Christmas music provided background noise as my 14-year-old daughter, Shela, and I sat amid the densely populated downtown market in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Time trudged on in the late afternoon as we waited for a friend. We could only wait because in 1980 no one had cell phones on our Caribbean island.

Hundreds of black people rushed by on the dirty streets. This was my first Christmas in Haiti. My eyes and ears soaked in the culture; I wanted to know the Haitian people. As Shela and I sat in the shadow of a large building, we didn’t speak for a long time. It was a private moment.
Eventually our eyes settled on one woman. About my age, she took a complete bath in a pothole in the street. The hole held perhaps a bucket full of water, a free gift from a slow leak in a buried waterline. She sang as bathed. Trying not to stare, Shela and I watched every move as our Haitian singer hiked up her skirt to wash above her knees, her slender legs glistening in the afternoon sun. Cupping her hands again and again in the tiny pool of water, she finished her bath. A few steps away from the pothole was the rearview mirror on a truck. Looking in the mirror she continued singing while combing her hair. Her last handful of water went into her mouth as she brushed her teeth with an index finger.
For Shela and me, this was not our best Christmas. We were homesick and felt helpless as we watched this mass of moving people. And the music was just too weird. Through loudspeakers we heard the clear, mellow voice of Bing Crosby singing “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas.” Very few Haitians spoke English, so why was this poor street woman singing along with an American icon?
Haiti was hot and dry in December. White dust hung like fog around our rented home on A-Thoby Street. This dirt and gravel road became the reason why our family sang “White Christmas.” Two sides of our home had no windows, only open security bars. The white dust off of A-Thoby Street drifted into our three bedroom home, a dust as fine as cornstarch. Noel, our family cat, left white foot prints on the coffee colored dining room table every night. When our Christmas celebrations ended, we carried our plastic Christmas tree outside to hose it off.
During all those years in Haiti, singing “White Christmas” became our favorite family holiday tradition. Year after year, loudspeakers blasted Bing Crosby’s voice over the hot dusty streets and we would join the Haitians as they sang along. But in December 1986 I got hit in the gut with an emotional cannon ball.
During our last Christmas season in Haiti, a street worker washed a friend’s car in downtown Port-au-Prince. As he worked he sang “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas.” My friend asked the worker a simple question; “Do you understand the words to that song?”
“O yes,” the street worker replied.
“When did you see snow?”
“Sir, I don’t know snow. I only know the song.”
“Well, what does this song mean?”
“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas. You know, a Christmas with food and a bed and gifts to give my family. I’m dreaming of a Christmas like white people have.”
Suddenly I saw life from a new perspective.
In the 20 years since I heard the street worker make that statement, I have been revamping my priorities. Year by year I have humbled myself and submitted to the teachers God has given me. The poor have become my heroes. They show me hope! Saints who suffer, sing, and smile, well, they influence me. Those who are poor in spirit hold the secrets for happiness and I must somehow look beyond their gender, age, race, education, and economic status. It started in 1980 when God used a poor black woman on a Port-au-Prince street to begin teaching me that a dream and a song for Christmas may not be much ... but enough!

Quietly watching for more heroes,
Swanee Schwanz
December 4, 2006