Tonight I went outside the fence to the beach to see the sunset. I met a young Hatian boy, probably between 12 and 14 years old, who had the biceps of a man. He had just come in on a boat where he and his older brother had finished setting the 200 foot fishing net that will be pulled in tomorrow morning for a couple of dozen sardines.
The boat was on the shore leaning to one side and the young boy was sitting on the boat. He gave me the thumbs up and I thought he wanted his picture taken. So I held up the camera and asked, “Oui?” He said no. He didn’t want his picture taken.
After a few minutes he came to where I was sitting and wanted to see pictures that I had been taking of the sunset. I showed him. Then I showed him how to take pictures. He walked over to another young man and started taking pictures of him. Then he handed the camera to his friend and started posing himself as his friend took pictures of him. They were looking at the pictures on the camera and cackling.
After more than a dozen photos he gave the camera back to me and ran away laughing. One of the women said that this boy does nothing but work hard all the time. He doesn’t play soccer when the others do, he just works very hard. It was a blessing to me to see their joy. The people here have such a difficult life. I have such an easy life. The irony is that they have it so rough that it’s difficult for them to believe there is a God who loves them and we in America have it so good and are so self sufficient that it’s difficult for us to imagine that we need God for anything.
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