It is nice to occasionally affirm one's role as someone aiding others, but it is equally if not far more important to recognize and constantly re-acknowledge the enormity of the challenge. The following comment took place in a conversation with a middle class Haitian businessman who had just heaped a torrent of undue praise upon me. This is only a small segment of the problems we really have to tackle in serving our youth, and a small segment of the concerns that he presented. As we continued to think about our options after the following comment, the last words in the conversation were, "Support your local revolutionary forces." It was a good reality check.
“I liken it to a prison.
"Here you are with access to exercise equipment, books, educational materials, and what have you. But you’re locked up for 30 years. It’s going to take a hell of a lot of focus, determination, patience, and what have you to actually follow through and continue to read those books, be invested in your education, in yourself. It’s going to take someone special even to stay interested in following a sit com, because here you are watching people do things you’ll never be able to do, at least not for 30 years. People driving cars, going to basketball games, and just generally being comfortable; these are all things that you realistically can’t do.
“So you say, 'You will make it if you work hard and try hard,' but you realistically have no idea if that can be true. There's certainly no way you'll make it without that, but even with you doing all these things, life is likely to be a pretty uncertain situation. And we can't say there's anyone looking out for them in the political structure. You're on your own.
"That is what it’s like being 22 in this country right now."
Di djab, 'Bonjou,' l'ap manje ou. Pa di djab, 'Bonjou,' l'ap manje ou.
Say to the devil, 'Good day,' and he eats you. Don't say, 'Good day,' to the devil, he eats you.
Haitian Proverb
No comments:
Post a Comment