Hospitality and Guests

The first time I went to Haiti I was blown away by the hospitality. I have heard many people say this after coming back from Haiti. The Haitians are just incredibly welcoming and help out there neighbors and even those coming from afar. We see photo after photo of them having very little physical possesstions, not to mention food. Families often share with a passerby even if they don't have enough for their family. This is not the American way. We are very generous persons but you always take care of your family first and then if you have some left you may of coarse help. But this idea of helping a stranger before you even help yourself seems foriegn to us. Some of us may think it is incredible generosity to think of others first, others think what is the problem here because it is so different from our culture.

I am not making a judgement call on either side of this and I see the value in both. I am just wanting to share it with you and share my specific experience. Meal times were often difficult for me in Haiti. For one you never knew who was around that might also need a meal. I struggled in my head between how much I would eat, how much I 'needed' verses sharing it with a passerby or one of the children that came and ate with us everynight. Somehow we always had plenty, although I did fear sometimes how much the cooks got to eat.

The other thing I stuggled with is fitting in. I don't know how your home works but when 'the family' is together we all pitch in to cook. My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving and not because you get to eat a ridiculous amount of food and watch football. It is because you get to cook a ridiculous amount of food with your family! :) My foundest memories are all my aunts and sometimes even a few uncles crammed into a kitchen, and spilling into the dining room cooking the big meal. For me that is the feeling of home - of family. I love to help out friends in the kitchen when I visit, too. In Haiti it was much the same way in that all the ladies (rarely men but sometimes)gathered in the kitchen and cooked. So I got right in there too.

However, I didn't know how to do anything (was maybe the view). Usually when I sit for more then a couple of minutes in a kitchen in the United States someone will put me to work. This was not the case in Haiti, because I am a guest and viewed to be honored in that way. I felt in the way. I would watch intently thinking one day I would just be able to pitch in and help. Or I would wash dishes. I love washing dishes and insanely enough was something I missed from the US. But after these few things were done I would feel odd. I was just sitting there watching them work and I also would feel homesick because I wasn't in on the preporations of the meals. But now I just pitch in and help with what I know how to do and insist I am not a guest - I live here.