"Love your neighbors as yourself." Mark 12:31

Today Astrel's Grandpa died and I knew it before the sun rose.  In Haiti you are very close to you neighbors, both physically and emotionally.  You are really more like an extended family and most the time they are indeed third, forth and fifth cousins.  Always just referred to as cousins in Haiti.  I have been trying for awhile to relate this kind of living to anything we have in the United States.  It came to me the other day.  It is like living in a large apartment building with no doors.  Like no outside door to your apartment.  Not that we don't have doors in Haiti but you don't have windows, that shut out any kind of noise.  So everything going on with your close neighbors you can hear.

This is how I knew about the death in the 'neighborhood' before I had even gotten out of bed.  In Haiti when someone dies they cry out.  Maybe wailing is what we would call it.  Its the third time now I have experienced it.  You are literally woken up to moaning and screams throughout the mountainside.  It is heart wrenching.  And then you wonder who is it?  In what direction is it coming from?  The family was immediately up and out checking on who it was.  Although they thought they knew already because Astrel's Grandpa was sick.  As I laid there in bed I just lifted up a prayer for the family for peace and condolences.  When you are with your neighbors like this, there is a bonding that happens that is unlike any other experience.

I thought I might compare it to a church family.  Which I am blessed to have an amazing one in Vermillion as well as the 'exteneded' family of the United Methodist Church in the Dakotas Conference.  But even that is something you only experience once a week or once a year.  Everyday I greet the neighborhood from my porch as they go to and from school and work.  Sometimes even before I brush my teeth or while I am outside in my front yard brushing my teeth.

Before I moved back to the states this was one of the things that drove me crazy.  I had to deal with the young men in the neighborhood dropping by for coffee before I even headed out to use the bathroom in the morning.  But now I don't know something has changed. (I have a backdoor now so I can at least use the bathroom without everyone knowing.)  But also, I love seeing the people and sharing their lives.  And just as I am writing this one of my neighbors a second cousin once removed stopped by.  They didn't make supper at his house tonight so we shared what we had leftover with him and his son.

Somehow it seems there is always enough to go around in the neighborhood.  Thank you Jesus for helping me understand the loafs and fishes a little better.  And there it is the leftover rice was just brought back into the house.  Mesi Jesi for teaching me to love my neighbors.