My 5 Senses in Haiti...

I have found that while in Haiti my 5 senses have never experienced so much. Here are some of the details:

Sight:
* Seeing an elderly woman unable to walk, so she crawled on her hands and knees across a busy highway
* Watching children sing and pray to us with their hands in the air and eyes closed as they belt out beautiful music
* Seeing the colorful fruits and vegetables of Haiti at the open farmer's market lay across the tarps and blankets of the vendors, as well as their laps as they chop cabbage heads and peel open pea pods

Sound:
* Constant honking of horns as drivers weave all around the rocky and bumpy streets of dirt as to warn of their passing as there are no street stripes, stoplights, or signage
* Sounds of many babies crying as the visiting hours end for parents of very sick children who all lay the children down in their cribs at once
* Sounds of the water trucks backing up and laying on the warning siren so that the people begin to line up with their buckets to receive their week's water

Smell:
* The smell of burning plastic and garbage in the air as there is no garbage service anywhere
* The smell of human waste all around the 'tent cities' as there is no sewage system
* The smell of fresh Haitian fruit and coffee grown by the Haitian people

Touch:
* The grasping hands of the children at the orphanages as you arrive and as you leave as they claim one of your hands and fight to keep others from it
* The touch of the unpaved dusty & rocky roads slip under your feed as we walk the inclines and declines to our destinations
* The touch of food on our lips as we eat our meals and snacks, while at the same time we are remembering the 5 year old we saw at Mother Teresa's Home who is literally starving to death and physically just skin hanging over bones

Taste:
* The taste of the dust and dirt covering our lips from the constant haze of dust in the air that instantly covers us when we leave the house
* The quenching taste of water after working hard all day, and then realizing that we ran out of drinking water for the people we were serving and seeing the unbelievable disappointment in their faces

Tiffany

Healing Haiti Team Member

January 2011