I Like You

The biggest mango tree I have ever seen stands over the communal water pump in Terre Blanche, Haiti.

In a remote, dusty village where water is scarce and the one source of well water is contaminated, where the ground is craggy and barren, where the last rain was in November of last year, and drought starves the tender foliage of subsistence farmers, where children have no shoes, where almost everyone has worms and more than half the population suffers from malaria, where cataracts are common place for people in their 30s, where a 10′x16′ house is home to a family of seventeen…

Somehow, in that very spot is a monstrous, ancient tree, laden with ripe fruit. The fresh mangoes in Terre Blanche are like food of the gods.

The roads never seem smoother
the water from my tap never fresher
a hot shower
a fridge full of food
a quiet night’s sleep never more precious
than upon return from Haiti.

We are home, we are safe, we are still figuring out how to make sense of it all.

More to come…

Lots of people have a soft drink habit, and most Portlanders I know are caffeine addicts on some level. But have you ever noticed that Diet Coke has a certain cult following? The loyalty and fervor with which D.C. addicts cling to their bubbly beverage is unmatched in the world of soda pop…I should know, because I’m one of them.

Why? Is there something insidious inside that silver can? Or is it simply That Good?