Moving?

I lived the first 17 years of my life in one place:  a western suburb of Cleveland, Ohio.  My Mom just sold that house two years ago.

Once I graduated from high school I started moving around -- I spent a year in Italy as an exchange student and then moved to St. Paul, Minnesota to start college.  I moved around in a typical way for a college student, I guess:  two dorm rooms, five apartments, my aunt's house for a summer and a semester abroad in Toledo, Spain.

Fifteen years ago I left Minnesota for...  

• medical school in Des Moines, Iowa (two different apartments in my two years there)
• Dayton, Ohio for my third year of medical school
• I then put my things in storage to spend a year of medical rotations in Oklahoma, Texas, Minnesota, the Bronx, Iowa (Davenport), Ohio
• back to Minnesota for residency
• Arizona for work
• Argentina
• Haiti

I currently live in a pension, where I have my own bedroom and bathroom and am given breakfast every morning.  During my first year here I got lunch as well, but I quickly grew tired of fried meat and simple carbs (boiled plantains or rice and beans with far more rice than beans is daily fare here).  So now I eat mangos, freshly roasted peanuts, imported Grape Nuts, etc.   I still haven't fully figured it out.

My good friend Blandine has decided to stay for the next year -- or rather, she said "sûrement," which is apparently only 95% sure.  Her roommate leaves in two weeks, and I can move in with her.  Her apartment is very close to where I currently live and work and is still on the sea (read:  slightly cooler breezes than the rest of town). 

Advantages:

• I will be able to keep it clean -- my current place has really old tile and stuck-on grime everywhere.  Blandine's apartment is new-ish, so much easier to clean.
• When all of my friends and family start to come visit me (ahem), I will have a place for them to stay.
• I will have a kitchen and a refrigerator, expanding the possibilities for what I can eat (or at least of what I can import and then conserve)
• I will have a little privacy -- right now the guests that are put in the rooms next to mine can see directly into my room from the shared balcony.  
• My French will improve!

Disadvantages:

• The people that work at this pension are like a second family to me.  And while for me that is an emotional tie, for them it is both emotional and economic (this place is kind of run down, and every guest means more job security for them).
• I haven't had a roommate for 15 years.  I think I'm pretty flexible, since I do live with other people for several months out of every year as I travel, but still -- I'm a little worried this could hurt our friendship.
• I don't have to deal with a lot of things at the pension -- I don't have to go to the market for food very often or pay someone to go for me, I don't have to get my own drinking water, or buy things for an apartment.
• Where I live is really secure.  Not that Blandine's isn't, but my place has people there all the time and is on a major road.
• Here at the pension when there's no electricity in the evenings they turn on the generator.

So, if Blandine's sûrement turns into a certainement, in two weeks I'll be making my eighth "permanent" move in 15 years.

Travel by Land, Sea, or Air

My good friend Solencia just left for the airport.  She flies to Port-au-Prince today with Erigeur and Lucson, and tomorrow they drive to Petit Goave to facilitate a Training of Trainers 1.  Today she will fly on a plane for the first time.  It was Lucson's first time flying when he and I went to Petit Goave for the Vision Seminar in May.

Solencia Altidor, CHE trainer.
Photo by Deborah Carr (www.deborahcarr.ca)

In our writing workshops in April, led by Deborah Carr, Solencia wrote the following piece after being given the prompt "I remember a place."  Since it's about overcoming fear during travel, I thought I would share it with you today.  Sadly, she received a phone call just this morning from a friend on the island  that she writes about here -- there was a boat that sank this morning, and 13 of the 23 people on board have not been found.  There are very real reasons to fear traveling here, whether by land, sea, or air.

I remember a place
Solencia Altidor

I remember a place...I went to a Training of Trainers 1 (TOT 1) in Mombin Crochu. As we were traveling, we reached the village of Pignon. After that the roads were terrible and I got very discouraged. I decided I would never travel to that area ever again. While I was at the training I was very happy because it was the first time I received training to become a trainer, which would enable me to work in my community with the Community Health Evangelism (CHE) program.


Another time there was another training in the same part of the country, and even though I'd said that I would never go back there -- well, I felt that God wanted me to continue this work. God gave me the courage and I went there again. It makes me so happy now to be a trainer, working with the CHE program.

I remember a place that I went: [the island of] La Gonave. Before going there, I was someone who was deathly afraid of the sea. Medical Ambassadors Haiti decided to send me to facilitate at the TOT 2 in La Gonave. I was so afraid – I don't even go swimming in the sea, I'm that afraid of it. I got together with my good friend Liz, and she gave me a lot of advice, she encouraged me to not be afraid, because it's God who makes all things. She spent several days praying with me to take away the fear that was inside of me. I went, and I'm no longer afraid. I even went back to La Gonave a second time, because I need to transmit what I've learned with Medical Ambassadors Haiti.

Now I'm no longer afraid – they can decide to send me anywhere and I can go because God took away my fear.

(c) copyright Solencia Altidor. Used with author's permission.