My First Dance Class


Picture this: seven Haitians teenagers and a white American girl with no rhythm dancing on a stage to the beat of a conga drum (or "tanbou" as they call in Creole). The man playing the drum is named "Ti-roro". He is in his seventies and is also the dance teacher. Yes, he did teach them their dance moves by doing them himself.

This was my first of a few experiences dancing with Ti-roro's dance class. Three or four of the girls had grabbed my hands and pulled me onto the stage after asking me to dance with them. I couldn't say no, so I took a dance class for the first time in the 24 years of my life so far.

While I have only danced with them a few times, these girls are a part of most of my favorite experiences in Haiti. They often come by after dance class, and even on days when they don't have dance class, just to say hello or hang out with us. One day I was learning Creole from a book, and it was teaching me actions and body parts. As I was reading, I realized that I could use those words to play "Simon Says". Literally, a minute later, some of the girls walked up onto our porch, so I taught them the game, "Simon Di". I was surprised when they understood me, and even more surprised when they loved it. Later that day, they taught Kaitlin and I a card game called "Casino" (just say it with a little Haitian accent).

One of my favorite moments of the mission trip was when we were able to gather all of the girls together and one of the missionaries, Amanda, talked to them about what it means to be women of God. Her three main points were: "You are loved. You are beautiful. You are worthy." I was so thankful that these girls were able to hear this message, because the culture that they are surrounded by does not tell them these things. They are often looked at as objects, and they often present themselves that way as well.

I was also so blessed to see the fruit of building a relationship with these girls. Countless days practicing Creole, playing games, and dancing finally culminated that day as we were able to really share Christ with them. We ended by giving them each a rosary, praying a decade with them, and then playing some basketball.

Comments

  1. I Have A Reason to SingDecember 21, 2012 at 4:44 PM

    You is kind. You is smart. You is important. Ah I wish there was a video attached to this of you dancing!! :D

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Does it Mean to Give?

There’s something I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around lately.   I live in a country where people don’t have a lot of material possessions. They also don’t have a lot of food, and the food that they do have is not the most nutritious or balanced type of diet. Their houses are not great; they don’t have cars; many don’t have jobs. The question: What is my response? Many times, people here ask me for things. It seems that I can’t leave our mission base without someone asking me for my water bottle, my sweater, my shoes, some money. I’m pretty sure they see me as a rich white person. What I’ve realized recently is that in many ways, this is actually true. If you look at the big picture of the whole world and all of the people in it, I am rich, even though I am a missionary and I have to ask for money for everything that I have. I am rich, even though I buy almost all of my clothes on sale, and have many that were given to me. I am rich, even though my laptop is five years o
Read more

From Naivete to Growth

Image
I remember sitting caffeinated, late at night, in the library with a friend in college, talking about foreign mission. One day, we could live in Africa, we said over our lattes and laptops. It seemed a glorious thing to me, this missionary life in a foreign country. At the time, I wanted to travel. I did have a true and real desire to love and live among the poor, but the rest of it was a dream, built on nothing – I had barely left the country then. In fact, I don’t think I had ever met a real live missionary. I had heard about mission trips, but never been on a foreign one. My imaginary life was just that, imaginary. A little more than a few years later, I was moving to Haiti to start a mission there with a few other people from an organization that I loved. I don’t think I could have admitted it then, but it definitely felt glorious. I had read a few books about missionaries, met some missionaries, been on mission trips, been inspired by the passion, zeal, and sacrifice of others
Read more

Under the Shade of the Almond Tree

The air is fresh and clean up here.  Can you hear that? The sound of silence. The breeze moving through the trees. No traffic, no big trucks or motorcycles. Peace and stillness. Sitting outside under the shade of an almond tree. She has AIDS, we are told. She is frail, we can see. A man disappears to get us food from the garden. Bananas, sugar cane. A gift for our visit. A gift for the priest. We sit on chairs. She sits on the floor, in the doorway. The air is fresh and clean up here.  The silent mountain where death is coming but has not yet taken the one we came to see. So we sing and we pray and we talk under the shade of the almond tree, up in the clear, cool mountain air. The place that feels like Heaven, though Heaven is not yet here. Months later, we hear news of her death.
Read more