Olisiane

Sunday Evening. Matthew 25 House. Haiti. The World Racers* arrived for dinner, and one of them, Mariah, turned from her bench to ask me how I spent my afternoon.

“Painting with the ladies,” I said.

“Oh wow. Do you paint at home?”

I smiled, “Not at all. I just do as I’m told.”

I hoped my smile when I said this conveyed what no words could describe, about how much more my afternoon had become, by listening more carefully to “what I was told” …

 

I reflected back on the afternoon. My dear friend, Res, who had recruited me for this trip, had sat me down in a porch chair with Olisiane, a beautiful, elderly resident. He squeezed globs of acrylic paint onto a pallet and remarked, “I hope you feel inspired, man.” The truth is I didn’t. I didn’t know how to paint, and I didn’t think this would turn out. I set a blank canvas on Olisiane’s lap hoping she would take the brush. Nope.

My mind was elsewhere… Maybe I could help in the kitchen. Maybe I could do a menial task in the courtyard. I am not very good at sitting, and I needed something else to do. I turned, and Olisiane’s eyes looked deeply into mine. Eyes locked, I began to feel a deep sense of calm. It was as if she was wordlessly pouring serenity into my soul. My selfish fog  began to dissipate. Everything became so clear.

All Olisiane had at Matthew 25 was time, and could I not share with her? She asked through our interpreter that I paint her a tree. My hesitation was gone. I would paint her the most magnificent tree I could imagine, the most magnificent tree she could imagine. I envisioned the brush strokes sweeping the canvas through her hands. I painted a tree. Behind its lush, green canopy I set mountains. Mountains beyond mountains, shadows cast in violet blush. Under the tree I brushed a royal blue bench. I told her we could sit together under that tree and while away the days.

Olisiane starred at it for a long time. She gently lifted the painting and set it on a ledge. Her eyes remained transfixed on the canvas. In time, she put her hand in mine, and we sat. Eventually she motioned to a staff person, and asked them to set the painting by her bed.

With that, I thought my afternoon was complete, but as we rose to throw away the pallet, still laden with puddles of acrylic, a young girl emerged from the shadows and asked if she could paint. Of course. She took a brush and set to work with such focus and intensity it startled me. She filled the canvas with a kaleidoscope of color. Along the border she took the sharp edge of a paint stick and scratched outlines of flowers and faces, and she filled them with color. At the bottom she etched her name, Benjina Noel.

Our Haitian companion, Alex, described that hand painting was a rare thing in Montrouis, and I had to believe this was the first time Benjina ever held a brush. How many years did she have this image in her head waiting to emerge?

Seeing our laughter and smiles, another young woman emerged from the kitchen. Her name was Mirlande, but she didn’t want to paint. Instead, she had a burning question and was reluctant to ask. We encouraged her, and she described that she and her husband had a small savings in U.S. currency which she hid in her house. Rats had eaten the edges. She feared the money was now worthless. Her fears were not without merit – Haiti honors U.S. dollars, but only if they are crisp and clean. We asked her how much of the paper was left. She said most, just the edges were gone. We assured her that the ministry could exchange her bills for fresh ones. A smile spread across her face, and relief washed over her like a summer rain. She waltzed through her work the remainder of the evening, her feet 12 inches off the ground…

 

Now, back at dinner time, I looked up from my afternoon recollections to see Mariah smiling back at me. She then turned to rejoin the other World Racers in their conversation. 

For a brief moment longer I reflected on Olisiane. Without words she had opened my mind, and  my heart. And look at the dominos of joy that she spread further, Benjina’s painting, and Mirlande’s relief that her life savings were now secure.

I return to that blue bench beneath the tree often now, and Olisiane and I gaze upon the mountains beyond mountains.

* More about the World Racers here. An incredible group.