Generous Hospitality

***As written by Jack***

Four of us in all were heading to the capital,Port-au-Prince. Raphaella and Ica were soon flying to their homes. Demeter and I were just going there for business. As the day was winding down and Demeter was fatigued from the drive, none of the 4 of us stepped forward and said he or she wanted to take a break from the road, but our thoughts all seemed to move in that direction. Saying Hello to the people at the mission I used to work at, turned into asking to spend the night. Although the mission house has several vacant bedrooms with several empty beds, Chris, the director of the mission and his wife Leslie, don't really allow people inside his house. Instead we'd be sleeping in a side building. We arrived after the restaurants had closed and Chris didn't offer us any food. So for dinner I suggested we eat at the house of my haitian friends the Fresno's. The Fresno family squats on a barren hillside up from the highway. Their house is typical for Haiti, made of oddly shaped stones held to together with mud. No one in the Fresno family has real employment. They buy wood from the market, split and repackage the wood and then sell for a couple pennies more. As the weary traveller's took showers and settled in for the night, I walked around with Wesley, the oldest Fresno son, who helped me find a place to buy little cornmeal and beans. When I arrived the Fresno family gave me the warmest of welcomes and Ya-ya, the matriarch, immediately started a little cooking fire. That night the four visitors sat with the family and joked around. We took turns joking around, singing songs, trading tongue twisters, and sharing a little of our native languages. Demeter mentioned on a couple of occasion how he understood why I chose to spend most my evening here during the year I worked for the mission.