Jeff's
Tap-tap Letter
tap-tap:
n. in Haiti a privately owned pickup truck used for public
transport, usually with benches installed and the bed covered
to accommodate passengers
July
25, 2001
Dear
Fellow Passengers,
It
had been a hot day in Port-au-Prince. Like most evenings
I was standing with a group of Haitians on a busy street
corner waiting for the next tap-tap to take me up
the mountain and back home. At about 6:30 an empty tap-tap
pulled up, and suddenly the crowd surged forward, becoming
a wild scramble of arms, legs and bodies in the mad struggle
to get on board. Only half of us found a place. I was one
of the lucky ones. The man next to me yanked my arm to sit
me down so I wouldn't lose my seat. We struggled to wedge
just one more person in. Four young men took the last available
spots standing on the back bumper. There were at least 20
of us crowded like sardines into the back of the little
pickup truck.
In
an instant we were moving. On a good night the trip would
take an hour, but tonight the traffic was crawling. Everyone
knew we were in for a hot, sweaty time. Clouds of exhaust
and dust added to the sensory assault.
Despite
these discomforts, the passengers were in a jovial mood.
After all, we were the lucky ones who had a ride home. Someone
suggested that we would all have more room if a couple people
sat on the white man's lap. I considered the implications
of this, but before I could find words to respond in my
feeble Creole, everyone began to laugh. I laughed along,
realizing the joke. A couple of the young women jabbed that
there were too many guys on the tap-tap. One man
asked if they were scared. The young woman's witty response
was interrupted as the truck engine erupted in steam. The
driver got out to find some water to put in the radiator.
Passengers erupted in more jokes directed now at the driver
who responded in kind. We were all in this together. Within
minutes, all of these strangers had organized themselves
into a boisterous, roaring family. Our destiny was bound
up together. Even the white guy was part of the family.
This
is a scene that I have lived and loved, in one form or another,
almost every day since my wife, Beth, and I arrived in Haiti
last September. Struggle and hardship create real bonds
among the people here in Haiti, bonds that are not so easily
formed in my more-affluent culture.
On
subways and city buses in the U.S. we often witness people
doing all they can to avoid having contact or conversation
with others around them. Most people avoid public transport
altogether, filling our highways with more and more cars.
Driving through Miami, we noticed that where cars had to
have at least three or four occupants to use High Occupancy
Vehicle (HOV) lanes, now a car with just two occupants qualifies
as “high occupancy.” Many cities, like Miami,
that built HOV lanes to encourage people to share rides
have had to lower their standards. Most of us are just too
attached to our independence. We sit in traffic alone, drive
home alone, and pull into our garages all alone. We go inside
our homes without having exchanged a word with any neighbors.
Time magazine reported several years ago that more than
60 percent of us in America don't even know our next-door
neighbors.
So,
our material wealth allows us to buy more cars and bigger
houses and gives us more and more room to spread out. This
wealth has freed us from the annoyances of neighbors. Freed
from having to touch people we don't know. Freed from having
to be reminded that others around us may be in need. But
this freedom comes at a great price—loneliness, isolation,
and apathy toward our neighbors’ needs.
Before
her death, Mother Teresa often told the story of the ministry
of her Sisters of Charity in New York City. The sisters
would go from door to door searching out and caring for
people who were shut in, people who often had had virtually
no human contact in years. On more than one occasion the
sisters containing occupants who had died in isolation.
They were only discovered because of the sisters' visit
and the odor of their decaying bodies. Reflecting on this
Mother Teresa said, "The worst disease today is not
leprosy; it is being unwanted, being left out, being forgotten.
The greatest scourge is to forget the next person, to be
so suffocated with things that we have no time for the lonely
Jesus-even a person in our own family who needs us."
So,
I'm grateful for my daily tap-tap rides. They have
become liturgical experiences for me—times when I can
pray and focus on the image of God in humanity. I am often
led to reflect on God, who stepped away from the comforts
of heaven and got on our tap-tap 2000 years ago.
In Christ, God entered the fray of humanity and became a
passenger with us. He went further and gave His life for
us on a cross. As a Christian I know that I'm called to
do the same, to step out from my comfortable isolation,
pick up my cross, and follow Christ into this human fray.
It
is so easy, surrounded by the comforts many of us enjoy,
to forget that we share a tap-tap with billions of
others who are often struggling just to survive. Maybe we've
heard the statistics: the wealthiest fifth of the world's
population controls four fifths of the world's resources,
while a third of the world's people struggle to live on
less than a dollar a day. The gap between the wealthiest
and poorest continues to grow wider. So the rich get lonelier
and more isolated and the poor become more desperate and
hungry.
It's
as if 3 or 4 of the 20 passengers on our tap-tap
demanded all of the space inside and just pushed the rest
of us out. That is essentially what is happening. The poorer,
more vulnerable passengers on our global tap-tap are getting
pushed out the back. Some are just able to hold on for dear
life, while others are falling off.
Christ
taught us to pray that God's "will be done on Earth
as it is in heaven." We are called to work to make
this prayer a reality. The prophet Isaiah (chapter 65) described
this reality as a place where children don't die in infancy,
where people live to be old and have adequate housing, fertile
gardens, and meaningful work. It is a place where everyone
has a place on the tap-tap and no one insists on riding
home alone.
Christ
calls us out of our isolation and loneliness and into the
human fray to build God's Kingdom. This may mean visiting
neighbors we've never met, caring for someone who is shut
in, or sharing with our neighbors in places like Haiti.
We
are grateful for all who share in making the ministry of
Beyond Borders possible. In partnership with you, we are
offering literacy training and basic education to some of
the poorest children and adults in Haiti. We are providing
Haitian teachers with training in more liberating models
of education. We are helping grassroots groups get better
organized, so they can take the lead in identifying and
solving the problems their people face. We are providing
training to Haitian artisans and working to give Haitian
families access to clean and safe water.
Since
we are all on this ride together, I don't mind telling you
that many of our friends in Haiti are still short on their
tap-tap fare. Most of Haiti's children still cannot attend
school because their parents lack the few dollars needed
for tuition. Most adults still remain shackled by the chains
of illiteracy. Most teachers are still in need of training.
Many families still lack clean water. Many children are
still being sent into virtual slavery because of poverty.
If
you are not already giving to Beyond Borders, a pledge of
$1 a day, on behalf of the 81 percent of Haiti's people
who survive on less than $1 a day would be a meaningful
commitment. Your pledge of $30 a month would be a concrete
way of making a little more room on this tap-tap
for those who are being left behind.
Thanks
so much for sharing this journey with us!
Jeff Rogers
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