“Take the time to stop and smell the roses.”

Everyone has heard this saying. Now I want you to stop and close your eyes.  Breathe.  Breathe in and out. Notice what you smell. Is it clean air? Is it a foul odor? Is it familiar to you? Do you smell a sweet aroma?
There are so many different scents that we inhale on a regular basis. Before going to Haiti, I really did not pay much attention to them. While in Haiti, I took the time to notice the different scents of the country, a new part of the world for me.

When I arrived, I noticed the aromas in the air were different. I have lived in the city for almost 3 years now, but the smells were nothing to compare to St. Louis. In Port-au-Prince there was a mix of dust and smog. Once I reached Petit-Goave, the odor changed to a more refreshing smell with a hint of dust. Even though I could smell similarities between United States and Haiti, there was still a difference. While driving from Port-au-Prince to Petit-Goave, the smell of mangos hit my nose and the smell of barbeque made my mouth water. Although there were new smells at the beginning of the trip, towards the end I felt whole with the smells.

Ellen and I had chosen to not shower while we stayed for 8 days in Haiti. We had no real idea if the kids took showers or really had the opportunity to use clean water to do so. As we stayed in Haiti, we used baby wipes, but our distinct foul smell continued to grown over the next day and then the day after that until we arrived back in St. Louis. At the beginning of the week, not showering seemed to be an obstacle. By the end of the week, the absence of showering had become part of our daily lives in Haiti. The absence of showers to us is similar to their absence of clean drinking clean water and better quality of life due to lack of clean water.

Our own scent had changed like our minds and spirits had while we were there in the presence of God’s people. My perspective on the use of water changed as I lived in Haiti for a little over a week. Clean water has a distinct smell, but that smell was limited in the Haiti world.  I realized how much we waste clean water, and we are not even aware of it. From an outsider’s perspective, choosing the absence of showering must seem bizarre, or maybe even irrational. Here Ellen and I are in a tropical area, sweating more than the winter season back in St. Louis. From an outsider’s perspective, we were around disease a majority of the day. We made ourselves vulnerable while we were there, but we knew this before going to Haiti. Sometimes in life, we become numb in our routines. We are lucky when we run into a wall to wake us up, and makes our vision clearer. Even in Haiti, this numbness to our routine existed, but in a different and new way. Change is difficult for anyone, but we all know it must start from within. So coming from the United States and going to Haiti, we didn’t go to change their ways, but we came for them to help guide us in ours.