Fourth meeting

Everyone was at the meeting except for Joe. We went through the agenda. Most of the information was about fund-raising. I guess that's the necessary evil and once it is out of the way, Pam seemed to say, we can go on to other things. I stayed after to show Karen and Pam some of my old church books from Abaco and lent one or two to Karen.

Sunday's mass focused on the person. I'm reading Robinson's book now and a quotation from Aristide related strongly to the message that Fr. John was focused on. He said "Tout moun se moun," meaning "Every human being is a human being." In Haiti, that is hard to understand because I saw a dim reflection of that in the disjoint between the rich tourists and the poor Haitians in Abaco.

One day, teaching my 5th graders in the remodeled construction shack that was my classroom, I noticed that the kids had been throwing pop cans, candy and food wrappers, etc., on the ground outside. I assigned them to go out and "police" the area, meaning to clean up after themselves. One chubby blonde boy just wouldn't work.

His statement to me was: "Get a 'aitian to do it, Mr. Jim!"

This little over-privileged kid wanted some grown man with a family to support to clean up after him. Apparently he didn't understand Tout moun se moun. Many people don't.

I'm looking for my old Kreyol songbook from Abaco, but apparently in a very uncharacteristic move for me, I tossed it out. I do have--somewhere--some reel-to-reel tapes of our singing there.