I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

One of my absolute favorite writers ever is Maya Angelou. She is so inspirational to me. I’m really interested in the Civil Rights Movement and I love learning more about countries and places that are struggling with things like slavery. Whether it be poverty or physical slavery, I like to find ways to help people who are less fortunate than myself. I really like her poem “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”. I’m not going to post the whole poem, because it’s like six stanzas long. But basically she is talking about the difference between a free bird and a caged bird, relating it to slavery. (I forgot to mention that she is an African American author, so she writes a lot about segregation and slavery).So the first stanza talks about the qualities of a free bird. She writes “The free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wings in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky.” There is so much power in the way she writes. I think we could probably make the connection of this stanza to a majority of the United States. We are all seeking the American dream. We have the ability to achieve basically anything that we want if we work for it.

When Angelou writes about the caged bird she says, The caged bird sings with fearful trill of the things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom." This line is so powerful to me because even though this bird is restrained behind bars, or whatever is holding it back, it still has the power to sing.

So here's a random segway into my experiences in Haiti. I feel like the people in Haiti are almost like this caged bird. When the earthquake struck Haiti, many of its people lost everything. Including their freedom. Their government was crumbling, just like the buildings caught in the quake. People were thrown into poverty. Poverty in Haiti, just like basically anywhere else, is a never ending cycle. Poverty is slavery. People do what they can to get the means necessary to feed their families, but usually it isn't enough.

When I first flew into the airport in Port au Prince, it looked like any other normal sized airport. But when we stepped outside we were bombarded by people asking if they could help us with our luggage (not airport attendants). We were told not to let anyone touch our stuff because it would probably get stolen. As we drove from the larger airport to the small airport that we would fly out of to get to the place we were going to stay, there were people wandering the streets trying to sell things out of carts to try to make some money. There were little boys weaving in between cars offering to wash their windows for a small fee while they were stopped in the road. As we neared the smaller airport, there were less structured buildings and more shacks with tin roofs. I had heard stories of people going through the city while it rained and all you could hear was the thunderous roar of the rain on the thousands and thousands of tin roofs. And this was in the big city, I couldn't even imagine what smaller villages would look like.

When we got to Mole, the little town where the Northwest Haiti Christian Mission was set up, we were introduced to more of the village life. When compared to Port au Prince, Mole was much less overwhelming. From Mole, we took a two hour truck ride (the most bumpy ride I've ever been on in my life) to a place called Mare Rouge which is where we stayed for the rest of the week. The goal of the mission trip was to interact with people from a different place and culture, while teaching them about God. I tried to be with the kids as much as I could, because it was easier for me to look like a fool in front of them (not knowing their language) than it was in front of the adults. The language barrier with the kids wasn't difficult, as long as you smiled and laughed and hugged them they were completely content. We taught VBS in the mornings at the local church (which was actually just a tiny one-roomed building), and did activities with the kids around the village like soccer and kickball.

I can't even begin to imagine the hardships that these people have to face. The kids that we interacted with came to play in just about the same clothes every day. They were dirty, and most definitely under-fed. They spent their days helping with chores and watching younger siblings. The people of the village would all line up at the same time every afternoon and wait their turn to draw water from the well. But no matter what these people were put through, they were some of the happiest people I've ever seen. When I think of happiness I usually think of money, because in reality money is the one thing that matters in this country anymore. The people in Haiti didn't have much money, but they were still so happy. The kids that I met (there was Winston, Linda, Tsi Tsi, Jameson, and so many more) had the most adorable laughs. They called me Allie and followed me around and would come running whenever I came out of the yard of the place we were staying. They touched my heart in so many ways and they're inspirational to me to be happy and keep looking up, even when things get bad.

So I guess to tie in my random beginning, the second to last stanza of Angelou's poem goes like this, "But a caged bird sings on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing." Basically, there are people in this world who have next to nothing. I don't know anything about having nothing, because I have everything that I could ever need in my life, but there are people who do know what it's like to suffer. The people I encountered in Haiti are an excellent example of people who have nothing but are still willing to make the most of their lives and sing of freedom. They lift up the things that are important, cherish the things that they are given, and make the most out of what they have. May they be a lesson to us all.