimes longer. They’d start out quietly, whispering the rosary together, but then Nérie’s voice would rise as she shifted into other prayers. I got chills as I listened. I couldn’t understand a word, but the passion and faith in her voice as she called out to the heavens felt as though she was giving voice to the prayers of every hungry child and adult in Haiti.
Nighttime was a time for me to pray, too, and reflect on what I was experiencing. My mind replayed the places and people I’d seen. Each time I heard a child cry, I’d remember the 18-month-old at the orphanage and all the children asleep on dirt floors in Cité Soleil. A distant crack of thunder would bring back the awful image of shacks in Cité Soleil flooding with raw sewage after a heavy rain, and families having nowhere to go.
Sweaty and restless, I’d think about what it must be like for these children and their parents, but I could only let my mind go so far. I couldn’t imagine the heartache the mothers felt as they struggled to find food daily. To listen to their children cry from hunger, to watch them die from starvation or diarrhea. It was inconceivable to me. I listened to Luke’s breathing in the bed next to me and thought of our lives and how I’d never had to worry about these things, not even once. Someone told me that some of the mothers in Cité Soleil made clay biscuits for their children. It was all they had to feed them—dirt mixed with salt and vegetable shortening and baked in the sun.
When I couldn’t sleep,
I’d get up and lean on the window-sill and look out into the blackness. Sometimes a tropical breeze touched my face, reminding me of the nights I loved as a child when I visited my grandparents in the Cayman Islands, listening to the sound of waves and feeling the Caribbean breeze through my bedroom’s screened window. I would spend my languid days playing in the sand, wading in the water, hunting for seashells, coconuts, and crabs. We went on picnics and I learned to snorkel. Every afternoon at 4:30, Grandma would serve fresh limeade from her tree and homemade chocolate chip cookies. My life had been idyllic and privileged.
Here in Port-au-Prince, even in the heat of a sleepless night, I lived in luxury compared to most Haitians. My toilet was hard to flush, but I had one. More than half of urban Haitians did not, and the percentage was much higher in the countryside. My lightbulb hardly lit the room, but I had electricity and a backup generator. Only a third of urban Haitians had electricity in their homes, and a fraction had generators. Again, the statistics were much worse in the countryside. I had my own room with a bed, sheet, and pillow. I ate two or three meals every day. I had plenty of bottled water and access to Nennenn’s cold-water shower. I had toilet paper and tampons.
Plus, I would be getting on a plane in a few weeks to fly back to the Bay Area, to my house with wood floors, painted walls, and furniture in every room. I had lamps and a computer, a full refrigerator and hot showers, a closet full of clothes and a car in my driveway. I had an education, a job, a doctor, and a dentist. I had everything I needed to live in comfort. The contrast was overwhelming. How could I reconcile the imbalance? I couldn’t. And what could be done to balance the vast inequalities in the world? In Haiti, I’d come face-to-face with the world’s poorest citizens—and knew they were part of the one billion people on our planet who live in extreme poverty, those who don’t have access to the basic needs for survival. I struggled with this reality and didn’t know what to do about it. These thoughts kept me awake at night.
Bòn Fèt
Luke turned 9 on a Thursday. A surprise care package from a friend in Chicago arrived earlier in the week with party supplies—cake mix, frosting, candles, hats, and balloons. Early in the morning, Luke woke up, excited about the celebration we’d planned for the afternoon. Berry Philippe, Daphné, and a few other kids from St. Clare’s met us on Manmi Dèt’s porch at two o’clock. “Bòn fèt, Luke!” they shouted in unison.
A game of catch started out the party. The kids eagerly carried the bags of donated baseball gear into the yard. They each put on a jersey and cap and cracked up laughing as they practiced catching the ball in the glove. Baseball was big in the Dominican Republic, but it wasn’t played in Haiti. Soccer was the main sport.
Next was batting practice. Luke positioned a tee in the driveway, put a tennis ball on it, and took a big demonstration swing. I was afraid someone might get hurt with the bat, but I stayed in the background and let them play. Luke knew only a handful of Creole words. The Haitian kids knew about the same amount of English. But it seemed effortless for them to come together, share, cooperate, and have fun.
After an hour, Luke ran upstairs to get the soccer ball we’d brought.
“G - ò - ò - ò - ò - ò - ò - ò - ò - ò - ò- L!”
“Goal” must be a universal word because they all screamed it at the same time when the ball made its way through the two chairs positioned as goal markers in Manmi Dèt’s yard.
Finally, sweaty and tired, the kids collapsed on the porch. Luke brought out a box of Knex, a Lego-like toy, which they eagerly examined. There were at least 100 small pieces, which, once assembled, would become a helicopter. Luke and I had tried several times to put it together, but it was too complicated. We’d followed the directions page by page, but still couldn’t get everything to fit together properly. The kids poured all the pieces in a pile on the porch. I watched them stare at the box and then at the pieces. Once in a while they consulted the diagrams in the directions. Within fifteen minutes, they had assembled the helicopter, perfectly.
The water balloon toss was the highlight of the party. Balloons flew around the yard. Screams. Laughter. Loud pops. Then chocolate cake. Nennenn baked it in her oven, the first time I ever saw her use it. Manmi Dèt and Magga joined as we gathered around the table to sing “Happy Birthday”—first in English, then in Creole, then in French. The cake was cut and put into the palms of our hands. I watched the kids savor every bite. Berry Philippe licked the frosting off his fingers and smiled. I imagined it had been a long time since he’d had chocolate.
As the day ended, Luke beamed as he waved good-bye to his friends. He looked older to me. Maybe it was the way he carried himself. Maybe it was a depth I saw in his eyes. He’d been exposed to poverty and hunger, and the privilege of experiencing another family in an intimate way. He loved Nennenn’s rice and beans, playing Go Fish with Daphné, and soccer with Berry Philippe and his friends. He had watched Manmi Dèt teach the neighborhood kids math on the green chalkboard tied to her porch railing, and sewing, with her foot-pedal machine. He felt confident walking to the corner store to buy his favorite Haitian cola—asking for it in Creole and paying for it with Haitian coins. Although he found church a little boring, he sat through many St. Clare Masses, observing the congregation’s faith, taking in their music and Fr. Gerry’s passionate sermons. He was welcomed by the parishioners with kisses and hugs. This is why I brought him to Haiti, to experience another culture and put his own life in perspective.
Muumuu
When I packed for this trip, I put two pairs of sandals, five sundresses, and one skirt and blouse for Mass in my suitcase. I had learned on my previous visits to Port-au-Prince that Haitian women usually don’t wear pants or shorts. I didn’t bring any makeup or a hairdryer. Only one pair of earrings. My theme was simplicity.
What became my favorite dress was a light-blue-and-white faded muumuu with pink lace trim that Manmi Dèt made for me. Not my usual style, but I loved it, even though it made me look pregnant. With daily temperatures in the upper 90s, the muumuu was perfect. Oversized, lightweight, sleeveless, hemmed just below the knee. My unshaven shins and armpits were exposed, but after a few days I didn’t care. I felt raw and liberated.
I always wore my muumuu on Sundays after the food program. After a long day of preparing and serving the meal, slipping into it felt cool and comforting. The fabric was worn and soft and seemed to hold the love Manmi Dèt had sewn into it when she made it for me.
I liked to spend Sunday evenings relaxing at Nennenn’s house. We’d pull a couple of straw chairs out to her porch and settle back to enjoy the stars and catch a breeze. Leaning back in our muumuus, we’d have a glass of cold water and chat about the day. Sundays were bittersweet—the satisfaction of seeing hundreds of children fed, combined with the sadness of the reality of their daily hunger.
One particularly hot and humid Sunday in late July, even in my muumuu, I was dripping with sweat.
“Let’s go for a swim,” Nennenn suggested, pointing to her new pool. It was tiny—about 12 feet by 8 feet—but full of refreshing water.
“I’ll get my suit,” I said.
“No, Margo. Just go in your dress.”
Swim in my muumuu? Nennenn took my hand and pulled me out of my chair, laughing as she ran to the pool. “Come on. Jump in.”
She was in the water in a flash, her purple muumuu floating around her. I hesitated, remembering all the insects and algae that lived in the pool. It didn’t have a filtering system and the water wasn’t changed very often. Oh, why not? What’s a little fungus? I thought. Plunging in—underwear, muumuu, and all—I felt about 8 years old. I don’t remember ever going swimming with my clothes on intentionally, even as a kid.
Nennenn and I laughed hysterically, not able to stop for the longest time. Suddenly, my eyes overflowed with tears, my mouth quivered, and my chest heaved as I laughed and cried at the same time. It surprised me. I wasn’t sure where the tears came from. It had been ages since I’d had so much fun. I couldn�
��t remember the last time. Somehow life had gotten so serious. And it was serious, especially in Haiti. The food program earlier that day had shown me that again. But it was more than that.
Maybe I was crying because I was overwhelmed by the love of the Dépestre family and the beauty of simple things like a soft faded muumuu and a plunge in the water with a dear friend. Or maybe because I was discovering more and more how unfair the world is, how cruel it can be. The disparity between my life and the lives of everybody I met in Tiplas Kazo weighed on me all the time. Feelings of joy and grief wove themselves throughout my days in Haiti. Little by little they seeped out, growing in intensity as the days passed. But in the pool they spilled over, soaking my already wet face with tears.
Nennenn and I settled side by side on the pool step with water up to our necks and our muumuus ballooning around us. We leaned our heads back and looked up at the stars. It had been quite a day.
As I stared at the night sky, a dream I’d had after Rich died came to mind. It was more like a visitation than a dream. It felt as real and clear as my time with Nennenn in the pool. In it, Rich handed me a letter about my past, present, and future. I knew it answered all my questions about his death and “why,” but I couldn’t decipher his handwriting, except for two words, written boldly and clearly at the bottom of the page: “Live life.”
Swimming in my muumuu under the stars after a full day in Tiplas Kazo, experiencing a full range of emotions, I felt as if I was moving on and growing strong in my own life, separate from him. My heart was healing and felt full and alive with the food program, the Dépestres, Fr. Gerry, and everyone at St. Clare’s. I felt I was finally starting to do what he’d asked of me: Live life.