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Haiti 2012: June 3

It took some time to wake up this morning. I'd forgotten how tiring traveling can be, but last night and this morning reminded me. We attended the local church, whose congregation was mostly young. It reminded me that the average Haitian dies relatively early, yet another symbol of the country's status as poorest in the Western Hemisphere.* Though we couldn't understand the words of the songs and sermon, we saw a unity and passion in the parishioners. This is a country, however, where faiths are mixed freely. Indeed, this is well-known enough that there is a saying because of it: Haiti is eighty percent Catholic, twenty percent Protestant, and one-hundred percent voodoo.**

Later, we met as a team to talk about how each of us was feeling. It turned out to be an incredibly intense meeting. Many of us opened up to share our personal struggles to such an extent that several began to cry. It was a time of letting go of our pride and inhibitions, and a time of dropping our guard. I had no idea that this event would be the first of a series that would, in essence, define our trip.

*The average Haitian lives to be sixty-two years old, according to the CIA World Factbook, which ranks Haiti 183rd of 221 countries for life expectancy.
**The Factbook shows that eighty percent are Catholic, sixteen percent are Protestant, one percent has no faith, and three percent practice another faith. The site author notes that "roughly half of the population practices voodoo."
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