Smells

Smells

 

Smells.  They are enough to have your mouth watering or your stomach turning.  While some smells can transport us in our mind to our favorite place, other smells are just downright nauseating.  And have you ever noticed how smell conscious we’ve become as a society?

We judge a lot of things by the way they smell.  Fruit.  Vegetables. Leftovers. Service-station restrooms. The kid who sits three rows over in Algebra. Mothers can even pass judgment on their teenager’s room with a statement about smell.  “Clean up this room!  It looks like a bomb went off in here and smells like a pigsty.”

There are smells just about every one loves.  Fresh-baked bread. Fresh air after a spring rain.  The smell of new leather.  Likewise, there are smells that almost everyone hates. Skunk spray. The inside of a garbage truck.  A dirty, wet dog. Now that’s nasty!

I remember the first time I really became aware of my smell-consciousness. Sometime during the summer of 1972 my dad came home and asked us if we were interested in going to visit his sister and her family for Christmas.  He told us that my grandparents, as well as his other sister and brother, were going to be there and wanted us to join them.

Now that doesn’t sound so unusual, except that my aunt and uncle were missionaries in Haiti. They lived on a beautiful campus right outside Port-au-Prince.  This would be a perfect chance to see the “missionaries and colporteurs across the sea” that we prayed for every night, up close and personal. If we were going to go, dad informed us, we would need to start saving our money.  We were enthusiastically up to the adventure, so we started saving.

We had garage sales, took stuff to sell at the local flea market, cut our expenses and started putting the savings into a fund for our trip to Haiti. We would have a big family Christmas in Haiti.

My dad was the oldest of his siblings.  His youngest brother, my uncle, came as a complete surprise to my grandparents. What that meant was that my uncle, Rodney, was only 6 months older than me.  This particular Christmas, he would turn 15, while I would remain 6 months behind at 14.  But we were teenagers nonetheless, and knew all about everything, so there was nothing we couldn’t handle.  Or so we thought.

Christmas break finally came and we packed up the car and headed for Florida.  Meeting the relatives in Miami, Florida, we all boarded a flight bound for Haiti.  Our adventure was in full swing.

The country of Haiti shares an island with another country, the Dominican Republic.  Final approach to the runway was over the water and as we came in just above the waves, I thought we had come to paradise. The ocean water was a clear, beautiful, turquoise blue.  Looking down, I could see 20 or 30 feet down into the water.  I could even make out a few of the larger fish. This was going to be an amazing Christmas.

My aunt and uncle and their four children were there to meet all of us at the airport with two vans from the mission compound.  After clearing customs and happy hugs and laughter, we loaded our baggage into the vans and headed out of town to their house.  I was to learn, on the short ride home, that Haiti is actually one of the poorest countries in the world.

We passed little tin shacks with no floors and dirty little children with no clothes on.  We passed a corner where deformed children sat begging.  Arms bent at weird angles, legs were twisted, and hollow staring eyes bespoke little hope of life changing for them. My heart went out to them.

As we moved on through the city of Port-au-Prince, what really caught my attention were the smells.  Mostly bad. They had a way of taking your breath away. Smells inundated you from all sides.  You were immersed in a world of smells.  Smells that you had never experienced before. Smells that you liked. Smells that made you want to throw up.  Which brings me back to two teen-aged boys and our belief that there was nothing we couldn’t handle.

About eight days into our stay, we were feeling pretty confident about our ability to navigate the city on our own, having grown used to the smells and sights surrounding us. We were downtown with everyone and had just finished eating lunch, when we decided it was time to make our move. We begged our parents to let us go exploring alone.  After conferring with my missionary uncle, they decided it would be safe enough for us to explore on our own for a few hours. After the usual parental warnings and agreeing to meet them at the waterfront markets by dark, we were ready to head out.

“Hey guys,” my Uncle Allen called to us as we were walking off, “if something happens, do you know how to get back home?”

“No,” we answered sheepishly.

“To get home, you will need to head over towards that tallest building.  Just on the other side of that building is the street that runs past the mission campus.  Once you get to that street, find a ‘tap-tap’ (Haitian taxi) that is going in the direction of those hills." He pointed. "Then, as one approaches just hiss like this—ssssssssssssssssssssssss,” he demonstrated.   “They will pull over and you get in.  When you get to the mission, pull the rope that runs along the ceiling and a red light will come on the dash and the driver will stop.  Give him one of these each,” he said as he handed us one coin each. “That’s called a gourde.  It’s worth about $.20 US cents, but that will cover your ride home.  Don’t spend it, or you will have an angry driver on your hands.”

“Do they really stop if you just hiss?” I asked, thinking that he must be trying to pull one over on us.

Without saying a word, he turned toward the street as a “tap-tap” approached.

“Ssssssssssssssssssssssss,” he hissed.

Without hesitation, the driver swerved towards the curb.  My uncle leaned in the window and said something in the native Creole language.  The driver laughed, waved and sped away.  Uncle Allen then turned back to us.

“Do you believe me now?” he asked.  We nodded. “Good!” he grinned,  “So go and have fun.  Just don’t spend that coin.  And stay away from the meat market part of town.”

At that time, Port-au-Prince was a fairly safe city, with one exception.  The meat market.  All week we had heard stories of the meat market from some of the local kids, who were friends with my cousins. Scary stories. Stories that were so bizarre that we didn’t know whether to believe them or not.

According to these tales, there was a hidden trap door behind the counter. The common thread in all of the stories was that unsuspecting kids, from out of town, or out of country, would be lured in behind one of the meat counters to their doom. Down through the trap door they would go, and according to some of the story-tellers, the next day they themselves would be the meat special.

It was enough to make you shudder one of those deep shudders that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up and break-dance.

And, of course, any telling of the story was always accompanied by the warning not to go to the meat market by ourselves.  Checking the stories with my uncle had simply brought the response that he didn’t know how accurate they were, but that it was known to be a bad part of town that was best avoided.

So, once free of parental control, we naturally headed directly for the meat market.  And a whole new load of smells.  In the 90+ degree F heat, the smells were at best, stifling and at worst, downright nauseating. Meat hung everywhere from hooks in the 2x4’s nailed overhead.  No refrigeration.  Nothing to protect it from the mass of flies that crawled all over the now-rotting carcasses.

A lady asked to see a particular side of beef.  The butcher simply waved his hand in front of it and the hoard of flies lifted off revealing the meat underneath.  She decided that was the one she wanted.  I inwardly wretched.

“Hey, you. Boy.” A voice sounded behind me.  I spun around to see another butcher calling out to me.  “Do you want to come and see today’s special?” he called out.  “Come on back here—I’ll show you something special.”

I looked around for Rodney.  He was about ten feet away, but had also heard the invitation.  He raced over to me and grabbed my arm and said, “Let’s get out of here.”

We took off running with a Haitian butcher yelling for us to come back and "see the special".  We ran about three or four blocks before we stopped.  It was then that we discovered a new problem.  We had no idea where we were.

We decided that we would head towards the ocean and the waterfront markets, but soon found ourselves deeper in the wrong part of town.   Suddenly, a strong arm grabbed mine.  I looked up into the face of a large Haitian man who now was dragging me on one side and Rodney on the other towards this dark, run-down building.

“Hey,” I yelled. “What are you doing?”

“They pay me to bring you in for good time,” was his only response.

“Who paid you?” Rodney asked.

He only motioned towards a building with his head. We looked the direction he motioned to see three women and a couple of rough men watching us closely.

“How much did they pay you?” Rodney quickly asked.

“One gourde.”

Rodney rapidly jerked out the coin my uncle had handed him and motioned for me to do likewise. “Here’s two gourdes to let us go.”

“Ok,” he said, quickly releasing us, grabbing the coins and bolting away from the building.  We took off running the other direction as the five people on the porch jumped up and began yelling.

After about three blocks, we slowed to a walk, trying to catch our breath and looking behind us to make sure that no one was following.

"I don't know about you," Rodney spoke, "but I've about had all the excitement I can stand.  It's too hot!"

I looked at my watch. Only 45 minutes into our grand adventure and I had to admit that I was ready to head back to the mission compound as well.  We turned and looked for the tallest building only to find that we had run way past it in our rush to get away.  But, we reasoned, if we just turned right at the next street and went up about four or five blocks we should intersect that street and get a "tap-tap" towards the hills and enjoy the ride home.

We turned right onto the next street, a dirt one, and headed up the block.  As we walked, we discussed our close calls and wondered aloud what other adventures might await someone in this part of the city. We didn't have long to wonder. So absorbed in our conversation, we hadn't noticed the dirt turning to a sloppy mud until we found ourselves deep in the middle of it.  Suddenly our senses were jerked back to the present.  With each step, our feet were sinking down about three to four inches into the dark mire.  The smell was overwhelming and flies buzzed all around us.

Looking towards either side of the street, we noticed that the outer edge of both sidewalks was lined with about an eight-foot plywood wall, open only about 15 inches up at the bottom.  It was then that we realized we were smack in the middle of one of the city's public restroom streets.

Haitians began peeking out around the end of the plywood wall.  They gave us weird looks.  They laughed and pointed at the two white tourists now wading in their public sewer. A crowd gathered on both sides of the street, but since we were over halfway up the block, we decided it would be better to go forward and try to tiptoe our way on out than to go back.

No looking cool here. There was no way to even try and look cool.  Oh, we were dressed like cool American teenagers of the '70s right down to our footwear.  One of the current fashion trends of the day was to wear the red canvas, hi-top, Converse tennis shoes until they had big rips and holes in them.  The more rips and holes you had and yet could continue to wear them, the cooler you were.  Let me tell you, we both had shoes that were barely hanging in there--extremely cool by all fashion standards.  But in our current situation, as the muck and mire of human waste oozed in and under and around our feet, sucking at the soles and straining at the last remaining fibers holding the rubber and canvas together, we thought they were anything but cool.  So much for fashion.

Finally exiting the block, we looked frantically for a faucet sticking out of some building to wash off our feet.  Not seeing any, we spied three large jars filled with water.  The first was murky and nasty smelling.  The second was a little better, but the third was pretty clean.  We opted for that one.

"Here, Rodney," I said. "Hold your feet out and I'll pour water on them, and then you can pour water on mine."  We had just finished washing the worst off of his feet and I had one foot halfway done when a rather angry-looking Haitian man came running at us from way down the block screaming in Creole punctuated with one word in English. "GO!"

Not totally sure who he was talking to, and certainly not understanding the language, Rodney poured a little more water on my feet.  This apparently infuriated the man because he now snatched up a large, leather-sheathed machete as he continued to run towards us and shouted, "GO!!!"  With the translation being complete in our smell-dulled minds, we quickly decided we would "GO!!!"  Rodney tipped the jar back upright and we again found ourselves with wildly rushing adrenalin and flailing limbs to match. As I ran, one shoe sloshed and squirted water out the holes, while the other stuck tight to my foot.

It wasn't long before we found ourselves on the right street, hissing like snakes on steroids at anything that moved.  A "tap-tap" going our direction pulled over to the curb. We went around back and jumped in.

I must explain that a "tap-tap" is merely a beat-up Nissan or Toyota pickup truck that has been modified to act like a bus.  The bed has two benches facing each other running down either side and hanging out the back by about two feet, with a brightly decorated top and side boards, leaving two or three inch slats in between for some exhaust-tainted air to force its way in to the occupants.

Grateful to have a ride, we plopped down on one of the benches of the near-empty truck and started to relax. Within three blocks, however, we were praying we would survive the ride, for we found ourselves in the back of a wildly-bouncing, swerving, pickup in very close company with no less than eighteen Haitians. Twenty of us piled in the back of a careening, shock-starved Nissan, and the dude sitting next to me had a chicken on his lap.

Let me remind you that it was 90+ degrees Fahrenheit, with about 90% humidity and most Haitians in the 70's had yet to learn of personal hygiene and deodorant.  Add that to our now rotting shoes, and you had a wall of stink that was almost visible. Rodney and I pressed our noses to the little slats and sucked in "fresh" air.  We would hold our breath until we were turning blue, then exhale quickly while turning our heads towards the slats behind us to repeat the process, all the while desperately watching for our stop.

The thing that absolutely blew my mind was that not one of them seemed to notice the smell at all. They were just bumping on down the road, laughing and talking, totally oblivious to anything that might have been out of the ordinary.  We, on the other hand, continued to fight for every breath of anything but putrid air.

Our stop finally came, and we both pulled hard on the rope.  The driver swerved to the side of the road and came to a screeching halt.  We piled out and sucked in the sweet air now only tainted with truck exhaust.  Walking around to the driver, we both produced another gourde from our unused shopping money and began trudging up the hill to our uncle's house on the compound covered in smells we greatly wanted to lose.

Which brings me to a question.  If God could open your spiritual nose, how would your soul smell?   Have you stopped to ponder lately the condition of your own soul?  Are you just bumping on down life's road oblivious to the sin in your life that may be causing a stench in the nostrils of God?

Oh, I know it's not your intent to smell bad spiritually.  I know you don't want God to be holding His nose over you, gasping for whatever bit of clean air He can find.  But it happens.  It happens through not taking care of our spiritual cleansing needs.  It happens also through straight-up rebelling.  Listen to what God said about His people in the days of Isaiah the prophet.

Is. 65:2-5  All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations—  3 a people who continually provoke me to my very face, offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick; 4 who sit among the graves and spend their nights keeping secret vigil; who eat the flesh of pigs, and whose pots hold broth of impure meat; 5 who say, ‘Keep away; don’t come near me  for I am too sacred for you!’  Such people are smoke in My nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day. (NIRV)

Did you catch that?  People who are obstinate, people who walk in their own ways, pursuing their own imaginations--are people who continually provoke God to His face. That's hardcore!  He goes on to say, "Such people are smoke in My nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day."

Like acrid smoke that keeps following you at a campfire, burning your eyes and nose, are your sins to God.  If you are living outside of a relationship with God, the Bible says the smells of your soul are burning God's nose.  But it doesn't have to be that way.  God has provided a way to lose the smell of your soul. The apostle John gives us the key.

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

God, Himself, will do the work.  He'll clean you up. He'll help you start over. He'll get rid of the soul stench in your life.  As you start this book, why not determine to start over with God right now.  Pray the prayer of King David when he was confronted with his own sin.

Psa. 51:2,3,7,10-12 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. 7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. 10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

That's all God needs to hear, and He promises to take your smells away. Pray that prayer, right now, and let God get rid of the stench in your soul.  And then keep reading, because the adventure is just beginning.