First, really and truly - you cannot know how psyched we are to have good news to deliver to the two families in need of help. I am not trying to go on and on and on ... but I am so pumped about it. As soon as we have information about dates and plans, we'll pass it along.
Troy was bumming because he sort of blew the "extra" budget this month -- getting NOWHERE with Mme. Felius and it was weighing on him that the money did nothing to truly solve the issue - yet it was spent and gone.
I had no idea I was so emotionally invested --- until we saw that it COULD happen and the money had been donated --- then I was all puddleish about it all. I have been smiling for hours. Sometimes my faith is just so .... small.
Maybe on some level we are used to not being able to do much ... or even anything ... and for once something tangible can be done. It has so encouraged me. YOU have so encouraged me.
On to other things ...
There is a lady at our church having a c-section on August 1. She is huger than huge. Her ankles are a sight to behold. She carries their one year old around and never makes a peep about her misery. She marches in and out of church like she owns the place. She makes me feel like the biggest weenie that ever set foot in Haiti. Haitian women are tenacious. There is no debating it.
My Haiti friend, Beth was telling me about a woman in their neighborhood that delivered alone, cut the cord herself, cleaned the baby up, got up and went about her business, the whole nine yards --- it happens all the time here. All of that is just to say, I truly am a wimpy American. Oh, I give it the old college-try. I do. I wake up and tell myself it is not that hot, I am not that tired, and not that uncomfortable.
Last Sunday I wrote the sarcastic Sunday church report. Some people thought I lacked love for my three year old son. Not to worry. I love him. I'm just honest about his short-comings. The main one being: church. He's bad at it. We took him this week. We took the entire gang. He actually did an above average job of hanging in there and behaving. There is hope for him yet.
Yesterday, as I rode into church, I realized the core issue. I get crabby and in turn more sarcastic because on Sunday I am forced to wear real clothes. I normally wear gym shorts and a tank - 24/7 - switching out the same three lovely ensembles over and over and over. Church requires clothes. No getting around it. THAT is why I get nastily-behaved. I cannot wear that many clothes right now. Period.
Beth and I went on a walk the other day. We determined that the main feeling in my life right now is ambivalence. Thus explaining why I always feel a bit nuts.
am·biv·a·lence [am-biv-uh-luhns]
–noun
1.
uncertainty or fluctuation, esp. when caused by inability to make a choice or by a simultaneous desire to say or do two opposite or conflicting things.
2.
Psychology. the coexistence within an individual of positive and negative feelings toward the same person, object, or action, simultaneously drawing him or her in opposite directions.
–noun
1.
uncertainty or fluctuation, esp. when caused by inability to make a choice or by a simultaneous desire to say or do two opposite or conflicting things.
2.
Psychology. the coexistence within an individual of positive and negative feelings toward the same person, object, or action, simultaneously drawing him or her in opposite directions.
The areas of ambivalence?
I want to go have the baby with my family around me. I don't want to leave Haiti. I want a break from Haiti. I don't want to leave my neighborhood or neighbors. I'm anxious to go at the end of August. I don't want to be away from Troy for a month. I am excited for Britt as she makes her big move. I don't want Britt to leave. I am sick of being pregnant. I am not even a tiny bit ready for a new baby. I am excited about the prospect of having a grad party, and doing holidays in the traditional way. I don't remember how to be an organized, crazy-speed, get-it-done American. I am used to deciding things last minute, more of a Caribbean way of living. I need to clean out this room, locate things ... Get rid of things. I don't ever want to see this room again.
MN is my home. Haiti is my home. It is a conundrum, a sticky wicket, a quandary, a puzzle, a mystery, a hitch, a trap, a boon. Ambivalence. Lots of it. 
