Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Will There Will Be Dancing In Haiti?

I hope so. Cause I'm going there in a few days.To work-ish. To volunteer-ish.

I'm cross-posting this from my other blog, Sit Mom Sit, due to time constraints. I'm Not Allowed to Spend Any More Time on This Frivolous Blog Activity, by order of the management. It's a little ridiculous that I am the management. Our Christmas parties are pathetic...but, in the meantime:

From http://sitmomsit.blogspot.com

Haiti's Acting Lessons

Our resort where all of the water drinking will take place!

I regard theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.  Oscar Wilde

Through the World Wide Orphanage, the benevolence of a couple of good friends and The Grove Church, my husband and I leave in a few days for Haiti. We're teaching older orphans how to teach theatre and communication skills to their fellow orphans. Isn't that nice?

I don't quite know how we'll manage, well, most of it...there are still arrangements to be made for our kids who will each be in a different place, when I don't work-I don't get paid and we often don't make it month to month as it is, we'll be teaching "communication" in a country whose language we don't speak-among some frightening cultural differences, not to mention unspeakable conditions and poverty and pain.

And yet...

We are flying first class. Thanks to my friends from college. Our trip has been underwritten by some friends we made while teaching theatre to their kids a lifetime ago in Rolling Hills, California. We're staying in a "resort" in the mountains. It is apparently beautiful in the mountains where we are mostly sleeping. (Amy Poehler also taught theater for this same organization! (I love Amy Poehler.) (I feel we are in good company.) Family, friends,acquaintances,have all offered help to care for our girls and have showered me with puppet making supplies. It's all working out.

But...

My husband suggested I not drink a lot of water so I wouldn't have to go the bathroom at all when we aren't at the "resort." Okaaaayyyyy...

I'm fairly certain I'll do something stupid, so there is potential for humor, with just as much potential for unending-eternally-heart-breaking-moments.

We are leaving our own children to do this.

Animals are treated differently in Haiti. I'm a complete wimpy mess when it comes to animals.

Ultimately...

We will be teaching acting. And acting is about trusting your instincts, making strong choices, listening, truth, putting all of your attention on someone else. Acting happens in plays. We are going to Haiti to play. Playing is good. Playing is what I do best. We made the choice to go to Haiti based on all of the above. We are blessed enough to have choices.

It's highly likely I will want to bring everyone (or almost everyone) I meet home. I will not be able to, due to laws and practicality.

I can hardly believe we have this opportunity.

I fear my heart will finally break beyond repair. It's so close already.

There's a good chance I'll have to much to say about the discrepancy between life here and life there. In the mean time, I would appreciate any prayers from those of you who pray - mostly for my children to make good choices while we're gone helping other children learn that choices do, in fact, exist.

Smiling cuteness. My husband and new little buddy.

Laughter is the shortest distance between two people. Victor Borge, my idol.

And, as God is my witness, I will find someone to dance with.