Humility. This was a lesson I had to learn this month. Being a foreigner by definition is: you don’t know how to do anything right. Having to be taught and watched closely and then retaught is something that I have to be humble about. Whether it’s hand washing my clothes, peeling potatoes with a knife or prying nails out of boards, my method to any of the above is some how not the correct way of going about getting the task done. No matter the efficiency by which it is happening. They have their way to do everything. The way you hold the knife, washing your clothes 3 times or prying from left to right it has to be done just so.
And their corrections very as well. The women in the kitchen tend to be patient and gentle in their guidance. But the men are very expressive with loud shouts of “NO! NO! NO!” and excited hand gestures. When I first started pulling nails you would have thought I was about to kill something by the way this man reacted to me. He came running toward me with his hands in front of him waving frantically and shouting NOOOO like they do in the movies when a loved one dies. I have to admit I laughed at his response, but he was more then serious. I guess in Haiti you can only pull nails out with crow bars, hammers are out of the question.
All joking aside, this has been a hard lesson for me. All of my life I have excelled at what I do. This not being good at something and having to humble myself and say “Ok, help me do it your way, please,” was something I struggled with. Especially when they stand there and laugh at you for 10 mins and you really just want to cry and yell at them to leave and let you do it your way. Its sounds childish, but there was a moment when I was washing my clothes that I had to humble myself and ask the person that was laughing at me to show me the correct way to wash my clothes. In that moment of frustration I was close to tears. And I had to swallow my pride and say “I’m not good at this, please help me.”
God is breaking me down and molding me. All I have to do is surrender to the process.
