On a perfect day, in Haiti...a day too delicious for words.. I climb up into the mountains and follow streams to where they leap from pool to pool with waterfalls one right after the other. The children who come with me, quickly take off their clothes and swim in clear, clean water; their laughter holding me in quiet rapture; their songs echoing off the hillsides where cows graze and farmers work in their gardens. We lay in butterfly and hummingbird filled meadows.
When we walk home, Islar, finds us all mangoes. I don;t know how she does it but she finds us these sweet, delicious mangoes that drip from our lips and sticks to our fingers. They are the first of the season. We sit in the sun and eat mango after mango and I think, this is a very perfect day.
These are the sounds and images and tastes that I will hold close within me forever. I know that children die and don't get to go to school and are orphaned far more than us fair but I also know that children know the names of plants, how to climb trees, the words to many songs and how to delight in a Saturday afternoon hike....and when we did not have any food, they knew how to find some. This picture is a picture of pure delight and happiness. These children, who I have come to know and love so well, have parents who work hard all day long and so this was a day of celebrating life for us all.
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