Transcript:Gregory Dahl/Journal regarding Rúhíyyih Khánum’s visit to Haiti 1981

Transcript of: Journal regarding Rúhíyyih Khánum’s visit to Haiti, 11-20 May 1981 by Gregory Dahl

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[0:00] This is Tuesday, May the 12th 1981, and I wanted to put down a few notes, collections about time that I've spent recently with Rúḥíyyih Khánum. I expect to be adding to this tape during the time that she is visiting here in Haiti.

[0:19] First, I wanted to go back a month from last Saturday, about four weeks from last Saturday when I was in the United States, that was about the 10th or so of April. I flew up there on Friday and Saturday afternoon attended a lovely gathering at the Public High School in Falls Church, which Rúḥíyyih Khánum, in which she had given a talk to the Bahá’ís, Bahá’ís only. It was quite a large hall and it was completely full. Very nice gathering, people came from far away is Baltimore and Philadelphia, I think even, quite a distance. She had come to the U. S. as I gather mostly just to rest and people weren't supposed to know where she was staying, which was at the Huddleston's. She gave a very nice sort of chatty friend-to-friend kind of talk. I don't remember all the things she said. It wasn't anything particularly forceful is just very pleasant, and everybody enjoyed themselves very much. The crowds were a little bit full, and I heard that afterwards they had to employ four or some number of very beefy young men to escort her through the crowds so that she wouldn't be just completely detained.

[1:45] And then she went to the children's room where there was supposed to be some kind of a, I don't know something for her with the children, and she told me afterwards that it was a complete disaster, apparently nothing had been arranged, and she stood there at all these children playing and they had no idea who she was. She said, I don't remember how she put it, but something like didn't know her from, you know from Methuselah or something and ah, it was kind of awkward and then the mother started coming in, wanting their picture taken with their child, and they were really obstinate and Violette said that she had pushed, not pushed, but encouraged some women to go away. That that was, you know, Rúḥíyyih Khánum wasn't there to have her picture taken with everybody and they would glare at Violette, just daggers she said, that she would try to get in the way, and so that was a little discouraging for them I think but there are lots of Persians, you know, who have moved into the Northern Virginia and Washington areas, and I guess they see this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to get themselves immortalized with Rúḥíyyih Khánum or something.

[2:57] So she disappeared pretty quickly. And the next morning, I slept kind of late, and I got a call in the morning from John Huddleston, who said that Khánum had asked if I would like to come for lunch about noon. So that was fine with me I went out and did some shopping or something and came back and Don Davis detained me for a while with some questions about the computer. And so I was a bit late and I tried to decide what to wear, and I hadn't brought very many clothes back on, and they were mostly warmish weather clothes because I had mistakenly remembered the spring in Washington as being a little warmer than it was. But the sun was out and it's like it was going to be quite a warm day, so I thought I would get by with a knit short sleeve shirt, which was the nicest looking thing I had. I tried a dress shirt that looked kind of funny, and, I don't know, I don't have or at that time didn't have quite the right leasure clothes, you know? So I had tried on a number of things and I finally put on this knit shirt and I got myself together and went off to her house.

[4:06] That turned out to be a mistake because it turned much cooler in the afternoon, and I really got rather chilly, and she never asked me to leave. So I stayed on and on until after dinner, and I had to borrow a sweater from John. But as it turned out, I did get a bit of a chill and came down with an absolutely awful cold the next day and was in bed for two and a half days, I guess. Well, I was sick 'til Wednesday, so. Anyway, but it was, of course, well worth it. When I arrived, Khanum was sitting on the sofa, which had been moved in front of the television downstairs. And, [?] was sitting on the side, and they were, and John was understanding about, and I think they came in and out or something. And they were watching the television, waiting for a replay of the take off of the space shuttle. And there were all kinds of people talking about the shuttle not being worth money and one thing or another, you know, interviews, killing the time. And we waited there maybe 45 minutes and Khanum got rather impatient with it all and got up and went upstairs. And after she left, there was a bit of a snap of the short sequence of the shuttle taking off as part of the leader for the show with CBS News across the top or something like that. I don't think she ever did actually see the thing. This was plainly a day of rest for her and the [?] Mr. and Mrs. were there. And John was there. Ruhi [ph] had gone, ooh, I guess, the day before to Bermuda, where the new National Spiritual Assembly was to be formed at Riḍván.

[5:46]Amatu'l-Bahá went for that convention and Ruhi [ph] had volunteered to go ahead of time and helped arrange things, help out with the work of the convention. So she had gone and taken the children and John was somehow managing. He did do very well. He was very happy and just fit in very nicely. And I sort of expected having Khánum and Violette to be kind of a burden for him. But for him, it wasn't at all, whereas for some people, it really is. You know, it's very interesting to have some people sort of just flow with the situation and I was impressed that John would do that, actually, because he's so fussy and fastidious about some things, you know. And people like Lisa Webster and Ruhi [ph] just find it a terrible drain to have Rúhíyyih Khánum there. She worries so much about her and if everything is all right. Anyway, the atmosphere was much more relaxed without Ruhi [ph], I must say, although it's kind of strange to be in her house without her there. And they served a very, very nice lunch. I'm telling you right now what it was but there were, I think it's quite a full meal. There's alcohol, and chicken, and potatoes, and so forth. And we ate for a long time, and it's very pleasant. And then we repaired to the living room just next over. And Rúhíyyih Khánum took out a pleated skirt that she had, and she started to tie down the pleats by hand. And it turned out there were many more pleats than she thought and the thing was about halfway through the whole afternoon's hours on it. Just relaxing there. I think she likes to have something to do, you know, to keep herself busy.

[7:17]That time when I was at the Nakhjavani's in Haifa, and she came over. She was trying to put something on a frame. I don't remember now what it was but seems to me she was tying something onto a frame, involved some sewing, and she was fussing with it, and cursing, and so forth. Not really cursing, but you know, being angry at it that it wasn't coming out quite right, and she just likes to do that. So we just sat there and talked, had a very interesting conversation. Mrs. Shoot [ph] kept coming up with some idea that Rúhíyyih Khánum thought was absolutely ridiculous. And they would have a go at it and back and forth. And nobody, neither of them won. You know, they sort of decided to let it rest after a while. [laughs] I don't remember now what the issues were, but Khánum is, of course, very opinionated and wouldn't let anything go by that she didn't agree with. I was a little apprehensive before going over there, what she might ask me about or whatever, but I have tried to watch my opinions and didn't say anything that well I wasn't [Mom?], but I didn't say anything that I thought would incite her and she didn't. There was one thing I said, I don't remember now what it was where she just sort of just let it pass without saying anything. And I really got this distinct impression she was being very nice to me, you know? As compared with the past where she could be sort of blunt sometimes. She didn't say anything to me the whole afternoon, eight or nine hours worth. It was eight hours, I guess, that was even slightly argumentative. And was just very sweet to me, extremely sweet. I have no idea why she would feel that way towards me, but it's certainly very warming and very, very wonderful. She's quite a, quite a fine lady. And although sometimes she can be kind of blunt, she's very, very loving and very warm, particularly, I think, when you get to know her a little better. She has very, very sweet qualities.

[9:19]I wish I could remember more now of what she talked about on that occasion. We did discuss briefly the situation in Haiti and what you might expect there and so on. And she recommended strongly that we seek official legal recognition for the Faith, not as a religion but as an ordinary corporation of some kind which as it turned out later is the only kind of recognition we can achieve here since there's a concordant. It's an officially Catholic state. What else did we talk about? Well, I didn't, I don't really remember. If I think of something, I'll mention it later on the tape. So as I say, time went on and she never asked me to leave, and you don't leave unless, you know, there's some indication that you ought to. It's kind of a little bit awkward. I didn't really know what the situation was, but everybody seemed to be very happy to have me there, so I didn't want to sort of cause any disruption. And there was a long discussion about whether to go out and get some pizza or something for dinner, which struck me rather peculiar, or whether they could concoct something. And finally they did. As I remember, it also was very nice. It was an omelette, I guess. Excellent. I don't know, I guess, Violette did the cooking. And it's really very fine with some mushrooms and whatnot, don't remember now at all but it was very good. And, oh, everything was just heavenly, you know?

[10:33]And then afterwards, they had invited, who was it? I think Anita Chapman, maybe, and some other people over for an evening at about 8:00. And just a few people but I was really rather on the cool side and tired and feeling a little bit awkward. And so I thought I'd perhaps best get out before the people came. Also, of course, I'd had all kinds of things planned for the day, and this was much longer than I expected. It adds to my taxes and comes from computing for my thesis and one thing or another. So, that's right. I think I went into the office the next day and then I got sick later in the day. So after dinner, I sort of excused myself. And Khánum looked genuinely disappointed that I had decided to leave and she said, "Do you really have to go?" And I said, "Well, yes, it really was best." And she said, "All right." And invited me to come quote to her part of the world some time for a visit. And it was really very, very nice. So, I hesitatingly took my leave, left John's sweater and got my jacket out of the car, my old jacket which I don't really want to wear around Rúhíyyih Khánum. So that was that day. Now, yesterday she arrived here on the early morning flight 8:10 from the Dominican Republic here in Haiti. And we had quite a frantic and hardworking week last week trying to make some arrangements for her with a committee of 10 that had been appointed, extremely ponderous and inefficient, trying to decide on all kinds of petty details. And they didn't seem to want to delegate anybody the authority to make decisions although I tried to urge them in that direction. So there were long discussions of what hotel she should stay in and what hall might be available for the public meeting and how to go about the publicity with the press and all that sort of thing. Most of it discussions among people who had not seen the hotels or the meeting rooms and without all the facts at hand. It would have been much better to spend the time finding out things. And usually when you find out all the facts, the best alternative becomes fairly obvious.

[12:47]So after Moro and Paule Baruk had gone about the living in Jacmel and they came up to help out for a couple of days, they've gone about looking at a lot of hotels. And they recommended a place way up on the mountain called [Chateau?], but the committee decided that I should volunteer that I should look at the [Chateau?] and Le Splendid, which is in town, not too far away from where I'm living in Pacot which had been recommended to Khánum by somebody. I don't remember now who. One of the counselors, I think. And also [Hisalsasee?] which had been favored by Julie Posey and George Marcellus, the two secretaries, new secretaries of the National Assembly. George was recording secretary before and Julie is the new secretary. So I went and saw them and [Hisalsasee?] was quite old and dilapidated, and so it seemed pretty obvious to me. And the Chateau was a little bit too far away, quite a bit too far away. And I'm glad I didn't choose it because Khánum was quite emphatic after she arrived that she didn't want to be way up on the mountain away from everything. So Le Splendid seemed to be okay. She didn't say anything negative about it, which means that she liked it. [laughs] And that turned out all right. And they picked a hall, I was a little disappointed, that it only has 120 seats for the public meeting on Wednesday night, which is tomorrow. And I'm afraid that we may get an overflow, but I guess the other halls weren't available or something. And it's a nice place, which apparently I haven't seen it yet, so I hope that works out.

[14:22]And Paule and Moro - Moro was an Egyptian and Paule was an Algerian, very interesting couple. They came back for the weekend to help again with publicity as they're very outgoing, you know, and they make good contacts. And they had arranged all kinds of things, including a very fine interview with the cable television, Television d'Haiti yesterday - Tele d'Haiti, I guess, they call it - which was shown last night. And there were excellent article in the government-owned newspaper, [Le New Almond?] over the weekend. Something like 4-5 columns wide in the picture, and there seemed to be other opportunities, radio and whatnot with the press, which is all excellent. I think the television interview was unprecedented, actually. So we all went out to the airport, sort of straggled in. I went by the center because people were supposed to be gathering there and there was no one there. And so I drove out to the airport directly, having gotten up much earlier than I usually do. And I was not feeling well. I've been very sluggy all weekend, and I was feeling rather weak, but not downright sick so I don't really think about it too much. And we waited around the airport and the Baruks came with some flowers. And Farhad, what's his last name? Khozouee. Apparently it doesn't have another "r" in it, an "r" in it, which surprised me. It seems to be Khozouee. And Stuart North, who did most of the arrangements, actually, for her visit. He was the chairman of this committee. And then [Licosh Gurney?], who visit to Canadian pioneers and who was the secretary last year and declined reelection because she's leaving, I guess, one for Canada for the summer. And Mishe Coblentz came by for a little while but she hadn't had breakfast and she's pregnant so she went off to eat again. And George Marcellus the secretary, and a young man named [Nicarlo?], I don't remember his last name also, works in the national office. And two young women who's also served on the committee. Oh, my goodness. I can't think of their names. Anyway, lovely people who were asked to present the flowers.

[16:37]So we're quite a little group of us there, but the [Adisha de Poto??] called and [Mr. Danieiey?] who had been some. They're going by to talk with him on Saturday, and he had agreed to make a space available in the departure lounge, in the transit lounge where we could sit and we could go out onto the runway and welcome her and so on. He hadn't come yet. And everybody there said that he'd probably come about 9:00 and the plane arrived at 8:10. And so we ran around to the arrivals area and we couldn't get past the stupid guard, you know, that little old guard in front who said we could wait out in front but that's all we could do. And if we wanted to do anything else, it would have to be arranged by the protocol. And so we're really at our wits end and it was virtually 8:10. And finally, this guy shows up much to our great relief, and we all troop out onto the runway and the plane arrives. And Khánum was the first one off, and we all go out to meet her, and it's very pleasant. The only problem for me was that I was just dripping with perspiration and nobody else seemed to be hot and I was really in agony. I finally take my suit coat off, and I was still very hot because in the transit lounge, there is no fans and no air conditioning and nothing. And I was just having a terrible time getting all steamed up. And several people looked at me and said I looked absolutely awful. Bags under my eyes, not bags but dark places and perspiring so much. And I was really ill, and I should go see the doctor. It hadn't occurred to me that maybe I was ill. But anyway, I took her advice later and did go to see the doctor.

[18:08]So we sat for maybe half an hour while the luggage was being taken care of by the [attitude protocol?], which was very nice. He got it through without any hassle. And we started talking with Khánum about the schedule, and she was all, although I had insisted that it be typed out and be very clear and Stuart had done this, she insisted on going over it again and writing it in very large handwriting. I don't know why she always writes that large but there was at least half an inch I think, scrawled on the page, the major elements of the schedule. And it was a lot of confusion at the airport. Nobody seemed to be in charge, and everybody was sort of standing back and being very humble. And she wanted, and nobody was really sure what she wanted, you see? And she said she'd been sick for a couple of days and needed some rest. But then she said she wanted to talk with the organizers about the schedule. And Stuart agreed to come to the hotel, and then everybody agreed to come to the hotel and we would discuss the schedule. But Stuart for some reason, and Linda, went off somewhere and didn't show up for about half an hour. So George mostly started discussing it with Khánum at the hotel. We went there, and there was lots of fuss about rearranging the furniture and trying to get a refrigerator. And there as well as some bun, and then a little one, you know. And then we finally got a nice chest full of ice because they had some butter, and I don't know what all with them. Apparently they have an electric kettle and the whole works for making food. Just one of the little handbags was solid with books and must have weighed about 50 pounds itself. They really travel with quite a lot of stuff. Not in volume wise, but certainly heavy that'll fit in my trunk. I was surprised.

[19:48]So they sat down and everybody was in on the fray. And Rúhíyyih Khánum was very disappointed because she had said in her letter that she wanted to see the sights up at Cap-Haïtien, the citadel and the palace associated with the early historical figures of Haiti. Saint Christophe and Louverture, I think. And, although she'd said in something sort of very indirect in her letter about only if it was possible and not too great a journey she really did have her heart set unfortunately on seeing these sights. And she had understood that there were lots of Baháʼís up in that area and she wanted to have a meeting in that area where they would have a chance to meet her. And I hadn't been part of the consultation. That was before I came back from Washington, in which they decided instead to have a trip by car three and a half hour trip by car off to Les Cayes into a village near there on the south coast, about us far you can go towards the Southwest. So she didn't like that idea very much. It was too much driving in the car. And she really would prefer to take a plane up north and see some of the sights and on and on and was there a book where she could see something about whether these sites were really worth seeing and how much would it cost, and was there time in the schedule. And no, it wouldn't be right to disappoint the villagers in the south who had been told that she was coming and so she really had to do that even though it was a long way. And she was on and on and on like this. She was a little bit put out, you know? So after about, I don't know, 45 minutes of this, I really had to go to the office. So I wasn't feeling well at all. I had to sit down there, so I excused myself in hopes that they would work it out.

[21:16]Eventually, Stuart came. I think they decided, finally, that the program that had been made couldn't be changed and she was disappointed. She did talk about it later, several times since that they had deprived her of what she had wanted. But I think she tends to talk a lot about these things, you know? And maybe the sights weren't really so, so interesting after all. And to go to the citadel, you have to get on a horse and ride up in the mountain loft, effort for her, too. I don't know, I'm still going to suggest that if she really wants to do it, that she just go as a tourist, to get on the plane and go up there for a day. She does have an extra day, but she told me when I suggested that to her in the car that she didn't want to go up there just for tourism. But if she went, she wanted to see the Baháʼís. She has these very fixed ideas, you see? She wants a good Baháʼí excuse to go and see the sights, which is kind of funny. She is really a character. She's very, very dear. So I don't know whether she probably won't go at all, but maybe she can be persuaded to just go as a tourist. So I left them and went down to my office, and arranged to go see the doctor. And they took me to Dr. Hans Pop [ph] who was a good friend of my French tutor, and Patrick Will Grix [ph] in Washington. And he was tickled that I had that common friend and they had gone up to visit them, apparently, last year, on vacations. And he took my pulse and one thing or another, and the only fan was so faraway. 'Twas a throat that he thought should have been sore but wasn't. And he said I might, might have some other problems, then arranged for some tests to be made the next morning, which was this morning. Some blood tests, and urine and that sort of things. I had to wait out in front in the heat, just dripping from the perspiration, because they had all the waiting room is just out on the porch, for about half an hour until he was free. But inside, he was very pleasant. I was quite impressed with him. He seems to know what he was doing. In an old building, though, but that's the style here. Clean, at least. Seemed to be quite businesslike, andnot particularly like the laboratory I'd gone to before, which didn't seem businesslike at all.

[23:23]So then I went back to the office and puttered around and tried to finish this memoir in the performance under the program through April that I've been working on with consultation with Washington. And it got to be about 2:00, I guess, I went out and had some lunch. And I was going to head home. And Violette called and said would I please meet them at the television station at 3:00. They have a 2:00 appointment and they should have been done by 3:00, and/or at the hotel at 3:30 if I could find out which television station it was, which I didn't know and there were two. So, Oragean [ph] my driver was out for lunch, he didn't come back until about 2:30, I guess. And I was very sticky from having perspired too much all day, and I want to go up and take a shower and see if I could get myself together. But Oragean [ph] said that one of the television stations was right nearby. It was on the main street about three blocks away. So we went by there to see whether that was where they in fact were, and in fact, Violette was, and Paule Baruk were sitting right there in the front. And with enough, just a couple of moments, Rúhíyyih Khánum came out with the interviewer and she was very pleased. She said it was one of the best interviews she's ever had and they asked just the right questions and they covered the whole of major teachings of the Faith for about 15 minutes. And she thought it was very fine, so that was all encouraging. Apparently, he was most interested in the Green Light Expeditions and in particularly the sections about the Bush Negroes in Suriname. So it sounds like they might put that on the television. This is thecable station. They have an English and French cable channels. And there are two broadcast channels from the national television, which is the other people. And the national television, I think it promised to come out to the airport and do something on her arrival, and of course they never showed up. But that's the way things are in this country.

[25:23]So I was kind of stuck. I wanted to go and clean up, but they wanted to go right away and do some shopping and so forth and obviously I wasn't going to delay them in order to take care of my own needs. So off we went with Oragean [ph]] driving at half speed at my instructions, and Moro got in the car. Rúhíyyih Khánum wanted to see some art, so Moro knew a place up in Pétion-Ville and after a lot of consultations, as always here, see if George, who was driving his van, could go and to take Violette and Paule up also to the same place since we wouldn't all fit in my car. And we we went up to this gallery, little gallery that is run by the wife of the secretary of the OAS mission, Arnison [ph] and another Spanish-speaking lady who have a partnership in this business, have had it for a couple months. And when we arrived there, it started to rain. As we drove up the Pétion-Ville, it was very dark in Pétion-Ville although it was light on the other side of the sky. And there was a little local storm and it started to rain there. And when we arrived, the place was still closed, an hour after it was supposed to open after lunch. But within a few moments, the lady came and opened up. And we went in and Rúhíyyih Khánum looked at all the art. And she finally said that she'd seen enough of things she didn't like, although she did like it. She was pleased to see the Haitian art. She'd always wanted to see it and apparently it was much better than the art that she'd seen elsewhere in the Caribbean. She likes this kind of thing. She spent quite a long time there, actually. There were two paintings that she particularly liked, that I thought were awful, personally. They were gloomy, with lots of brown around the edges and circles, and one of them had three women, voodoo subjects, three women in the middle. And the other one had a voodoo priest curing a madwoman. Something like that. Anyway, I thought they were rather gloomy, but there was something about them that Khánum likes. And although she said they weren't all that well done and she thought the colors were gloomy, she liked the themes.

[27:22]So she was, she asked about the prices, and apparently the woman had told her $200 for one of the paintings earlier. And when they wrote down the prices and discount they would give her and so on, they quoted 300 for this painting. So she went on and on, Khánum did, about the fact that they had said 200. And even though apparently the price had been 200, and the artist come in and said he wanted 300. And she said, well, she didn't know any honest artist who would raise his price by that much. Maybe 200 to 230 but certainly not 200 to 300, and this was outrageous. So at the time, she certainly wasn't gonna pay 300 for the painting. And so finally, the lady very reluctantly said, "Well, since we did tell you 200, we will offer it to you for 200, but that's the best we can do." So then Khánum said, "Well, I'll have to think about it. I don't know if it's even worth 200." So we left with her not having bought anything. And but having gotten this lady down from 300 to 200, I told her that I was glad I wasn't going to sell her anything. And she said, "Yes, I'm a hard bargainer." She really is something. They had some nice paintings in that store. I'd like to go back and look at something. I need to buy some things for my new house if I stay here long enough to move into it. So Moro certainly knows his art galleries and Khánum liked him very much, said she was enjoying the company of he and Paule. And she likes interesting people, you know, somebody from Egypt who's become a Baháʼí kind of unusual. And they were talking about all kinds of subjects. And he's very outgoing and she likes people who are outgoing characters, you know.

[28:52]So then he suggested that we go to the perfume factory, which was just down the street, and she was pretty easily persuaded. She first said she wanted to go just have some coffee and relax, but then she said, well, we might as well see the perfume factory while we're here. So we trooped down the street, - excuse me - to the other side of the street, and she tried on all kinds of perfumes and looked at various things and decided not to buy anything. And that took a little while. And then we trooped out of there, and there was another gallery across the street. And so we decided to go over there, and the art was much worse. And then we went to a little jewelry shop next to it, which we let her looked into. And then, see, we saw something else too. No, I guess there we'd finished with that sequence of things. And then Moro said that he knew a little coffee shop up the way, which turned out to be a place where I had eaten lunch once and had made the mistake of sitting out in front world where all the bakers surrounded me. It was not a bad place. And it turned out that Moro had, and Paule had lived upstairs above this little coffee shop, had lived there when they were in Pétion-Ville and they knew the owner and so on. So we sat there for more than an hour in this front porch, bought some heart of coconut from a lady who went by. And George was there, and Khánum sat him down next to her, and they talked at length about the history of the Faith in Haiti, how one of the secretaries had used the Baháʼí mimeograph for Communists propaganda and had been thrown in jail and died there. And then somebody else who had been a very good secretary and worked hard for the Faith, when he died, they found communist literature in his house, according to the story, anyway, and they put his family and children in jail. And some other Baháʼí who had been chopped into nine pieces by a personal enemy. This was not a government thing, but some apparently, Ellsworth Blackwell had told the guy that he should - he was the secretary - had told him - and Ellsworth was the chairman - had told him that he should do some Baháʼí work that day. And the man said no, he didn't have time that day. He had personal matters to take care of, and he would do it the next day. And he went home or got in his car or something and this fellow came out and chopped him up.

[30:54]So Khánum said, "No wonder, my goodness, particularly with the Communist implications with this relation to the Faith. No wonder the recognition hadn't gotten very far." We told her. I was sitting on the other side of her, and we told her various stories about Haiti, what goes on here, and so on. It's very pleasant. Then it turned out that the television interview was going to be shown at 6:30. So we decided, we called - Paule called the hotel, Le Splendid where they're staying, and they had no television. So we decided to prepare to the Montana, which has a good TV and not too far away. And in order to see it there at 6:30, Farhad had joined us, and then he went off because there wasn't enough space in the car and I dismissed - George also hadn't had any lunch and he excused himself - and I dismissed Oragean [ph] so that we would have enough space in the car for all of us. And they decided to set out walking to go see a store where there were some jewelry, some shells and things like that Khánum was interested in. And then Moro said, "No, no, it's really much too far to walk." Or was it Moro? Yeah, I think Paule had thought it was nice walk and then Moro said, "No, no, it's really much too far." And so there was the usual consultation and back and forth and they all got in the car and we drove down there and looked at the shells and various and sundry curious things they had in the shop, and again didn't buy anything. Violette was interested in a little, a little carved comb for a moustache, which she wanted to give to her brother in Canada. But it was $8 and that was clearly much too much for just a funny present of that kind so, having looked at lots of things, we left again without having bought anything, and went down to Montana about a little before six, I guess. And there was the most spectacular sunset with the clouds were clearing and the sun had broken through near the horizon. It was very, very deep orange, and there was a boat steaming by, a cruise ship and it was just really elegant.

[33:04]We got the television working and came on. And at 6:30 there was a news program and the little interview with Rúhíyyih Khánum was about 8:00 and we had to listen to a bunch of stuff about schools having some kind of, I don't know, if those are openings or what it was, but anyway, lots of very dull pieces of people's speeches. And then Rúhíyyih Khánum came on and they opened up with a nice little piece about who she was and the fact that she was giving a public meeting on Wednesday evening. And then there was an interview with her with this young man, and it went on for perhaps five minutes, I guess. And they had a slide of the house of worship in Wilmette, and she had mentioned that there were Baháʼís all around the world and we believe in one God and that all religions believe in one God and such as a few remarks like that, and then suddenly it disappeared. They cut it off in the middle - I guess they had too much stuff - very abruptly and went on to something else. But it was excellent, really, for the little bit that we had, and Khánum was very pleased and said the interview, the full 15 minutes, probably had been too long. So I, at her insistence, I drove Moro and Paule up to the Coblentz's where they're staying. First we let them off and they said "Alláh-u-Abhá" for goodbye. And she said again that people just simply do not understand that "Alláh-u-Abhá" is a greeting and not a farewell. And he said, "You're fighting a losing battle. You know, there's too much entrenched." Which is true. Actually, you know what? I'm not sure why she feels so strongly about it because it sort of just came into use in Adrianople as a greeting, so why can't it come into use as a farewell? But anyway, she doesn't feel that way. And then I drove them down to their hotel and let them out. And Khanum said somewhere along that way that she knew that I'd been tired and she hoped that they hadn't overtaxed me. But you know, it's only something you do once in a lifetime, she said, and something like that. She can be very well aware that the privilege of spending time with her is something that is unique in one's lifetime, so that she didn't feel too badly about taxing me. But she said that in a very sweet way, you know?

[35:14]Although something else earlier, Moro had asked her when we were driving about whether the Guardian had been a humorous person. And she said, "You know, all the central figures of the Faith had a great sense of humor." She said, actually, all Persians that she knew had a good sense of humor. But she said that the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh had very different personalities. And something we often not realize in the West is that the manifestations of God had their own character. I don't remember quite what word she used but it was something like that. That the Báb had come from a merchant class and they were very - again I don't remember the word she used, but - businesslike, you know, and perhaps a bit close to the chest or I don't know how to put it. Anyway, that was the impression I got. Whereas Bahá’u’lláh had come from a noble family full of courtesies and the graces of the courts and so on, you know, a very different kind of background and much more, I don't know, I guess refined or elegant or accustomed to politeness and so on. But they both, she felt, had a great sense of humor. And of course, she felt that [?] and Shoghi Effendi also. And that was the end of her remarks, but that was interesting. So when I said good night to them, they wished me well. And for some reason I sort of impulsively leaned over to kiss Khánum on the cheek, which I guess is a French custom I picked up here. And she looked a little bit surprised momentarily and then leaned forward so that I would have the opportunity of doing that and we had a nice little embrace, which, I don't know, is very pleasant. Then she just went off very quickly, and I guess Violette, too and I couldn't figure out why later that I would have done that. It seemed a little bit presumptuous, but she's been treating me very nicely, such a sweet woman. It's a very different impression than I had of her before, you know, when I was in Haifa.

[37:19]So that brings me to today. I had a terrible bout with traveler's ailment last night, and I took some pills. And it seems to be better today, so I'm going to meander into the office. And I didn't get to the doctor this morning, so I'll see if I can do that tomorrow morning. I have an appointment at 11:00 so I have to get into the office before that. And she has an appointment, actually, in a few minutes now at 10:00 with the Foreign Affairs Minister, so I'm encouraged. I hope that he will be impressed and will arrange a meeting with the president. Any case this is very fine that he has agreed to see her. You know, I had, the Monday that I came back, which was two days ago yesterday now, the National Assembly had written a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs [?] to suggest a courtesy call on the president. And when I saw the minister on Thursday for business purposes, the Thursday following, at the end of talking about the terrible state of the economy, I asked him whether he'd seen this letter, and I had a copy with me. And he said, oh, yes, he'd seen it. And he thought that we were the people who had taken poison and committed suicide in South America and Brazil. He thought that. He was kind of confused, so he had written something negative on it and sent it off to his department of religions. So I said, "No, no, Mr. Minister, that's an entirely mistaken impression. No, we're really a very moral and upstanding community of people." And I took out this [?] book that Rúhíyyih Khánum had recommended for use in situations like this and a couple of pamphlets [?] somebody'd given me and a 11-12 page type set, background information about the Faith that they had copied from something from Switzerland, and the biography of Rúhíyyih Khánum. And I gave him the whole package, showed him some of the pictures in the book and told him that Baháʼís were really something very much worth the attention in the government. And he said, "Are they serious?" And I said, "Yes, of course, we're very serious." That's his code word for something which is worth the time. But I had no idea. He said he would send it off to his department for study, he said, so had no idea whether I had salvaged it or not. And yesterday Pierre Augustine [ph] who's the chairman of the National Assembly who was going to call the minister's office and find out what had happened to it. So I don't know whether, as a result of that call or the publicity in the paper or what, the Minister seems to have granted an interview. I hope that goes well and leads to even bigger things. We shall see. So that's all for now. And I'll continue later when there's more to say.

[39:49]This is now the evening of May 12th. I wasn't feeling well today. I guess I mentioned that earlier. Yeah, but I did go into the office, too, because I had an appointment and had to take care of a few urgent things. And while I was there, I received a call first from Violette, who I told that I hadn't been feeling well. I think they had, he wanted to ask me if I would drive them about or something. She said something about wanting my company or I don't know what. But anyway, they immediately felt that I should go home and rest and get over whatever it was that I had. And then she said that Rúhíyyih Khánum wanted to speak to me and Khánum was eating a piece of the melon which I had left for them. And that's where she sort of giggled and said, "Let me finish eating this piece." And paused for a minute, and then she went on to tell me about the interview that she had had in the morning with the Minister of Finance, and she said it was very nice. It was about, I think she said 10 minutes or something like that, but she thought it was going very well. She said that she had, [laughs] with this sense of humor, she said that she had shown him the picture of the Shrine of the Báb or something. And he said, "Oh yes, I've seen that." And she showed him the picture of one of the houses of worship and she said, "Oh, I've seen that." And she showed him another picture. He said, "Oh, I've seen that." because I'd left the [?] teaching work with him and I think that's the same thing she uses, you see. So then she pulled out a picture of the new house of worship in India, which, of course he hadn't seen because it's not in that book. And she wanted to tell me that because she went up to me, you see? [laughs] I think it was kind of funny when she was - she's so sweet, really. She has a very good sense of humor. And he was very impressed that it looked like a flower and so forth. And he apparently mentioned that I had left some things with him. And she complimented me on my having made that approach. And she said that she had told him that it was just a courtesy call and that she didn't want to ask for any favors or anything of him. And he said that he was very pleased, you know, to - well, they discussed briefly his misconception before that he said had been corrected by the materials I had left about the Faith. And she said something about, "Oh, do I look like the kind of person who would be involved in committing suicide [?]?" which is exactly what I told the minister.

[42:18]What else did she say about it? Oh, she had went in at some length discussed with him what she had heard from George Marcellus yesterday about some of the Baháʼís at an earlier time having been associated with communism. And she said that we have no sympathies with communism. No, nothing at all, in common. It was most unfortunate if anything like that happened among the Baháʼís, and these people certainly wouldn't be in good standing in the Faith. And if there was ever any question about someone who might be a Baháʼí being involved in things like this, the authorities could certainly ask the Baháʼís for a list of people who were recognized as being Baháʼís in good standing. And these questions could be clarified. So she felt that she had impressed upon him that the Baháʼís are responsible and obedient to the government and the land and so forth. So I told her I was delighted with this outcome. And she gave me all kinds of instructions about what to eat in order to get over my ailments. She said boiled rice and apples without the seeds or the skin. And what else did she say? Anyway, all of the bland stuff. She said she'd had a lot of experience with these problems solved for many years, living in Israel, and she said I should go home and rest, which I did shortly after that. She had two radio interviews this afternoon, I believe, and I don't know what else they may have done. Oh yes, she had a meeting with the National Assembly. That was something else, she said on the phone. She said that they had scheduled a meeting this morning. And I think after the meeting with the minister, she must have gone to the national center. And she said, "My, what a National Assembly you have!" She said there were only five people there. She apparently was quite disgusted and she said she wouldn't meet with only five. She wanted to meet with all of them if she was going to meet with any. And she gave me [laughs] her condolences on the state of the National Assembly in this country. Apparently she met with Moro this afternoon, had her down the telephone from Paule, who called. There was some kind of a meeting going on, so I hope that she was able to make some progress. But Paule had said that she appeared very sad, saddened by the state of the Baháʼí community here in Haiti.

[44:44]This is now the evening of May the 13th and we had a very pleasant And I think, on the whole, quite successful public meeting this evening with Rúhíyyih Khánum speaking in French. And let me see, the last time I recorded was yesterday. I talked with her on the phone earlier today when I was in my office, and she asked me if I could come and meet her at the hotel. And I told her there was some confusion about the times, that the invitation had said 6:30 and the newspaper had said 7:00. And probably I would come sometime between quarter to 7:00 and 7:00, and she said she would be ready quarter to 7:00, and I could come any time after that. She thought that my car was - or she said that John Currelly had thought that my car was more dignified than coming in his truck or whatever it is that he drives. Brief interruption there while talking of John Currelly, I remember that Khánum had complained about the price of the food and the quality of it. Well, she said it was not big enough, I guess, in the hotel and this evening and asked me if there was wasn't a better place to eat in town. And I said I knew some places that were pretty good for lunch, so she expressed interest in finding some way of getting to one of them. So I had just just now talked to John Currelly, and he's agreed to take them out to lunch tomorrow before driving them out to the Baháʼí school at [?]. He's having a few problems because he's supposed to pick up his children in town, and his wife has had difficulty getting up the hill to Pétion-Ville with the tap taps. Apparently, they won't pick up a white person when they are full.

[46:35]So anyway, John took them. He's got a big jeep, apparently or something. He took them up to Kenscoff this morning, and they had lunch up there and apparently liked it very much. So I don't remember what else we talked about on the phone. There were some other things, but I don't recall now what it was. I know Violette said something about how much they enjoyed going out to Kenscoff. Anyway, I ran around this afternoon buying flowers with Farhad, and I'd asked him who was doing the flowers, and he said, "Well, maybe we ought to." And he'd completely forgotten that he'd been asked by the committee to do that. So, you know, you have to keep honchoing things here. It's really amazing. And the sound system was all right and actually lots of Baháʼís converge on the hall, and they did a lovely job of decorating it. Put some pictures from the center up on the wall, and beautiful flower arrangements were made. They're very pleasant. So I went down a little bit early again to see how things were going. Then the television station, the cable television station Tele d'Haiti was there with a little camera and there were few people who came, some of the people that I had invited and some of the people that other Baháʼís invited and a few people who seem to just come off the street from the publicity. Maybe 10 mostly young people in that category, so it wasn't bad. It wasn't full, but it was maybe 2/3 full. There might have been 75 or 80 people there, I guess. And there are only two Baháʼís that I know of who came that I'd never met before, which surprised me. I thought this would certainly bring out more Baháʼís but apparently they're pretty lethargic. And the two were pioneers. Rather peculiar situation. Two pioneers in Pétion-Ville, and none of the other pioneers have ever mentioned to me that existed. And I don't know what is going on. There's obviously something rather wrong there. I guess I'll find out eventually.

[48:54]So even though some people came punctually at 6:30 we thought it was better to wait a little while and let it fill up a little bit more, and particularly since the meeting had been advertised for 7:00. So I felt a little bit uncomfortable because some of my friends, Mr. [?] and his wife, Mr. [?], the owner of the - can't keep my French and my English straight here - the owner of the house I'm supposed to be moving into, and then the landlord of this hotel that I'm living in now came, and my secretary and a few other people. And they were also sort of sitting there waiting for more than half an hour, which was a little bit unfortunate. But anyway, I then finally went and got Khánum when it seemed to be the right time and we got back home about after 7:00 and sat there for a number of long minutes more while she and the young man who was going to introduce her chatted. And then he read a couple of pages of prepared biography about her, which went on a little bit too long. But it was nice because he, particularly towards the end when he talked about all the countries she'd been to and so on, it was interesting. And then she gave about an hours talk in French, which was really not very, not bad. I mean, she did quite well in French. I was impressed, and there were maybe twice in the whole talk when she couldn't think of the right word in French for what she wanted to say. And she covered some of the basic teachings. It was really very pleasant. I think she was quite well received. And then the television people sort of packed up in the middle of everything and the master of the ceremony asked if anybody wanted to ask questions. And there was a long pause and then the lady behind me asked a question which was quite good. And some other people started asking questions, and it was probably another half an hour worth of questions, I guess. And finally, she cut it off, said that would be the last one. And then we, for some reason, they came up with the, with drinks on trays and served everybody where we were sitting. So everybody sort of just sat there and very slowly started talking to each other. And after, I don't know, quite a little time, people started to get up and sort of move around. And a few people excused themselves. Most of the people that I'd invited excused themselves.

[51:15]And fortunately, people seem to be happy about the occasion and this woman who is behind me and her husband, turns out to be an architect and his wife, lovely couple. Somehow Rúhíyyih Khánum came over and sat down on the other side of Pierre Augustine, the chairman of the National Assembly. For me, I was sitting next to Violette there. And they got into a conversation, and after a few minutes, people sort of turned their chairs around and formed a circle. And they sat there talking for quite a long time about architecture and one thing or another. And this couple was very impressed. And the gentleman was extremely respectful towards Rúhíyyih Khánum, and just very, very nice people. I had the feeling that they might be interested in the Faith. And it turns out that he is the boss of Stuart. Not Stuart, yeah Stuart North, the Baháʼí pioneer here who's also an architect. So that's a very good contact, I think. After she was finished speaking, I think before the questions, Violette leaned over to me and she said, you know that this - she said Khánum, Rúhíyyih Khánum has so much courage, she said, to give a talk like that in French. Really takes tremendous courage. And then, after Rúhíyyih Khánum came over and sat down in the road that we were sitting in, she leaned over to me and she said, "You know, that just took a tremendous amount of courage to give that talk in French." [laughs] But I don't know whether she had mentioned before the talk to Violette that she thought it was going to require a lot of courage or if they just both had exactly the same thought simultaneously. I don't know. And then, later, when she was talking to this other couple, she said, "You know, it was very difficult for me to talk all that time in French. It was sort of like launching out swimming and you know, not knowing when you're going to reach the other end, but you can't stop. You know, once you started, you can't stop." That was the analogy she used, but she really did very well. I was impressed that since it's not a language she uses all the time, it's a very difficult thing, particularly with a television camera going and so forth.

[53:23]We briefly discussed the arrangements for the trip out to Les Cayes. I've offered to take my car, which is air-conditioned or try to get the jeep from the bank to make the trip a little easier. And she said she would prefer to come back after the meeting, which means a four-hour drive after a long day in order to get here by, if possible, by midnight at the latest and to be able to sleep in the same hotel. For some reason that she thinks that would be better so it seems like it's going to be a long trip on Sunday and Monday. Anyway, they finally finished and got into the car and I took them back to the hotel. And Rúhíyyih Khánum asked me if I've read mysteries and I said, "Yes, indeed." And she said, "Well, if you have any to spare, please do give them to me." She's anxious to have mysteries. And then she reminded me again so she seems really like them. But I suppose she doesn't buy very many or maybe she can't find them in English. She travels, I don't know, but she likes to borrow them apparently. And they put two vases full of large flower arrangements into the car. Khánum put one of them between her legs so it wouldn't fall over. And here she was, sitting there in the front seat with all these flowers up in front of her. It was really quite a sight; I wish I had been able to take a picture of it. And Violette had one in the back. I had to take back. They were both vases that I had borrowed here from the hotel. And one of them, I said I would return, so I had to take it back and they trooped off into the hotel with a bunch of flowers in one hand and a vase full of flowers in the other. I have also taken their ticket to try to get it reconfirmed. Violette called Air Jamaica. And they said their machine was broken and they wouldn't give her the time of day and were very rude. So it seems their office is right next to where I work, and I'll send somebody over there and see what they can do. And there are all these details. Violette or Khánum thought it would be a good idea to make contact with the Israeli ambassador, who I had spoken with at a reception he gave last Thursday. And he said he'd be delighted to meet her. So Violette's plan is to borrow my car tomorrow and go over to the embassy, or call first and then go over and see if she can arrange a nice appointment or something.

[55:39]So slowly but surely, the Faith progresses. Some of the points Khánum made in her talk this evening I said, everything is done little by little. She said although Baháʼís are working for a New World Order with a world federal government in Savoy, that's not something that we think will be established by a sudden, sudden revolution or something of this kind, but rather little by little, step by step, one thing at a time, which is the way anything in life is accomplished. Oh, I might add on the way down to the hotel, she said again, quite strongly, that she thought that the words that I had said to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Religions was a great service to the Cause. She said that I had opened a door and presumably to her being able to see him. And she said that my visit with him followed by hers was very important effort in hopefully correcting misapprehensions and bringing about a better understanding of the Faith. And she's so thoughtful, you know, to always compliment people and what they've done, really. She's, like other Hands of the Cause, too, it seems to me they overdo it, but I suppose maybe I'm cynical. Maybe they have the better spiritual perspectives. I guess everything we do in the path of the Faith is much more important than we realize. But I told her, you know, the Minister might not be in his position very long. And so, it remains to be seen whether this is really a very important victory or not, but I was pleased that she would say such things. Then it occurred to me that even with a Hand of the Cause, you shouldn't only accept compliments but they like to receive compliments, too. So on the way back to the hotel, I told her that I thought she was opening many doors that simply wouldn't be opening to the Faith otherwise in her travels. And she's able to accomplish so much in such a short time that we simply wouldn't be able to do in many, many years of effort. And she didn't say anything, but she seemed to be pleased someone would say that for her. Oh, she also said with this sort of a chuckle that they had actually had a swim this morning at the hotel. And Violette had said that before, and they both said it with a certain tone. Much as to say, that was quite a level escapade, something like that. Certainly very unusual and quite an indulgence, you know. They're such delightful people, really. So I suppose that's all for this evening.

[58:33]This is now the evening of Friday the 15th. It's just past midnight. I didn't see Rúhíyyih Khánum yesterday, but I sent my car for them to use in the morning, and they took care of the ticket problem and went to the art gallery and a couple other things, I guess. And then, they went out to the Baháʼí school yesterday afternoon and evening. And because I was working until too late to really take that in, I just rested and did some other things. Today, they had a radio interview. Apparently the young man Samuel, who introduced Rúhíyyih Khánum at the public meeting, and a Baháʼí interviewed her on the radio and after she was waiting an hour, if I am not getting two things confused. But anyway, that's good. And she mentioned to me exactly the same thing that had struck me when I met him, that he was somebody who should be encouraged and cultivated by some well-deepened Baháʼís and brought more into the spirit of the Faith. So anyway, this evening, I was appointed to pick them up in time to get to a dinner, potluck dinner for the pioneers at 6:30 at the home of the Currellys. And Khánum had specifically asked me on the telephone to pick up Julie [ph] and take her. She wanted to spend more time with Julie [ph]. So I went by and picked up Julie [ph] first at the center and then went by Le Splendid and picked up Amatu'l-Bahá and Violette. And we went up to the Currellys up on the mountain. And it was a very, very nice gathering. There's some people sort of trickled in a little bit late-ish. And by the end, I counted 20 pioneers, including Susan Welch [ph]. She's really just visiting. But anyway, it's quite a gathering. There were more of us than I realized. Of course, this includes the Currellys and Woody - what's his name? It's late at night, and I can't think of his name, anyways - who's just moving here and so on. There were some new arrivals.

[1:00:41]So we had a fantastic potluck, really. The food was very nice and sort of sat around chatting. And then we had a period of asking Amatu'l-Bahá questions and having her answer them. And she was very, she was very happy and her usual direct self. And we covered a wide range of subjects and lots of laughter and enjoyment. It's very pleasant. A little bit, I thought a little bit too much of the pioneers issuing forth on their own or giving forth their own attitudes about things. It seemed a little bit strange to me in the presence of Rúhíyyih Khánum, but that's my own views, you know? A couple of tapes were made, and I will try to get a copy of one of them although I'm not sure that'll come out very well. There were a couple of things that she said that struck me, I hadn't heard her say before and that were sort of nice. One of them, she was talking about mass teachings. She said she wanted to discuss this subject, and she was - we actually talked about this subject for a long time. She wanted to try to figure out in her own mind what would be a good approach in a country such as Haiti for reaching the people. So we talked about voodoo and we talked about the national characteristics of the people here and what might or might not work and the problems that you have when you give things away, the fact that the people are accustomed to being given things by everybody, particularly the foreigners, but even in their own society. And Violette pointed out, though, that there're certain tradition of sharing which comes from Africa that we mistake for greed and it's undoubtedly the mixture of the two and so on. Anyway, it was quite an interesting discussion.

[1:02:23]But there was one point at which Rúhíyyih Khánum was talking about the need to reach the people. And she said, well, you know, in the next 800 and whatever years, by the year 1000 in the Baháʼí calendar, most of mankind will be under the shadow of Bahá’u’lláh. And even if 2/3 of mankind are eliminated as prophesized in the Bible, it'll still be at least a billion, maybe two billion, people on the planet at that time. And mathematically, that means we've got to get started. There's a lot of people to teach, and we've got to bring them in to the Faith. And she said, you know, it's like making bread. You cannot make bread with a tiny pinch of flour and a tiny pinch of salt and a little bit of baking soda or whatever. You just, it's not large enough. You have to have a body of dough in order to be able to knead it. And you just can't knead a thimble-full. And so we need a certain number of Baháʼís in order to be able to start making anything like a Baháʼí society or, you know, having a faith. There's a certain quantity required. I think that was a nice analogy. Something else that I can't remember now, but it occurred to me. At the end, she talked at length about music, and she felt very strongly that we should avoid essentially starting rituals in the Faith and having music that is like a revivalist meetings. She particularly referred to that. And then in the car afterwards, she said she didn't want to be too direct, but she was very disappointed with music being sung by the children at the Baháʼí school where she went yesterday. She said it was very uninspiring and pointless. Apparently, it was sort of regimented or traditional or something, really. And she didn't see why the school was supporting a teacher to teach the children something like that, where they should be learning more practical skills. She went on on that subject for quite a long time. How we often get off in the wrong direction. This was in the car coming back.

[1:04:35]Just before we got to our hotel, I had an opportunity to ask her a question which has been on my mind, which was in the context of my profession here. I'm expected to entertain both dinners and possibly receptions from time to time for ministers and ambassadors in the diplomatic community. And a very important part of such occasions is to serve alcohol. Particularly in the French context, it would be virtually unthinkable to have a fine dinner without some wine. And I'm not really sure, you know, how as a Baháʼí, I should approach such a situation. And she said, "Well, you should write to the House of Justice." She said, "Usually, I don't recommend or refer people to the House. But in your case, since it's so unusual and because you're doing important work here in your capacity, I would suggest you write to them." Then she said, you know, the Guardian wrote to someone in the West - she didn't say who, I don't think - that it was permissible for Baháʼís in the West to serve alcohol in their homes. But she said her feeling was obviously, that it was much better not to, but apparently at one time the Guardian had said that it was permissible in some context. She didn't really elaborate. We had a few exciting moments. Violette got a very funny expression on her face in the middle of one of Rúhíyyih Khánum's sentences and Khánum asked her what was the matter. And she said, "There's a mouse!" And there was a little mouse! Under her chair and this mouse proceeded to run across the floor, and some of the ladies were a little bit upset. And it sort of went off somewhere or other. And then quite a bit later, suddenly there was a flying cockroach running around the room, and one of the pioneer ladies got up with a terrified expression on her face. She said, "I'm afraid of them! I'm afraid of them." And there was quite a scene, and the thing went over. And I don't know whether it landed on Rúhíyyih Khánum or what? It was certainly right next to her over in that part of the room. And finally Joe Coblentz dispatched it or something. I don't know exactly what happened, but it caused all kinds of commotion.

[1:06:42]And a little bit later than that, Rúhíyyih Khánum was again in the middle of a sentence and one of the pioneers said, "Excuse me, Rúhíyyih Khánum, but you've got a large biting ant on you." And she immediately started to brush herself all over with tremendous flurry and almost took her blouse off. And she was quite concerned. Apparently, I didn't see it, but apparently it was a large type of ant that can cause you some discomfort. She was very, very beautifully dressed this evening in a sleeveless embroidered white blouse and a long, light colored print skirt from somewhere. I don't know. Something blues and greens, I guess, something like that. It looked very elegant. And in this country, she hasn't worn anything on her head, which I found interesting, I guess, because there's only one Persian. She doesn't feel the necessity to do that. Of course, she wears her long hair in a braid, and near where it's growing, it's quite light but then farther along, there's quite a lot of of reddish gold color in it, still. Violette was wearing a brown blouse and another long skirt from Guatemala, I think she said, or Nicaragua or someplace. Beautiful thing. Well, I hope I can remember everything I wanted to put down the tape, but I can't for the time being. And it's up again early tomorrow morning, so I have to say goodbye for now. Good night.

[1:08:00]Well, today has been a very full day. I'll just try to go through it chronologically quickly. I picked up Rúhíyyih Khánum and Violette at 9:30. Violette called somewhat earlier and said that they wanted to see if they could take care of the ticket. So if I would come a little bit earlier than we had previously agreed, they would appreciate that. So I went down to the center and people are just beginning to trickle in. And I was worried about trying to get a couple songs translated into Creoles in case they asked me to sing some music so I could be better prepared than I was last night at the dinner for the pioneers when they asked me to play and I didn't feel, you know. I hadn't thought about any songs or any words or anything and just wasn't able so quite an embarrassing situation. Did I mention that before? Anyway, I picked them up and we went down and found the travel agent by the waterfront. And, of course, no answer had been received from Air Jamaica and I had to telex or something, because the machine is not working. So there was no progress made on that. And then we drove around a little bit because Rúhíyyih Khánum wanted to look out the window at some of the statues and things. And I mentioned to her that there was a big market, and she said yes, she absolutely must go to the market before leaving the country. She's also interested in buying one of those two paintings that she was looking at. But she wants to do it, apparently, just with me without, you know, getting the other Baháʼís involved because she thinks that everybody talks too much and she doesn't want everybody to know her business or something like that.

[1:09:36]Anyway, so we showed up at the meeting and the auxiliary board member, Jean-Baptiste René who had been a pioneer apparently seven plus years in Central African Empire with his wife, and who had met Rúhíyyih Khánum in Africa, was talking about the Hands of the Cause. And he went on for more than half an hour about the various functions of the Hands of the Cause and how wonderful they were, and so on and so on. And finally Rúhíyyih Khánum interrupted, and she said, "If you continue going on like this, I will die." Or something like that. "This is much too much." Something that, it was very nicely put, but to the effect that, you know, nobody could follow an introduction like that, and it was really a bit much. So, and he continued after she had intervened and intervened again, I think, and then finally he sort of wound down. And she spoke and she gave a very lovely talk. I'm going to trying to get a copy of the one tape recording that was made because it's hard to review all the things that were said, you know? I mean, she covers, whenever she speaks, she covers a very wide range of subjects. There were a couple of things that I found interesting that I hadn't heard her say before. One was a story she told of when she was apparently traveling. I don't remember exactly what she said, but it seemed to me it was in Canada or in New York or somewhere in that part of the world. And there was a lady that she met in the course, or you know, whether they're training, whatever they were, this lady was there, and they were in conversation. And the lady said, oh, she knew who was at the console. I'm not sure, maybe she was - I don't know who she was referring to. Anyway, there was some dignitary council or something whose wife was a Baháʼí. Maybe the man was, too. I don't know, but this woman said - he's a lovely man, but his wife is a boo boo or a baba or something like that. And of course, Rúhíyyih Khánum said it in a very funny way. And she said that she felt like saying back, "Well, I'm a boo boo, too." [laughs] And then everybody was laughing. It was very good, but she didn't. But she says, even to this day, when she thinks of this woman, she wants to say, "I'm a boo boo, too."

[1:11:55]But the point she was making is that the Baháʼí Faith sounds strange to people and different, but really, that's part of the point. I don't remember if it's just then that she made that point or elsewhere in the talk, but she went on at length about how there are many things in the Faith that are intended to make us different than other religions. She talked about congregational prayer because one of the pioneers sang the noonday prayer set to music. And the idea was to help to teach people the prayer but Rúhíyyih Khánum said she didn't like the idea of everybody saying it together. She thought that was congregational prayer. And anyway, it was along those lines, you know, that there were things that we should try to not - we should try to be different from the kinds of gatherings and worship and so on that are associated with other religions, whether it's bowing down on the ground as the Muslims do, or certain kinds of songs that are associated with evangelical movements. She keeps saying this over and over again because I think some of the songs here reminded her of very Christian kind of atmosphere. And there was another point she made about her mother. She said that her mother was a very frail and sickly person, a small and not a strong person. And it was she who was chosen to open France and then to go and open Canada. And she said that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had spoken to her mother and had told her to turn to Him or to God - I don't remember exactly how she put it - and assistance would come. And this is exactly how her mother was able to do all of these things, and how often very, apparently, weak channels are chosen for the power of God. I really hate paraphrasing. I'll try to get the tape because the whole day is intervened and I don't remember all the details for exactly now.

[1:14:01]Anyway, she spoke for quite a long time, and then there were some questions and answers. She talked also about the, maybe it was in the afternoon, she talked about the spirits. And I think it was in the afternoon. We had some sandwiches and whatnot there, and then we reconvened and we had more questions and discussion. And she mentioned how there's a belief in spirits, ghosts or whatever. And she said that it was her impression that this was reflections. She said, like, I could be outside of the room, but you can see me in a mirror inside the room and you think I'm in the room but I'm not. I'm outside. And so spirits who have passed on can interpose themselves into this world by means of not physically being here, but something like a reflection. So that people people's minds pick up this reflection, you see, and the spirit becomes apparent to us. But it has to do with the person who's seeing. It was a very nice concept. In other words, people who believe in these things or cultures that believe in these things may be more likely to perceive them than people who don't. And she talked about there are times and places that are clairvoyant and clear - what did she say? Clear auditory or something like that, where you are more likely to have a thin wall between the next world and this one and where, you know, sights and sounds from the spirits are more likely to become apparent. And then Jean-Baptiste's wife got up and she was very interested in this subject, and she went on at length about zombies. People who have died but aren't dead and who have a physical body and who are in the world and so on. And Rúhíyyih Khánum said, well, there are certainly more ghosts than there are zombies and everybody agreed. And Haiti is not full of zombies, and it's really not, therefore, very important. So let's put it aside. It's a very nice way of getting rid of it. You know, let's put it aside. She said, "I've never seen one, but I haven't been in your country very long and so I can't say either one way or the other whether there are such things. But in any case, it's not so important. So let's put that aside. But this question of what you might call ghosts or spirits that have died, you see, is a more important subject." And there was some discussion with that anyway.

[1:16:46]She told a couple of stories. One was about the fellow who's traveling, and he comes into an area where there's a tribe that chooses a king every year by waiting for a bird to alight in his head. And the bird alights on the stranger's head, and so he becomes the king. And he has a very - there's a fellow who befriended him to explain the system to him and becomes his prime minister. And after he'd ruled well and everybody liked him, he'd ruled well for a while as prime minister. He said, "I want to show you something." And he took him and showed him an island where all of these impoverished, hungry, very ill-kempt looking people were. And these were the previous kings who are exiled after their year to this island. So the minister suggests to him that he built a palace on the island and make things nice for himself after the year that he's finished being the king, which he does. And of course, it works out very nicely and, of course, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is saying that we are on this earth only briefly. And we're kings while we're here, and we have to prepare our place in the next world. It's a nice little story. I think she may have told another one, but I can't remember now what it was. I'm not sure she did. And then she asked Violette to tell a story.

[1:18:06]And Violette told a story about a king who is traveling and he sees a beggar and takes pity on him and wants to give him a gold coin. But the minister says, "Excuse me, King, but if you give me permission, I would like to test the beggar first before we give him the coin." So the minister comes up next to the blind - he's blind - beggar. He comes up next to him, bumps into him and then he says, "Excuse me, I'm sorry. I didn't see you. I'm blind." He pretends to be blind, you see, and so he gets into conversation with the blind beggar and pretends to be himself a blind beggar. And they chat for a while and then the minister says, "I'm interested to know what you what you do with your money. How do you hide your money that you get from begging?" And the fellow says, "Oh, I have a very good system. I hide it into the floor of my hut." And the ministers says, "Oh, that's not a very good place to hide it. Someday you'll go home and you'll find that somebody has robbed you. What I do is-" Oh, the guy says he changes his money into silver, and he puts it in the floor. And the minister says, "Oh, what I do is I change my money into gold, and then I put the gold in my pocket. I keep it with me at all times, and nobody can steal it from me." And at first, the blind beggar says, "You change your money into gold and you have it with you?" The minister says yes. He says, "Oh, may I feel the gold? May I see what it feels like?" So the minister takes the gold piece and puts it in his hand. And he feels the gold and he starts to think that he can get away with stealing it, you see? So he starts to edge slowly away from the minister, thinking that the minister is blind and can't see him escaping, you see?

[1:19:47]And the minister starts, "Oh, where have you gone? You're going away from me. You must be trying to steal my gold." So he picks up a rock and he says, "God guide my hand so that I can throw my rock and it will hit the legs of the thief." And then he throws the stone very hard at the man's legs and the blind beggar says, "Well, that's just a coincidence that this blind man was able to hit me, you see? He was just lucky, but I can still escape." So he goes farther away. And the minister, in the same way, picks up a rock and asks God to help him to hit this man in the back. And then he throws it very hard and hits the man in the back. And again, the beggar thinks that this is just coincidence and that he should go faster. So he begins to move faster. And then the minister says, "God, help me that I may hit this man in the head. And he throws the rock hard onto his head. And at this point, the beggar has had enough. He says, "This man is not blind. He can see." And he throws the gold coin back at him and leaves. And the moral of that story was that - I think the first story was told by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and this one was told by somebody else. As I remember, [?] or somebody. Anyway, the idea is that this man was wise enough to figure out that the minister could see, and that our tests in life are much like this. And we have to remember that God can see and that he is testing us for a reason. It's not just arbitrary. It's not just coincidence or luck that we get certain tests.

[1:21:23]Well, I don't remember more of what went on, but the meeting broke up about 3:30 I guess. And I had offered earlier to serve dinner to Amatu'l-Bahá and Violette since they had complained about the food in the hotel. And I was a little bit uncomfortable because, you know, a place that I'm living in here, the apartment isn't nearly as nice as I would like, and it's not quite presentable, you know, in the Baháʼí way. And I don't have any nice Baháʼí things on the walls and so on, and I had to clean it up. And I didn't know if the food would be quite right and all that sort of thing that - I thought, in any case, it might be better than what they had down there, and they might appreciate it. So I offered and they very graciously accepted. And thus so I spent the afternoon running about buying flowers and getting coffee in case she would want some to drink and getting Paule to try to fix the right foods, and one thing or another. And I was hoping we have some time for a swim and so on, but I barely got myself all together as usual. Got a shower and so on and got down there and they were already waiting on the porch. It was, I think, one of two minutes after 6:00. And so he came up and, you know, being a host, you have to worry about things. I wasn't this as relaxed and enjoying the occasion as I would have liked, trying to be sure that everybody was getting fed and so on, and carry on a conversation. And I didn't have a second vase, and so I left the flowers out. And Rúhíyyih Khánum immediately when she came in, she said, "What are all these flowers?" And I'd asked Violette if she would help to put some together for a little arrangement for the table. They were very, very nice. And Rúhíyyih Khánum was busy talking about this question of ghosts some more. And she said, "You know, I wouldn't talk to most people about this because they would misremember and they would misquote me and so on. But you have an accurate mind." She said, "So I will discuss it with you."

[1:23:15]And she told me that in the house that she grew up in there was a ghost. And it was a very common thing, and everybody believed in them. Apparently, there was when she was small, there was an Irish housekeeper or cook or somebody like that who had lower teeth sticking out beyond the upper teeth and all bent over and old and very, you know, real character. Tons of things wrong with her, I guess, with her appearance. And she died, and apparently she didn't leave the house. She kept reappearing and rattling the metal parts of the big stove and whatnot. Everybody knew that she was there. And so Rúhíyyih Khánum's great grandmother came visiting once, and she went down into the basement to get something. And here was this one in the basement. Not just sounds this time, but visual. You know, clairvoyant. And the grandmother, great grandmother left. That was enough of that. Apparently the ghost shook her fist at her or something. But anyway, her point was that it was very common in those days, and people believed in ghosts, so it was nothing strange for her to think about or talk about ghosts. And at the table, I told her about my little notion that their committees of the Concourse on High are arranging incredible situations for all of us and then chuckling about them, wondering how we're going to get out of them and so on. And she seemed to like that idea. And she said that on her part, she has a simpler notion that there are certain people assigned to listen to our prayers and in particular the people she thinks who God assigns to listen to the prayers said in the shrines must be deaf and dumb members of the Concourse because of all the awful things that come up out of the shrines, she says. Certainly God wouldn't, Himself, spend His time doing this. Of course, she was, she was joking, really. We had a nice chuckle over all of that and she was very, very kind enough to say that this was the best dinner she had had in Haiti. It really wasn't all that good. I mean, it wasn't bad, but it was very simple. But she seemed to like having a good meal. She said many times that she was hungry.

[1:25:40]And we very pleasantly spent the hour and a half. And then I took them down to the feast, which was this evening at 7:30, and there were some readings and prayers fairly long. And then she spoke again. Nothing terribly unusual that I remember, sort of. I was very tired at this point. And then suddenly somebody realized there were no refreshments and we had a very funny consultation, three other pioneers and myself. They started writing things on their hands first because they had no paper - because they didn't want to talk while Rúhíyyih Khánum was talking - about how much money was available and whether we should get Cokes and doughnuts, some one thing or another. And then Farhad produced piece of paper, and we started carrying on a consultation on the paper. And it was decided that Linda would go off and buy some doughnuts for $6 for two dozen and get some Colas. And so about 15 minutes later, she comes back and we started singing some songs and one thing or another. Finally, they appear with the refreshments, and it's grape juice and cake and cookies. I thought that was very funny. I have to tell Rúhíyyih Khánum about it tomorrow morning. [laughs] The usual consultation. Anyway, we started singing from Baháʼí songs, and then we sang some, sang Old Man River. And Rúhíyyih Khánum said that the - can't remember his name now. The man who had originally sung that on Broadway was somebody that she had known as a girl of 18 and 19 was a friend of her mother's, apparently and that invited him to their house in Montreal, I guess. And he sang one of his famous songs for them and then invited them to visit him in New York. And they went out to lunch and one thing or another. She was reminiscing, but she looked very tired so we left early, about 9:30. And I took them back to the hotel and she spoke again, by the way, in the car, about how impressed she was with Moro and Paule. Their positive spirit and how they are teaching the Cause and how, you know, everybody else in the country is so negative and they have a very fine, uplifting, positive spiritual attitude.

[1:27:50]Earlier on the way to the meeting this morning, I was really astonished. She said - she turned to me and she said, "You know, Greg, you should feel free to contribute when there're questions, you know, to take part in answering them." And I was really startled. I said, "Well, you know, I haven't been in this country very long and I don't feel that I should be saying very much." I didn't also say, but I felt that I wouldn't be answering questions when Rúhíyyih Khánum was there. And she said, "Oh, but you have lots of Baháʼí experience and you should speak up." For some reason, I don't know why. You know, there's so many times in my life that I felt so, so many - I don't like to use the word that is overused, but it is what it is - so many bounties just showered on me, and I certainly don't deserve any of them. I don't really know why it is that Rúhíyyih Khánum has taken such a particular liking to me, but she seems to have. Well, she said she'd go in for a swim this morning and did 24 laps this time. Yesterday it was a small number in the pool, and she was so pleased but she was hoping it would rain hard because she wanted to go out and swim in the rain. Every time she sees a young child running through the rain in this country, she says, "I'm so envious. I just have to run in the rain." Or something like that. She has very much of that spirit in her. So after leaving her off, I went back and we had a short committee meeting, 20 minutes or so to figure out about cars and whatnot tomorrow. Everything seems to be decided as we go along and still isn't definite yet. We have to find out more of the facts tomorrow morning. And then I take some people home and here I am. I've got to pack and get some things together and get down and pick them up again tomorrow morning a little bit before 10:00. She wanted very much to get a picture of the president's palace. We went by this morning and the light was just perfect for a picture, and she didn't have her camera and she felt disappointed about that so she hopes that tomorrow morning, at the same time, there'll be the same bright light. You never know in this country. So, oh, I'm very tired so that will be the end of this tape and we'll continue again on another.

[1:29:54]The following is a little snippet that I recorded on Sunday morning, May 17th, the evening after Rúhíyyih Khánum and Violette had eaten dinner in my apartment. And I put it on another miscellaneous piece of tape and then proceeded to erase the very first few words. But anyway, I'm transferring it here and sorry that it's out of order. But the general idea is there, and I'm sure it can be found out. As I recall, she said that it was her grandmother and grandfather who apparently didn't get along. And her grandmother came back to live with her mother in their house and that she'd grown up. In those days, she said, people didn't divorce. She said her grandfather was a very nice man, but just not practical. He's a dreamer or something like that. And then she told me a story, and I think it was that - I wasn't sure, and I didn't want to bother her by asking, but I think it was that man, her grandfather, who had had a bank. It's either that man or her great grandfather but I think it was perhaps her grandfather who had a bank and it was robbed. Apparently they dug in from the next building and up into the vault and took everything. And in those days there was no insurance for banks. So I'm pretty sure she said it was her great grandfather who - and I don't know if it was his bank, you see, or his son's bank. But anyway, it was her great grandfather or son in law which are her great grandfather felt that the debts of the bank should be honored. And so he met them out of his own estate, his own wealth, and that left him very poor. I mean, you know, not well of as he was before, but apparently honorable people. That was an interesting story.

[1:31:44]So the grandmother moved with the two children, one of whom, I think it was Rúhíyyih Khánum's mother and her mother's brother. Apparently it was a boy and a girl back into their home, and that's where they were raised. It's possible that this story about the ghost took place when Rúhíyyih Khánum's mother was small and that her mother just told her about it. I can't remember now whether she said it was something that happened when she was in the household or I think it may have been just her mother's, when her mother was growing up that these things happened that I mentioned in the previous tape. You know, I find this visit of Rúhíyyih Khánum as having an extraordinary effect on me. Such as, I don't remember for quite a few years. It's this sort of feeling I've had before in a summer school after maybe three or four days, you begin to feel the layers of the world peeling off and you feel much freer and happier and more energetic and you wake up in the morning looking forward to what is going to happen and just generally feeling very good about everything. And I didn't realize, of course, this is always the way it happens but how much I felt burdened by all the cares of this, of my job here and personal things working out in my life and so on, and struggling every day, you know, to face today and to see if I would get through. But certainly with a feeling of the hard work involved, you know, rather than the joy of it. And today I woke up earlier than I expected and I felt well-rested and I looked at the window. It's a bright and beautiful, sunny day. And I thought, "Gee! I should take advantage of this opportunity and swim as the start to the day." The way Rúhíyyih Khánum has been doing. And so I had a very nice swim. The air is fresh and clear. The sun not too bright for me in this hour of the morning, and suddenly very, very pleasant. You know, I just wish that it were easier to maintain this kind of an attitude towards life all the time, not just when there's a Hand of the Cause that happens to be in town.

[1:33:44]Well, I am in Jacmel, Haiti, and it is the 17th of May and I'm putting down some recollections, some thoughts about the current trip of Amatu'l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum and Violette Nakhjavani here in Haiti. In the last tape, I mentioned that I have been filled with a great sense of joy. It's wonderful how the presence of the Hand of the Cause has this effect. It's like being in the Holy Land or at a Baháʼí summer school or some similar environment where you feel the layers of dross being peeled or sometimes scrapes being burnished off. And you feel yourself becoming lighter and much, much happier. So I woke up earlier than I expected this morning and had some time and had a little swim and got together my packing for the forthcoming trip. I thought I was going to have more time. I always think I'm going to have more time than I am. So I had some breakfast and so on. I thought maybe I'd have time to write some letters, but the time passed pretty quickly and as usual at the end, I was rushing about a bit. I had to get a 12-volt power supply out to run the little portable speaker they have at the center. We thought that we would need it here in Jacmel and the batteries were dead. And I wanted to be sure to think of everything that might be needed on the trip and so forth.

[1:35:11]So I got off. Rúhíyyih Khánum said she wanted me to come a little bit before 10:00 so I got there about two minutes to 10:00 and was just in time to catch her on the way up to the front of the hotel. The last time I went there, they were waiting for a few minutes. I guess, not very long, but they had to come out to wait for me and so obviously, one should the earlier as in the Hand of the Cause as possible. And we went to take pictures of the presidential palace, which is draped in flags today, being tomorrow being flag day. And she'd seen it as I mentioned before that hour of the morning and the light, and it really was very good for taking pictures at that time of day. And then we went to the center where the second day of the weekend teaching conference was in progress. And they were just saying their prayers and getting going. So it was good timing. And I made a recording of this session, so I don't need to go into it in detail. But it started with the half an hour or so, Moro Baruk making a presentation on the fund and it was excellent. It was really very good. Rúhíyyih Khánum said afterwards that it was the best presentation on the fund that she had seen, and she liked the technique that he used and would use it herself, or, you know, would acquire it as for her repertoire. He talked about a cup and the need or the only purpose of a cup is to be filled with water and then to be emptied. And he used that analogy to talk about the need for giving to the fund. But he's quite a character, and he moves about a lot of and he sort of makes a play out of it, you know, and gets people involved. And it's very lighthearted and he conveys that kind of a spirit.

[1:36:54]Then Rúhíyyih Khánum asked Violette to tell a story, and then she talked for a while. And she had meant, I think, to talk about marriage or something. She had some subject in mind, but since the subject matter moved off the fund, she didn't get into her original subject, but instead they talked a little bit about the fund. And then she talked about her reading in the writings and a few other of her usual topics. And then they went into a period of discussing the goals. And I went upstairs to test the speaker to see if this little power supply was going to work, and I talked with Matty Thimm who I wanted to assure her that Rúhíyyih Khánum didn't mean to offend her as Matty was really rather taken aback by some of her comments in her brusque manner at the evening when we had the pioneers gathered, Matty had asked something about whether The Greatest Holy Leaf knew how to read and write, and Rúhíyyih Khánum came down on her really kind of abruptly and said, "Of course, she did" and "Haven't you read my book?" And this kind of thing. Apparently, there's something in The Chosen Highway about how she'd never had a chance to go to school or something. I don't know. Anyway, Matty was tired and she didn't ask her question very well, and she felt a little bit nonplussed.

[1:38:18]And then Rúhíyyih Khánum talked on at length about music and how she didn't want it to be evangelical. And I don't think she likes Matty's music very much. Matty got the distinct impression that she didn't, and she felt very sort of, you know, Matty working very hard on her music, and it's an important thing for her. And it was kind of hard for her to have the Hand of the Cause talking like that, although Khánum has a point which I tried to convey to Matty. It was my impression of what she meant. This is a little bit later. Mentioned this again, but Khánum said to Matty that it would be a good thing if she learned some local music, Creole music instead of composing her music and then expecting all the Baháʼís to learn her music, which is what Matty, without realizing it, is doing. She means to use singing as a teaching method. And of course, it can be very successful. But I think Khánum had the feeling that she was perhaps pushing it too hard and without realizing that she was doing so. I think probably she was right on that point. Anyway, I tried to, you know, smooth out the feathers a little bit there and she appreciated that. And when I came back down, Khánum and Violette had moved out into the hall and were sitting about. And some of the pioneers were there and two or three of the Haitians, and they were talking. And the meeting was going on in the other room, and I didn't quite understand that. But anyway, that's the way it went until it finished.

[1:39:49]And then they had some pictures having fun, a very nice gathering. Meanwhile we were trying to piece together what was happening and who was going in which car and all this kind of thing. And we got it all arranged one way. And then, of course, it was changed because we needed Paule and Moro to tell us where their house was. And so it was decided that they should come with us. And all the others should go in a car driven by Woody, real name is George Lord, Baháʼí chiropractor from the Dupont family, interestingly enough. Very interesting fellow. And George Marcellus went in his car, and I don't know their last names, Rosaline [ph] and Marlin [ph] - Marlin [ph] particularly has a very good singing voice, and Rosaline [ph] does, too, not too bad. That's right. It was just the four of them. The five of us in my car. Stuart has gone ahead to Cayes to arrange the meeting that we're going to have tomorrow afternoon. And he took Linda, and must have taken Farhad, who was the only one left, in his car. So I drove Khánum and Violette up to the hotel. And as we're on the way, my driver showed up with the jeep. But it was a small jeep, and so we decided not to take it. When they used to take the money around, apparently from the branches of the Central Bank into the Center. And just as we arrived, Khánum remember that she had forgotten her camera and her 15-year-old beloved umbrella. But the camera she was particularly worried about. She said it cost $400. She left it on her seat at the center, so she asked me to please rush back and get it. But I had to wait to get the telephone number of Baháʼís in Jamaica in order to call them to tell them about the delay in Rúhíyyih Khánum's departure.

[1:42:00]So they got the number eventually, and I went down and got the camera which Moro had taken hold of. And then I went to my office to telephone Jamaica and I got through all right. I called the House of the Secretary and he'd left to go to a meeting, so I called the Baháʼí center and he was there. And he put his wife on. Okay, what is the name? Zohoori [ph] or something like that? It has three O's in it. Anyway, I got her on the phone and because Khánum was supposed to go on Thursday and was now scheduled to go Friday noon, that seemed fine with us, of course. But it seems that they - she had written them that she was coming on Wednesday, which is what she told us, that she was leaving on Wednesday. So they arranged a meeting with the Governor-general at 10:30 Thursday morning, and then a big press conference in the afternoon, and the reception in the evening in which they have spent $2000 and are inviting all of the diplomatic corps and all kinds of people. And so obviously Khánum has to be there on Thursday. So this presents a big problem because there's no direct flight on Wednesday and the only thing that we could get loose would be Tuesday. So I got some of that message from some woman who answered at the House, you see, and then I called Khánum and told them. And they said, "Well, you have to see what they can arrange." And then I called the Center and we discussed this at length, and on and on. And I left it with them to see because tomorrow's a holiday here, nothing can be done until Tuesday to see if they could get a booking on the Tuesday flight in Jamaica, a direct flight from here and/or something through another place. And so all this took a lot of time. And then I had to go to my apartment and try to get some lunch into a bag that I could eat on the way. And I went down and picked them up. And they had been waiting a little while, I'm afraid.

[1:43:55]And we went to the center, picked up Moro and Paule on our way to Jacmel. So here I was sitting, Rúhíyyih Khánum was feeding me my sandwich and my [giggles] cheese and whatnot. She's very good natured about it. I think she was enjoying being motherly. And Moro was telling stories, and everybody was telling stories about various things that had happened in their many travels and so forth. And we had this very lovely drive. It was a beautiful day. The car was having a little trouble over the mountain, but it's really very pleasant scenery. And then you see Jacmel below as you come over the mountain. Then we came back into town and came to this delightful hotel where we're staying next to the sea. You could probably hear the waves. And then went to where immediately to Moro and Paule's place, which is, which is a fascinating town. It's really a fascinating town. I won't take a lot of time to describe it but there are all these little houses with porches, some of them gingerbread style, narrow streets, little bit of a mixture of European, and I don't know what all. Slightly reminiscent of some of the cities in the Suriname architecture, Guyana. And we talked there for a long time. Khánum looked at all of Moro's pictures. And they were interested in getting some dresses made. Moro paints beautiful flowers and things on dresses. Really very, very lovely. He's quite a gratifying artist, I must say, although some of his work - he was originally a fashion advertising artist or something like that, and some of it is a little bit on the commercial side, but I suppose that's what sells. But he does have a very good sense of art.

[1:45:38]And they made a spaghetti, a meatless spaghetti, which we had for dinner. We were sitting about after she had seen the paintings. It was very hot, and it was tiring. But after we've seen the paintings, when I put on a - what they call it? A cit- something? Anyways, an extract, apparently, of lemon or something that is supposed to be good for keeping the mosquitoes away and it was burning me terribly. I don't know what it is in it. Nobody else seemed to have that problem, but I don't know if it was my sunburn on my skin or what. I was just burning, burning, burning. I had to try to wash it off. Anyway, we're sitting there, and they were talking about getting a dress for Bahiyyih. And Rúhíyyih Khánum says something about how Bahiyyih was very complicated in her tastes for dress. And I said, "Well, it's not just a dress that she's complicated." And Khanum said, "Don't you say anything negative about Bahiyyih! She's a very nice, nice woman." "Nice girl" or something like that. And I said I wasn't saying that she wasn't nice, I was just saying that she was complicated. So a few minutes later, Violette passed into the other room and Khánum came over and sat right next to me on a chair that was a little lower than mine so I sort of stooped over to not be above her. And she said, "Tell me what happened between you and Bahiyyih." And I said, "Well, it's sort of hard to describe. It was sort of-" and I paused to try to find the right word, and she said, "Oh, you don't have to tell me. That's all right. But nobody else should intrude." And she said something about how she didn't, she was - so it was very important that people decide for themselves who they should marry and that nobody else should get in the way. And she didn't ask me any more or anything you know about personal matters, but we had a little bit of a conversation about marriage and the problems. And she's going to give a talk in Canada about marriage, and she said she hadn't had a chance to think about it but she thinks that most everything we do is wrong. [laughs]

[1:47:39]Anyway, it was a nice little talk, you know, a little tat-tat-tat. Most it was her talking, but really it was very, very, it was very pleasant. And then it got to be time for dinner and they didn't want to bother us, you see? But it was getting to be late. So they interrupted and said it was really time to eat. Henry went and ate and talked about other subjects. And then word came from a neighbor who has a telephone that there was a message from some place that we were to call Jamaica and it was urgent. And we had to call before 9:00 or something like that. So after dinner, Violette and I went to the telephone office and we were there more than an hour. We finally got through to the House of the Secretary, and apparently only the son was there, the young son. And Violette talked with him in Farsi, and he didn't know anything about anything. And then that convinced her that we should call the Center. And we finally got through to the center and they had just left, but the operator stayed on the line, and apparently got him again at the house or some other place. And she talked for less than two minutes, and apparently there was nothing to be said other than that they wanted to charter plane, you see. And the plane was going to be 800 and Violette said that was too much money and that they would just come on the flight from Tuesday. But the flight is at 10:15 in the morning, and I don't see how if we get there at midnight tomorrow night, how they can get themselves together and onto a flight to Jamaica knowing how hard it is and how congested that airport is and so on and all their luggage. It would be very difficult and tiring for them.

[1:49:14]But that seemed to be the way we left it so we went back to the meeting. And it was already, it was about 8:00, a little after 8:00. I guess, by then 8:15 maybe, and the meeting started about 7:00 so we'd missed most of it, but it was the most beautiful sight. And I was just very, very sad that we came in the middle. And I didn't want to cause a big fuss and go out again and get my camera and the flash and interrupt things by taking pictures so I didn't take any pictures. Moro got some, I think. But the scene was the small living room with these little sort of half doors like the doors of a Western saloon in the Westerns. They have shutters, too, that they close to lock the building. But they have these sort of two half doors, two-door doorways with these little half doors that swing leading out into the street, each one with a small sort of a drape on it. And Moro's paintings on the wall and a couple of little pictures of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá under the lamp. And Khánum and Violette were sitting between these two doors facing to the street on a sort of a low couch. And there was, there was 4-5 children, little girls with bright white ribbons in their hair and beautifully dressed, cutest, the little cutest little things sitting on the floor immediately in front of Rúhíyyih Khánum. And then a circle of believers around her, and then some more people yet behind them in several concentric circles or fit in. There might have been 10 youth and adults from Jacmel and then at least as many children and those of us who'd come from Port au Prince. And people were listening with great attention to what Rúhíyyih Khánum was saying. And they told some stories. And, she told, said, some very basic things about the life of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's life and their travel, Bahá’u’lláh's imprisonment and their travel over the mountain and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá would go ahead to arrange things and so forth. And He would get quite a ways ahead and would get tired. And He would have His horse lie down. And He would lie down and put His head on the horse and go to sleep. And the horse would hear when the rest of the party came along behind them and would wake up and that would wake up ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. And then He would go ahead again.

[1:51:35]And she told some other things. And there were some questions about Christianity and whether Baháʼí's should or should not go to church and this sort of thing. Khánum answered and Moro said a few things. Very nice meeting, it went on for, I don't know, until about 9:00 or 9:15. And then we had our goodbyes and got the fruit that we bought on the way and went off to the hotel. And I left them here and went back to the telephone office to get a little bit of change from the other calls. And I had asked Khánum, and she thought it was a good idea. I called Iraj Mazjoub in Miami to see if he could figure out some way that they could get to Kingston via Miami or via any other place for a reasonable price and not have to lease so early on Tuesday. So I probably should have thought of that earlier. It seems like a very simple solution if it isn't too expensive, so I hope that he can take care of that and will call us back here at the hotel tomorrow morning. This is just an absolutely lovely place. And the waves were breaking in. The moon is full, and there are clouds that are passing overhead. And there's one of their palm trees along the beach. It's not a white beach; it's a black beach, but still, it's a very pretty little bay here. Quite a picturesque place. It's so beautiful. Of course, I love the sea so much, you know. I've been raised by the sea and it's so, it's so beautiful that it sort of wrenches me, you know? It's the sort of place where I particularly feel alone in the place that's so beautiful. I feel like I have to be sharing it with someone. But that's a, that's a good kind of sadness to have, I guess. Anyway, this has been a very happy day and very full, and I'm just tired because of all the driving and the rushing around and not getting quite enough to eat, I must say. But Khánum said, you know, she looked at me and she said, "We can eat anytime, but the important thing is to have the meetings with the friends." [laughs] So anyway, I guess that's all for tonight. That's all I can remember. I'm sorry about all this rushing about. My memory is not as [yawns] - I thought I was wide awake because I would like to be. I'm sorry, I've been running all day. So I hope I get a good night's sleep, because there's gonna be a lot of driving tomorrow. I want to be able to be fully present.

[1:53:53]This is now the next morning, and as I was waking up, I remembered something else that Khánum had mentioned in the car just as we were coming down into Jacmel. I don't remember exactly how the subject came up, but she said that she had very strong opinions about - oh, I know! We were talking about her house, and she said that she had lots of precious things in her house and that she had saved anything of any value in her life from all the way from the very beginning. And it was all there in the house. And then she said she hoped that when she died that somebody with some intelligence or appreciation for these things would go through her belongings because she said, for instance, if she had some memento from a stop in Argentina in a particular date, a little card that somebody'd given her or something. Of course, everybody knows that she was in Argentina on that day. That would have been in the Baháʼí news, and Lord knows, you know, everywhere. And it isn't for that purpose that she keeps it. It's because whoever gave it to her is, you know, there's evidence of them that they were there, whatever in that artifact during that thing that she had saved. And there's a tremendous amount of Baháʼí history in terms of what everybody else was doing in all the things that she's kept. And then she said, you know, that she's a person who likes to save things and she got that, I think she said from her father. I'm not sure but as I remember that's what she said, that he was a collector. And she said she's only known four people in her life who had a proper appreciation for the importance of keeping things and orderliness. And one, of course, was Shoghi Effendi, a historian, and I don't remember who the other three were, now. I'm sorry. I believe that one was Neil Goldman or one of the ladies who were in the Holy Land for so many years. And she mentioned to other people, and I don't remember now who they were. And I said, "Well, you should meet my brother." And she said yes. She had spoken with him on the phone. She was hoping to have that opportunity. And I said that I also was a pack rat and that Bahiyyih had always wanted me to get rid of things, that she was a person who got rid of things. And so there was some comment about how it changes generations because apparently Mary is very much of a saver of everything. And I don't know if it was Violette who said that she was or anyway, it somehow is reversed itself in generations in that family.

[1:56:28]Later in the evening, Violette - well, I guess it was when we were at the telephone station waiting for so long. She said there was a very serious problem now because they cannot find someone to be a servant in the House of the Master. They've had a series of people. They've had a Malaysian young man who - something happened to him mentally. He went off the deep end. David and Penny Walker sent in [a police?] who has I think maybe he's been fired now. He went - he started so late to drink and became a problem. And I don't know, she's had other people. Now they have some part time Arab woman who comes in to help. But whenever there's any kind of war turbulence, Ali and Violette move in because they just can't bear the thought of Rúhíyyih Khánum being alone in that house. Now they're thinking maybe her secretary should be given a place to live there just so there's a man on the premises. They have to find somewhere for him to stay if he would be willing. Now the problem seems to be that they can't get anybody from the West because they don't make good servants, which is they expect to be part of the family and that's not appropriate. And they can't apparently find anyone, well, a single person has a great deal of trouble in Haifa because there isn't very much to do. And they're lonely and one thing or another. And a young couple, they start having children. And what would you do with children in the House of the Master? And the place is a museum, you see? So really, what they need is an older couple, but then they need somebody who's good. I mean, there's not anybody who can take care of such a place. And they need obviously somebody who is a good servant, I mean, who understands that kind of thing. For many, many years, apparently, they had people who came from Iran who were traditionally servants of a particular family, and the family would send their servants to the Holy Land to take care of the - well, she was speaking of her own family. But apparently the same thing was true of Bahá’u’lláh's family and the Master's family and so on, and these were people who were raised expecting to be servants. And for them, of course, it was a very high station, and they did it very well and they knew how to do it, but it's just very hard, she says, to find people now from any place in the world who are well-suited to this job. It's really hard to imagine, you know, such a fantastic opportunity to be of service to the Cause, to be able to take care of, to serve in the House of the Master. But I can see the many problems in today's world. It just turned very many peoples anywhere in the world who would be well-suited for this kind of work.

[1:59:19]Well, it's just past midnight now on the what was the 17th, I mean, the 18th, now the 19th of May. And it's been a very full day but before retiring, I wanted to put down my thoughts before I forget them. This morning I thought that I was going to be free until lunchtime. We had laid plans to leave Jacmel about 12:30 and I thought we'd probably just grab a bite to eat in the hotel. So I got up a little earlier than I was hoping. The sun was streaming in. And there were fishermen pulling in a net out in the water. It's really very pretty. They didn't have very many fish, but it's very scenic. And so I got up, I suppose, between 7:00, 7:30, 8:00, something like that. It's more like 7:00, I guess. And went down and had breakfast by the pool. Very, very lovely spot. Nice breakfast. I was reading my New York Times, and I was having my second cup of tea, and then Woody showed up with the Haitian ladies, including a third lady whose name I didn't get but she was the one with the three daughters. And they all came down to use the beach. They were going to go to another beach and they tried to persuade me to go with them. And then they all decided that since I wasn't going to go because of the sun and so on, that they would just swim nearby there, so they all traipsed off to go swimming. And I went back to my room and read the Sunday Times and was relaxing and looking forward to a swim in the pool, assuming that some cloud would come over, and it would be safe for me. And then I saw Paule and Moro walking by, and I went down to greet them. And they, I guess it was they who reminded me that I had to - or Violette came down, I guess. Anyway, I realized that I had to go and worry about calling Jamaica, which had slipped my mind. So after chatting with them a while, I realized the time is getting short. And Paule and Moro invited us to lunch at their place for [Lumbee?] which is [crunch?] at 11:30.

[2:01:30]So I went up with Paule to the telephone office, and Violette couldn't find the little slip of paper with the telephone numbers in Jamaica on it. Oh, I had received a call. I don't know if I mentioned this early in the morning, 7:00 or so from Iraj Mazjoub in Miami and he had arranged a flight on Wednesday through Miami to Jamaica so that Khánum doesn't have to meet a very early flight on Tuesday morning, which was the only direct one. So we had to tell the Jamaicans not to meet the Tuesday flight. And of course, if they'd went to meet her and she didn't arrive, I'm sure they'd panic, all the arrangements they've made. So we went up, I went up to the telephone office and there was no sign of the slip of paper. And I came back again and Paule said, "Well, I better go with you. We'll see. They must have thrown it away, and we'll find it." So we went up there and the lady looked. And she tried to call the supervisor who would have had a record of the calls, and he wasn't around. And Paule persisted and persisted, and finally - and insisted - and finally, they decided that, yes, we could go out and look at the trash. But there was a great reluctance until we went through the offices out back and out on the ground, at back there next to the water tank, there were a bunch of crumpled pieces of paper all on the ground, most of them wet from having been rained on and so on. That seemed to be where they threw the trash. It's little bit peculiar. Maybe they lit it on fire once in a while or something.

[2:03:01]Then we sort of rummaged around and lo and behold, there was a slip of paper with the numbers on it. So we decided to place a call to the Baháʼí Center, and I sat there with Paule. And we must have sat together about 20 minutes, and then she decided that she should go up to the house and start getting ready for lunch. And so I waited there and as time passed, I got more and more frustrated because I realized that I really should be calling the number that Mrs. Zoohori [ph] had given me for her work, where she would be during the day and that I couldn't for the life of me earlier, remember where I had written it. And finally I remember sitting there that I'd written it on a pink slip of paper, which I had back in my room. And I didn't have it with me, so if they finally put the call through and there was no one at the Baháʼí Center, then I wouldn't have the other number to ask the operator to check it and I'd have to go through the whole procedure again. And furthermore, I was thinking maybe the phone down at the hotel was an international dial phone, and it would've been much easier there. And another alternative would have been to call the Currellys here in town and have them place the call. And time was passing and so on and so on. And so I waited, oh, 45 minutes or so on. And the clouds had come over, and it was perfect weather for swimming in the pool. And there I was in the [laughs] wasting my time in the telephone office. And finally I decided, well, I better apply some of these things that Rúhíyyih Khánum has been talking about: power of positive thought. And I realized that despite the shortcomings of the situation, it really was very good to be in Jacmel and to be with Rúhíyyih Khánum, and rather than being somewhere else. And all things considered, everything was pretty good. And so I tried not to stew too much, but I was frustrated because finally, I had to leave until they'd cancel the call. I never like leaving something unfinished.

[2:05:04]So I went down to the hotel and call the Currellys, but they were out. Somebody was sick in the family or something. And I should have thought and sent Moro or somebody up to the telephone office to get the call through while it had already been placed, but I didn't think of that. And Rúhíyyih Khánum had already come down and was waiting so I went up and quickly showered and packed my clothes and so on. That took about 15 minutes, I guess, while they were waiting. But they were chatting with the lady who owned the hotel in with Paule and Moro, with Moro, I guess. So I paid my bill and we all got in and I took them up the road to Paule and Moro's house. And on the way Khánum said, [sassily] "You don't have to always drive so fast. Why don't you stop? I want to take a picture of this building here." And so on. And so then she wanted to walk down the road and I had to pull out of the way so as not to be in her picture. And she was in a peculiar mood. She was very tired. Every time she sat down in the car, she'd go, "Hnggg." [laughs] Something like this. She said, "If I don't die first, I'll do this." [laughs] And so on. But she really was enjoying getting out. She'd have a little smile on her face while she's saying all of these gruesome things. And she's very funny, you know. She can be very girlish sometimes. And she got out and took a couple of pictures in the street, things that she wanted to do. And then we drove around the corner and up to to Paule and Moro's, and she immediately took off for the market. And I got a couple of pictures of her on the sly up the street looking at some cloth. And she came back and she said, "Well, I didn't find anything, and the lady had such and such, and it was awful." And so on.

[2:06:36]And then a little while later, she decided she wanted to go up again and that she got some - Violette had some money, so she went with Moro and Violette, and she told me not to come because she said I looked too expensive, thought I would raise the price. [laughs] So I stayed behind. And after a while, they came back and she hadn't found anything that she particularly liked. We had a very pleasant lunch. It was very good [lumbee?] and some Haitian fried rice, and bread and butter. Then we talked about a variety of things, usual wide ranging conversation and Moro telling his usual stories and so on. And then in the middle of it, Khánum said, "Well, and now I want to talk about a completely different subject." She said, "Violette is a very perceptive person, and she has decided that you, Paule, are overly nervous and worried about things too much. This is bad for your health." She said Violette herself does this much too much. Apparently Violette had had a headache for several days, and Khánum said that she thought it was because Violette worried too much about Bahiyyih in particular. I think that was for my benefit and unsaid was that perhaps she was worrying about Ali, too. Anyway, she went on at some length about how this was not good and how one could overcome one's failings with a lot of prayer. And she gave the example of herself when she was, I think she said 18 or 19. She decided that her mother had two qualities that she didn't have enough of and that she wanted. And one of them was feeling of love towards mankind, and one was generosity. She felt that her mother had these both very much and that she wanted them, so she for a year, I think she said, or more than a year, she prayed diligently every day to have these qualities and then tried to practice them. She didn't say anything more about whether she thought she had developed them, but apparently, she felt that it had done some good in this area. And she was saying to Paule that Paule should try to do this and try to not worry so much and leave things in the hands of God. And Paule looked a little bit puzzled. She didn't - excuse me. [yawning] Oh, I'm tired. She didn't seem to think that she was the worrying type. If she is, she certainly doesn't show it outwardly very much. She's not as obviously nervous as some people, but Moro seemed to think that that was an accurate perception. Anyway, I do think she was taken aback, but it's such a sudden outburst of difficult advice from Rúhíyyih Khánum. And Khánum repeated it later as she was saying goodbye. I thought that was quite interesting. Oh, she started by saying that she's old enough to be a mother and can give motherly advice or something like that. She is really quite a lady.

[2:09:25]So the others sort of dribbled in and we said goodbye. And we had some pictures and one thing or another, and it sort of took a little while. And then we bundled into the car. I'm sure there were other things, but I don't remember now. If I think of something, I'll put it on the tape. And we took George with us in the car because he knew the way and the others all went in Woody's car. Then we went up the mountain and very soon it began to rain and it rained extremely heavily. And the pieces of mountain are falling down into the road and all kinds of rocks. And tremendous downpours of water gushing out onto the mud, gushing out onto the road. And each mud waterfall was a different color of the different kinds of soil washing down. One of these raging torrents Rúhíyyih Khánum insisted that I stop because she wanted to take a picture out of the rainy window, which she had to open. And the rain was coming in on her and on the camera and everything. She wanted to take a picture of this torrent of water. And Woody behind us didn't know what was going on and beeps and was impatient. And this happened several times. A couple of times, at least that we stopped and he didn't know what was going on. It was really very, very heavy rain. We went, got over the mountain somehow through this rain. We're worried about rocks hitting us and things. And down the other side, it was much clearer and actually over whole most of the way, we went, it hadn't rained at all.

[2:10:54]We went down onto the plane and then on the road to Cayes. And it took longer partly because of the rain and partly because we left a little late and so on than we had expected. And so we didn't arrive into Cayes until 4:30. And they expected us at the place we were going. I can't remember now the name of it. It's six kilometers beyond Cayes at 4:00. So we were already quite late and we had to go through the signing procedure with the police checkpoint and so on. Stuart was waiting there for us with - no, I guess he left Linda and Farhad behind. Some of the people he said had been waiting since 2:00. So we bumped along the road. The paved road ends there, and we bumped along the road and ford a river and whatnot and came to this little village arranged along the road where the meeting had been arranged. And there was a large roofed building, no walls, which apparently was the school - it had a lot of blackboards and school benches in it - where the meeting was to be held. And so, we meet at the start of the meeting after that long drive, no washing up or anything. And Khánum said a few words, not very long. And she said some basic things about the Faith. She spoke about the rain and how sorry she was to be delayed and how faith is like rain. It comes first in a few drops and then eventually comes in a torrent. She has another analogy, too, relating to the physical environment familiar to the Haitians and now I can't remember what it was. It was quite nice. If I think of it, I'll have to put it down.

[2:12:54]Anyway, she didn't speak for very long, and then she opened it up to questions. And suddenly the meeting started to deteriorate. It was very unfortunate. There was a gentleman in the front who apparently was mentally ill, and he got up and started to say something in Creole, which I didn't understand, very energetically and jerking around and so on. And people started to laugh and talk loudly and carry on. Later, he got up again and started making more noises and eventually left the meeting in a big fuss; everybody laughed. And then another gentleman started asking questions and turned out that he was a student who had a scholarship and was a student Israel, and he was familiar with the World Center. And he seemed to be fairly sincere, but he has some quite aggressive questions. And then another fellow started asking extremely aggressive questions. And he turned out to be a priest, [medical practice?]. I don't think he's a Catholic - maybe he's a Catholic priest. Yeah. Anyway, his purpose was to cause difficulties. And he said if the name of Bahá’u’lláh was not in the Bible, then it wasn't right. He couldn't be a prophet of God. And George explained very quietly that Bahá’u’lláh means the glory of God. And that that they say [literante?] for some reason, and that that appears many times in the Bible. And they had a big argument and the guy was very argumentative. And then another, an older man there, started arguing, too. And I think he must have been a priest, too. And they just couldn't get them shut up. And Khánum got up at one point and said, "You know, we don't believe in arguments, and you're welcome to come to our meeting and ask questions, but you've already had your chance. Now you should let other people ask questions." She was very, very good, you know, trying to bring a loving atmosphere back into the meeting and for a little while it worked. And then these guys, people started shouting again and carrying on. And some people starts to leave. And Khánum went over and talked with the gentleman who was a student in Israel and way in the back for quite a long time. I wouldn't waste your time with all this fuss going on. And there was a cow moo-ing very loudly, apparently needed to be milked, right next door. So all in all, there wasn't the right opportunity for the Baháʼís to enjoy the presence of the Hand of the Cause. It was mostly between the Creole speaking Baháʼís trying to answer the questions of this obnoxious people.

[2:15:18]But afterwards it disbanded and she went over and talked to the younger loud priest, and he laughed. She told him something that he thought was funny. And then some of the Baháʼís gathered around her and they were very sweet. And they mentioned how unfortunate it was that the meeting wasn't better spirit and said goodbye to her and so on. Then we finally got ourselves into the cars and bumped our way into town. And my gas gauge is reading empty so we drove around asking directions to find the Shell station where I could use my coupons, and in the process we went by the restaurant where we thought we would eat in. And the place was a real dump and Khánum said she certainly wasn't going to eat in there and risk her health. So we've sought directions, too, and found the hotel where the central bank had arranged for some reservations because I figured that would be the best place in town. That was pretty much a dump, too, but the restaurant was a little more decent. And there was English speaking man with some French and Italian ancestry who seemed to be the owner, who said that they could fix some chicken quickly for us. And so we sat down and had some chicken. The Haitians went off to get something less expensive on the street. And we were there for more than an hour, and Khánum was quite upset because the man had said it could be done quickly. And apparently they had to cook the rice and they had to unfreeze the chicken and everything. But we had a nice conversation when he was there and we talked about chiropractic and health and one thing or another and told some stories. Poor Violette still had her headache. Linda joined us for a while and then left with Stuart when he showed up.

[2:16:50]And finally we had our chicken, which is very good, and got in the car about 8:00, 8:30, something like that. It was quite late and I thought we would get back after midnight. And we headed off, but the driving was much easier than expected. There was very little traffic at night and Violette and George sat very quietly in the back. George eventually went to sleep and snored, and Khánum and I had a three and a half hours of very, very pleasant conversation in the front seat. We talked about all kinds of things. And Khánum leaned on this, there's sort of a box in the middle of my car, and she put her elbow on it and leaned over towards me in an extremely informal way. And I was reminded of the time when she was leaving for somewhere from our house in Florence after visiting Bahiyyih upstairs, and she had something to say to me, which I don't remember now. I think maybe I made a note at the time. And she leaned over from the other side of the car, with American car with a flat front seat. She leaned way over so that she was - literally, her feet were up on the seat and she was horizontal on the seat. And the door was open, I think. And she leaned over in this very informal fashion to say something to me. Or maybe it was to Dawn and I, I don't remember. Anyway, we were standing there saying goodbye respectfully, and here she was leaning over in this way. It had that same sense, you know? She sometimes, she changes moods very much. Sometimes she's very much a Hand of the Cause and expects to be treated with this written measure of respect, and other times like this, where she's talking one to one with somebody that she feels friendly with. There's absolutely not the faintest hint of position, or even the respect due her because of her relative age. I mean, I had the feeling that we were old school chums or something like this, you know? This kind of a friend of a sense from her. And so we could just chat about anything.

[2:18:53]So I told a joke and she told a joke, and I couldn't think of another joke that I thought she'd like so I didn't tell any other jokes. But then I told her the story that I'd heard secondhand from Mr. Faizi, and I wanted to know whether she about the hunting trip of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and I want to know she'd ever heard it. And Violette listened in there, and they both said they'd never heard it but it's very likely that that was a true story that - Mr. Faizi had collected many stories that were unknown to, you know, outside of a few people in Persia. And it sounded to be authentic, which pleased me. So they certainly couldn't say either way if they had never heard it before. And we talked about the problems of marriage and the problems of tests and difficulties and all kinds of things and of course Khánum had most of her usual opinions on things but it is just very, very pleasant. Very pleasant, indeed. She told me some stories of her travels and I told her some stories of my travels. And apparently she didn't realize that I'd spent a year traveling around the world and seemed to be entertained by some of the stories, and she even complimented me on my driving. So finally, we got to Port-au-Prince, and they left off George by the road near his house, and I got them to their hotel a little bit before midnight. And we've agreed to meet tomorrow morning at 11:00, and I'll take them up to Kenscoff after trying to fix up their tickets. So that's what I remember as the day. I think of some other things that she said, you know, after such a long day with so many things said, I can't remember all the interesting things of which there were many.

[2:20:45]It's now the 19th and it's four o'clock in the afternoon and I have just let Rúhíyyih Khánum and Violette off at their hotel after a most lovely day, I had agreed to go to the airport and try to take care of their change of itinerary and then meet them at the hotel at 11:00. And I had a very sound sleep, and went out to the airport and lo and behold, there was nobody in front of me in the line. And I spent an hour and a quarter with the woman there, getting the ticket rewritten. There's a very long itinerary, and she first said that she couldn't possibly do it because they didn't fly to Kingston and she didn't know what the fare was. And then I insisted, there must be somebody who knows about these things. So she got down the lady from the upper office, the one who knows more about things, and they figured out the three extra cost, which was just under $400. And then she had to write this whole itinerary out on this little tiny slips of paper that gets stuck onto the ticket to show how the fare was calculated. And it just went on and on and on, but fortunately, I didn't have to wait for anybody else. And these people started lining up behind me. Two men were there for at least an hour out of the hour and a quarter, waiting for me to finish, and some other people lined up behind them. But it all came out all right, and I was so pleased to finally get that taken care of, to everybody's satisfaction, at a reasonable price.

[2:22:08]So with a certain amount of elation, I went up to the hotel. I tried to call and the operator said that they had gone out, but of course they hadn't. They were there and they weren't dressed yet. I think they may have been swimming or something, I don't know, so. And I'd forgotten that we were going up to Kenscoff so it's cool. So I went up to the hotel and got a coat and came back and waited for about 20 minutes, and they came out about 11:30. And I mentioned to them that this place called Ambiance, which is a nice shop, was just a block away. And we went there first and looked at things. And Rúhíyyih Khánum asked the young woman there about parrots, whether they sold parrots in this country. And there was somebody nearby who had them but she said you had to call, and because she only had a day here, it didn't seem to be practical. But I asked her, "Are you thinking of buying a parrot?" And she got this expression on her face that is just so funny. It's her own little mime of a little girl, you know, who has some kind of an indulgence. And she sort of cocks her head a little bit on one side, and she gets this funny sweet smile on her face. Said, "Yes, I am indulging myself, aren't I?" And she said, "Yes, I would like if I could get a young one." And then she went on to lecture me. She said that if you're going to get a parrot, you have to get one that's just been weaned because then you couldn't train them to sit on your finger, and then make good pets. But if you got them older then they're ornery and I don't know. Anyway, she's so funny. Really.

[2:23:38]And from there we went up to the art gallery, which was still open, and she bought this painting of three women, three voodoo priestesses with various voodoo symbols in it, a couple of flags that show which group they're from. And I don't know, a rattle and some pictures and various sundry things, which is full of symbology that Rúhíyyih Khánum liked very much. She spent $200 for that painting. I think I mentioned it before. They wrapped it up and so on. That took a while. And they had some oil put in the car across the street. And then we went up to the [?] and got some nice little goodies, and then drove up to Kenscoff. And it was raining up there but it was very, very pleasant that we met this woman whose name I didn't get, but I will get it. She's a Baháʼí lady from Indonesia, quite an older woman. Very, very astute and pleasant and mature and poised and all kinds of wonderful qualities. And she summarized my job more succinctly than I've ever heard anybody else. She said it's difficult to make the crooked straight. She said. Very well put. She began to ask me right away whether she thought the exchange rate was-- whether I thought the exchange rate was gonna change and what the - excuse me - the business outlook was and various things. Obviously a thinking one. And she is a nurse, a trained nurse, but apparently was let go from a hospital when they learned that she was a Baháʼí or something. I don't know exactly the story. And this mission has taken her in, so she can't be too terribly active as a Baháʼí because it's her livelihood, you know. She left Indonesia back in the '40s, I think she said - it's been a long time - and has been in Haiti, I think she said, seven years or 17, I'm not sure. Anyway, it's quite a period of time, but a lovely woman. And she sat with us for a while and we talked and Rúhíyyih Khánum and Violette both liked her very much.

[2:25:41]And this woman asked Rúhíyyih Khánum. First, she said it was such a nice sounding name, Rúhíyyih Rabbání. Amatu'l-Bahá gave her her card and Violette invited her to look them up in the Holy Land. So she commented on the name and asked what it meant, and Khánum said, well, Rúhíyyih means spirit-like and Rabbání comes from the same route as a rabbi and so forth. The Semitic root of it means divine or godly. And then she said, you know, Shoghi Effendi means divine longing. The word Shoghi apparently means longing or love and Rabbání means divine. I thought that was quite interesting. Anyway, we had a very pleasant lunch. They have a good cheese, ham and cheese sandwich there and free herb tea, which was very delicious. They have lovely things to buy. And so we did some shopping and browsing in the store before and after. And Khánum bought a big red table cloth embroidered with white, white stitching and matching napkins, which she asked me to carry to Washington and give to Dioso [ph] who will give it to a pilgrim to take to the Holy Land. And Violette bought a little skirt for Mary. They nosed around and Amatu'l-Bahá also bought some little carved, bone-carved things and key chains and hair comb or something like that. She loves little things like this. And she bought a little bowl, black bowl, small about maybe four inches in diameter. And she was taking the price tags off. And she said, "You know, Greg-" She said, I was sitting next to her. She said, "Every day of my life is the day that I'm living." She said, "I'm older now." And she sort of implied that, you know, you never know if you're going to live much longer. But anyway, every day is the day that you have, and you need to make out of it what you can. It's what you do with, you know, what you can with what God has given you in that day.

[2:27:41]She said, "I like to appreciate things. For instance, I like the feel of this bowl." She said it's something that her mother had taught her, to appreciate the feel of things. She also said that her mother taught her to like the rain. She said that several times. She said, "I just like the feel of it. And then when I'm traveling, I like to have some things." Like she has a half gourd, she said that she carries as a bowl and when the milk is good in the country. She has her cereal in this bowl, in her hotel or whatever. And she likes to put things out from her luggage that she enjoys, you know, and like this little, little one that she just bought. She said she'll put it and she'll put some paper clips in it or some nuts or something and should just enjoy it. And she has some things that - I don't remember what she said it was, but something that she likes to hang up on the wall in the hotel room if there's a place that it can be hung, if they're going to be in a place several days. And then she enjoys it and she enjoys these things much more in her travels than she would at home, where she's busy and involved with things and so on. Very nice, you know, to just enjoy the things of life. I think I may also have forgotten to mention before and I keep wanting to think of this. I'll put it down now. She has been wearing for the last several days, ever since about the second or third day of her visit, I think. A pair of lovely earrings with sort of a little gold flower about a quarter inch in diameter, and then a long, gold colored hanging piece. And then, on the end, about more than inch, inch and a half maybe, of black feathers which come from the head of some unusual bird somewhere, Africa, I guess. I don't know, but she said in one of her talks that these earrings - she was talking about them - these earrings are wonderful. She said the feathers never come apart, and they always spring back into shape, never get crushed or anything, and they're - and she's very attached to them.

[2:29:26]And then later, at one point, she made some quip about someone talked about detachment, and she says, "Whenever anybody mentions detachment, I think about my earrings." She's so funny, really. Another thing she said today, I think was that she's been trying on this trip. When was it? Yesterday, and I already said it, but maybe so. She's been trying on this trip to do two things: to be light, she said, to lighten the atmosphere of the pioneers and to shock them. She says we get too attached that we get into our habits. That's not the word she used, but rituals was the idea, you know, our fixed ways of doing things, very narrow. And so she likes to shock the Baháʼís to something very different to get them to be more objective and to think more open, you know, to be more open in their attitude towards the Faith. And she also feels that we get all burdened down and discouraged and so on and so on. We must be more lighthearted and enjoy ourselves and convey this joy of life, [?] to other people. And it certainly, she has done those two things admirably. She's very effective in both of them. Another she said in the car which was most interesting is that I had paid for the tickets, so they were going to repay me, which they haven't done yet but I guess they will probably remember it tomorrow. And I said, "Well, you can write a check so you don't use up your cash." And she said, she smiled and she said, "You know, I do not have a checking account and I never have." Except for in Canada when they were making this pilgrimage film recently, she had a checking account to handle the funds for the pilgrimage. But she said she has a trust in Canada, and she just writes them and asks them to pay bills or to send $4000 to Haifa or whatever. And then she lives with the cash.

[2:31:14]And she said, you know, the Guardian never had a checking account on his own signature. He did what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá did. He had his money in the name of one of the Baháʼís. And the Guardian used to send, I can't remember who it was. It seems to me she may have said Neil Goldman but I don't know. I hope that's not wrong. Anyway, she sent this lady, whoever it was, he did, off to do his transactions. And she said, for instance, one day he was going to buy some property. And so he sent her off to get £40,000, which - was it £40,000? Yeah, £40,000 at $3 a pound. That was a lot of money to carry around. And he didn't bat an eye. She said he was very cool about money. And she came back with this briefcase full of money, whatever it was. And she said, then he would lick his two fingers: first, his index and then his thumb, in rapid order. And she said he had a gesture which was just adorable, she said. She said the Baháʼís saw him when he was the Guardian in his authority of the position, and they didn't see him as a private person the way she did. And she said that he was just lovable. She said that several times to me. He was very lovable. He was very sweet and he had mannerisms that were just very attractive. One time, I think it was yesterday, she said that he used to tease her. He would catch her off guard and he would say, for instance, when she came in, he said that Winston Churchill had died. This was in the middle of the war and she said, "Oh, no. Guardian, that's terrible." And she started to moan and groan and carry on. And he said, no, I was just joking. And so eventually she got to be a little more shrewd and figured out when he would be teasing her, but apparently teased her a lot.

[2:32:48]Anyway, getting back, he would lick his index finger and his thumb, and then he would very quickly count the money. He would pay bills by counting out money, apparently. And he required very accurate accounting from all the different departments and people in the Holy Land. If somebody had added wrong, he would send it back and have them re-add it. He wouldn't correct their mistake for them. All that, it was quite, quite interesting. Another thing she said yesterday in the talk, which I think I may have forgotten to mention. I think it was in this - I don't remember now which talk it was, but anyway, it was a little bit more elaborate than what I've heard her say before. She said we must, it is a Baháʼí law that we must teach the Faith. It's a Baháʼí law that we must teach the Faith to others. If people want to be Baháʼís, we cannot keep them out of the Faith. And once there are nine believers in the community, they must form an assembly. I think this may have been the evening when she was talking to the pilgrim - I mean, to the pioneers. So she said obviously, the result of these three laws is that there are going to be lots and lots of assemblies of people who know, initially, very little about the Faith. But that's the law of Bahá’u’lláh and there's nothing we can do about it. That's basic to the Faith, and that is what we must do.

[2:34:04]And of course, these people will deepen and will become more understanding and learned in the Faith as time goes on, but that's the way it is. And it's madness, she said. I mean it from any worldly point of view, it's madness to do things this way, but that's what Bahá’u’lláh said we must do and that's the law of the Faith. So after this very pleasant visit to the mission up there, we came down and stopped at the Currellys house and they were out but we left a statue that John had volunteered to take back to Canada and get back to Khánum in Canada, and a note for them because they were out. And then we went down to my office and called Ali in Haifa and had some quick news back and forth. They didn't talk very long, 6-7 minutes. Then we went to a pharmacy nearby, where they had bought some "citronel" or whatever they call it. It's an extract from the fruit that only this man makes that they think is very good for keeping off the mosquitos. I put some on me in Jacmel and it burned me terribly. I had to go wash it off as quickly as I could, but they like it. And John Currelly showed up there at the corner. Apparently he was going by or something and he saw us, and they were very pleased to see him. And then we had a long discussion about how to handle the airport tomorrow. And they decided that against my advice that they would just go out together and take care of it. They want to be sure that everything is all right, because what if there's overweight or something. So they're going to have to sit and stew in that hot airport, which is a shame. And we stopped to see John, I mean, to have Woody, who was not in, unfortunately. They felt that he maybe was felt a little bit out of things. And then I took them back to their hotel. And they said it takes about three hours for them to pack, which I can certainly believe, all the stuff they have. And they said that many thanks and fond goodbye. And I will see them tomorrow and take them to the airport.

[2:36:28]Khánum also gave me an inscribed picture of herself. She says she doesn't do that very often much but she wanted to give me something. And I think it was taken in Japan if I remember correctly, but I'm not absolutely sure. She said that Violette had taken the picture. Also on the way down from the mountain, she mentioned that her book was being reprinted, A Manual for Pioneers. She said she loves that book. She said that several times. Reprinted in India, and she asked me if I could distribute it. She asked me about my business a little bit and so on, and I told her. And then she said, "Well, you should distribute my book." And I explained while that we have to increase the price to cover our costs and so on, but maybe I could mention it in the newsletter. And she said, "Oh yes, please do that." She said that she had been in India and had personally supervised the reprinting of the book. She saw a menu in the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay that she liked the design of, and it was in-house artists. And so she persuaded the artist after considerable endeavor to do the cover for the book. And she went personally to the printer and asked them to do a good job on the plates and on the artwork and so on, and the printing. And so she said it should be out soon, and the text was all typed in Haifa and checked so it's absolutely perfect. That was done on a IBM machine of some kind. And so she's hopeful that it will come out well.

[2:37:54]This is the afternoon of May the 20th and I just have the last few notes to make about the Amatu'l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum's departure from Haiti. I went to their hotel to pick them up a little before 12:30 and I was a few minutes late. The car was jammed into the parking lot at the Central Bank. It took a while to get it out. And Woody Lord, George Lord who was known as Woody, had gotten there before me, and they had loaded their suitcases and things into his car. So Violette went with with him and Khánum came with me and Farhad got in the back seat. So we headed off and we hadn't gotten very far, and Khánum decided to give me some advice for the first time in this trip. She said that she had been thinking about me for the past couple of days and she said essentially that she presumed that I would be an attractive target for American women wanting to get married and that I should be very careful. She said that there was a Baháʼí in London, a Persian who was very eligible, and some American got it in her head that she was gonna marry him. And she flew over to London to see him, and she wrote him letters and bombarded him and all kinds of things. And eventually he determined that she wasn't the right one and somehow put her off. But Khánum said that was very close call. She said that American women are very aggressive and exploitative. I'm not sure if she used that word, but that was certainly the idea. And that they're not really very much interested in contributing to a permanent marriage. And that therefore is very dangerous.

[2:39:47]And she recommended me, for instance, perhaps an Indian wife. She said the Indians are very close. She continued this conversation at the airport when we had a few minutes to stand by ourselves. She said, for instance, even in an airplane, in an airport or someplace where you would see an Indian couple coming in, they don't have, she said, lots of holding hands and lovey dovey and kissing in public and things like that, but you can see the bond between them. And they're very close and that when Indians marry, they marry for life. And that's that, you know. And then they dedicate themselves to that. And she said you just don't find that spirit or that attitude in the West. And she recounted to me this story of Robert Zoellick - and this was back in the car - who was, she thinks about 30 or so. And he was a very serious Baháʼí who wanted to serve the Faith very much, but he didn't want to marry an American because he wanted to - she said, the way she put it - he wanted to be married permanently. And he didn't think that he had much of a chance with American women. So he was going to take a trip to Iran, and he wrote ahead of time to Khánum and asked her to give him the name of some Baháʼís, some good Baháʼís in Iran that he might look up. In other words, asked her to help to do a little matchmaking. And she mentioned this to the Guardian and the Guardian was very emphatic, very dramatic. I don't know if he got mad or what but you know, what she said was that he was very strong and he said, "Absolutely not. This is a very dangerous business and you must not get involved in other people's marital affairs. Absolutely not. Very dangerous." [laughs] And associate, she didn't.

[2:41:34]But then apparently he wrote - No! She said he telephoned, and she thinks that it was the, she said it was the first, she thinks it was the first long-distance call that they ever received in the Holy Land. This was back in - when was it? The 50's? 50's, early 50's, I guess. I'm not sure, but it seems to me I did some mental arithmetic to figure out how long ago it might have been. And he called and begged her again to give him the name of someone. And she said she weaseled out of the Guardian permission to give him, without any recommendations or anything, but just to give him the name of a family in Iraq, if I heard her correctly, where there was a daughter who was about, was in the early twenties - 23, I think she said, which was old for, you know, an eastern family - who also was dedicated to the Faith and so on, and that she had in her mind might be a good match. And turns out he went there and they got married and they were very happy. She said they didn't raise the child very well and he apparently went wrong for a while and then straightened out later or something, but she was very pleased that that marriage seemed to work out. They were both very dedicated to the Faith, and they matched each other well, apparently. She said that that's very important. And she referred again to Paule and Moro, which she said several times and how much they love each other and how, when one is down, the other will lift them up and vice versa. You know, when one of them was feeling weak and down, the other will be strong and firm and bring them back to their dedication to the Faith. She said that's very important if you have the same objective to serve the Faith sincerely.

[2:43:13]That's basically the message she had. She reiterated it several times, though, and I told her that I have been extremely careful, but that I'm not careful by nature. Then she smiled, a sort of knowing smile. I think she figured that out, you know, but she wanted to impress upon me to be very cautious. I said something about how it's very hard to visualize what a marriage is going to be like ahead of time and therefore difficult to choose someone. And she didn't offer any advice about that. She just agreed that it's very risky and dangerous business marriage in general is, but she didn't really give any more constructive opinion about it. Then a little later, as we were standing around with some of the Baháʼís before she went through the customs, she was making some remarks about the black people of the world. She said they're not simple. They're very complicated and even devious. She said a Persian may be equal to understanding them, but certainly not an American. Americans are very naïve and gullible. And she went on on that theme for quite a while. And then she gave in a traditional saying in Persian and translated it. She says they're like when you put hay on a river, you cannot tell what the currents are underneath. The hay may be still, you see, but the river may be turbulent underneath it. And he said, she said that the Negro peoples are like that. They may seem to be simple on the surface, but far, far from it underneath.

[2:44:37]Today she was wearing a beautiful pendant and earring set that of a sort of an amber-colored, looked like round glass, but I don't know, maybe it's some kind of stone that was cut that have been given her by the National Assembly of Dominican Republic, which she said that she had been able to select. And she was very pleased about that. I felt sad that we had not given her anything, but we have our limitations in this country. She seemed to be in good spirits and in good shape, although she said that she was awake until at least 2:00. She didn't get a very good rest last night and she didn't know why because she hadn't had any tea or coffee in the afternoon. And she left with me a big basket, sort of a shopping bag style basket full of odds and ends, round things she wants me to take to Lisa Webster to have sent to the Holy Land, and a book about Haiti that we've given her that she wanted us to mail to her so that she wouldn't have to carry it, and some extra paper and a file folder. And one thing or another she didn't want to throw away, some malaria pills, and postcards, and all kinds of stuff that she was just passing on. She gave Linda a couple of pairs of earrings, one for her and one for Julie [ph]. It's really very, very generous and thoughtful. I think she's done well at developing those two qualities that she felt that she was lacking as a teenager. When she also thanked me for all my help during the stay and said it was very good to have had an opportunity to get to know me better, but she'd wanted to for some time, she said. She's very nice, and she invited me again to have supper at her house on the red tablecloth. I hope that I would visit her sometime in the Holy Land.

[2:46:33]I mentioned to her what I had heard from Linda last night. That this woman, Francisca [ph], whom we met up at the Baptist Mission up near Kenscoff, was 65 and apparently in very good health and might be a possibility for her housekeeper. And she said she would think about it and could get in touch with her through me if necessary. Something I'd forgotten to mention before on the trip to Cayes or on the way back, I think it was then, she was also talking about the subject of the deviousness of certain peoples. And she said the Guardian, she herself, was very naïve in her younger years, but she said The Guardian was capable of, he had the Persian mentality and he was capable of seeing through all kinds of deviousness. She said the Persians as a people are very, very devious and complicated, and the Guardian had wonder of that. There was one example where some news came from India. Somebody rather was causing some trouble in India and the Guardian sent a cable to an entirely different person, giving him a stern warning to shape up essentially. And she said, "But Guardian, he's not the one who's doing this. It's the other person over here." But the Guardian said, "Ah, but this is the man who is behind it." And it turned out to be the case, of course. And the stern warning from the Guardian was timely and it set the man straight, apparently. She said that was an example of his tremendous ability to, you know, to understand people's motives and so on far beyond what people of the West would have. Well, I'm sure there are many other things that I've forgotten to put on the tape, and if I remember them, I will add them later.

[2:48:23]This is now two days later on Friday and I've thought of something which I may have mentioned before, but I want to be sure it's on the tape. So at the risk of repeating myself, I will put it here. It was something that Violette said. I think it was on the last day they were here, but I'm not sure when we had a few moments on the side of waiting for Rúhíyyih Khánum or something. She said, "You know,-" she likes to start with "you know". [laughs] She was talking about Khánum. She said no one has completely pure motivations. But she said, of all the people she has known in the Faith, she thinks that Khánum is the most like the leaf blowing in the wind. Or I think she used the leaf being born by the river, I think, was the analogy she used anyway, something like that. Just letting herself be moved by the will of God in different circumstances. That remark really struck me. I think we were interrupted and she didn't really go on. It was very short, but it struck me because she seems to be, she's such a strong character that she's the kind of person who you would expect - or at least I would expect - to be very strong-willed. And at times she can be a little bit strong-willed. But on the other hand, you can see, for instance, in her little go round about the plans that we had made before she came, she had had in mind to go up to Cap-Haïtien, and the plans had been the opposite. She was going to the south. There was quite a little back and forth about it, but when she came to feel that it was better for the Cause that she go to this house into the north, that was the end of that. She completely let go of it, and there was no further mention of it, except the later she told me that she wished that they explained that to her before and she would have been very pleased to follow the plans. That was, to me, a demonstration of how much she has let herself be a - I don't know if I should say a channel, but how much she's let herself be guided by the good of the Cause.