Blessed

Every Sunday the women and children at my mission mass sing and clap to the very familiar chorus so it rings loud in my ears ...

I am blessed, I am blessed...everyday of my life I am blessed.

When I wake up in the morning, and I lay my head to rest...I am blessed..I am blessed.

I don't know if it is the beauty in this country or the passion in their voices, but I truly believe it.

Boy can it rain in this country. It rained from Monday night until Saturday morning. We couldn’t leave our house for pretty much the entire time because in Jamaica, rain is like snow, and Jamaicans tend to hibernate in the rain in fear of floods and landslides. These top two pictures are on the main road on my commute to work everyday.

My kitchen is essentially outdoors. Two of the four walls are full iron grates, basically open to the elements. So, as I sit eating breakfast at my kitchen table, the damp, cool air sweeps across my body, and I feel splashing of raindrops against my shins and calves.

I glance out the window and I think about a week from today...Election Day. Reality is, in a week, a new man will be President of our country. Excitement and anticipation grow as I feel my stomach turn a bit at the prospect of the election not turning out how I so desperately envision it.

A woman in the bank tells her son, “A black man can be President of the United States! Remember, you can be anything you want to be!” And the boy walks around the bank, his head held high, pretending to be Usain Bolt, the Jamaican Olympian hero. Jamaicans are theatrical and it is fantastic.

It has astounded me how the election and financial crisis has been a topic of common conversation for many Jamaicans over that past few weeks. I’ve been told, “When the US sneezes, Jamaica gets a cold”. Witnessing first hand how much the US affects the world and how much Jamaicans care about my very own opinion of the state of my country has certainly been an experience. All of a sudden my voice matters and carries weight. When did this happen?

I suppose when I graduated from college and moved to a developing nation, I also moved from the kiddy table to the adult table for holidays. I am an educated, white US citizen so I guess that makes me entitled to speak and have others value my opinion. Or at least take the time to question it.

The educated, white US citizen thing now. Yesterday I went to the post office with Lauren to see if I had any love sent from home. On the way out of the parking lot, there is a middle aged Jamaican man dressed in tattered clothing, standing in a misty rain two days old, and he begs me for some money for some food. I roll down my window while frantically searching my bag for my coin purse as the traffic light switches from red to green. I take the coins left in my bag, probably amounting to US $2, and hand them over, glancing him in the eye with a smile and a friendly, “alright…”

“Thank you sweetheart, I’m sorry I wasn’t born a white man…” I heard in a soft, defeated voice as I drove away with droplets of rain on my windshield.

Hmph…

Gosh, race is so obvious here. It’s not like in the US, where you can forget that race is a factor in everyday life, from the quality of life to cultural habits to generations of prejudice. I’ll admit, my American white self immediately became defensive. “It has nothing to do with being WHITE”, I blurt out to Lauren, as if he said it to personally offend me or something.

I hear the words from my mouth as if from a stranger. As I slow to a stop at the next red light, I put my hands on my face and close my eyes…“But it does.”

I am not trying to make any huge claims about race and socioeconomic status here. I am just saying, this poor man at the post office is defeated, he is hungry, and he is black. He looks around and sees that lighter people rarely need to beg in his country and his whole life has seen lighter people as the ones who can afford to give him, the poor black man, money.

Just that very act, giving money to a beggar, is saying something about status. I have the ability to give to someone with lesser. There is an ingrained superiority in that, whether intentionally played out or not.

Getting past the “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” notion many of us in the US hold dear, I am just saying, if he was born white in Jamaica, or maybe even in the US, he would have had a better chance from the start at not being born into a family struggling financially.

I look at my own life. I was born into a family, merely blessed with the privilege of having a more than wonderful mother and father who were able to support me financially and emotionally so I could attend college and have the option to do a year of service. Option. So many times I am commended for sacrificing a year of my life, but in many ways this year, is more of a duty or privilege than anything else.

I met a teenage girl a few weeks ago who was intrigued by this program. She wants to volunteer to help people, she told me. I told her that this program requires that she completes college, as many programs do. She cannot afford college and must work to help support her family and younger siblings. A child born in the hills in Jamaica has much less opportunity available from the start, so going to college is almost unthinkable in many circumstances, let alone being able to take a year to move to another country after graduation to help others. They are more needed at home.

A higher starting ground is what I think I got. Poor guy. Poor girl. Or broken system.

Yesterday a poor woman I visit in my community, well, poor by my standard, was passionately ranting about the poverty in Haiti. She had been there years ago and witnessed the injustice and poverty present in the desperate eyes of its citizens. She thinks Jamaicans needs to unite to help the poor people there!

Poor people of one country helping poor people of another country.

And I am just sitting there, listening to her, moved and inspired, saying "yes! I get it...i really get it". But I don't get it like she does...She is not poor in her eyes...I don't know how she views me, other than "her American friend!" that she teaches how to cook. Haitians have much less, and she is willing to share the little she has with those who have nothing. That is beautiful. That is service. That is human.