Time to go

It's my last week in Haiti, so of course, it's been jam-packed with craziness. Katelyn, my replacement, arrived on Monday. She’s amazing and we’ve been having a lot of fun together as I show her the ropes around here. The girls will be in very good hands when I leave, and that makes it a little bit easier for me to go. We’ve been tiring her out with lots of adventures, including the fun of tracking down her missing suitcase in the Port-au-Prince airport. We’ve taken several short hikes up the mountain with some of the kids. On the first one I managed to lose Nate. Turns out he just stopped to explore a cave and then broke his sandal so he took a while to catch up. I threatened to implement a buddy system. Then on the way back down the people at the front of the group stopped at a friend’s house to wait for everyone else to catch up. All the kids arrived and we were just waiting for Nate and Katelyn. 10 minutes later I was really starting to worry, and sent one of the boys up the hill to look for them. Then Nate appeared, running up the hill from the direction of the orphanage. I had several questions, including “How did you get down past us without me noticing?” “What have you done with Katelyn????” and “Where are your shoes?”. Turns out he’d given away the sandals Renick lent him to a little old lady walking barefoot down the gravel road, and then a motorcycle driver offered them a ride down the hill, but Nate forgot the words for ‘right’ and ‘left’ so they took a very roundabout way back to the orphanage and didn’t pass us. Eventually we all made it back, I got Nate and Renick new sandals out of the closet, and we all got mangoes. So it all turned out okay.

Yesterday we went to explore a park Nate and I discovered a while ago and have been wanting to go back to. We figured we would probably have to climb through a broken part of the fence or something, but instead it was really easy. We just gave our IDs to the guards, and they gave us park passes. A very nice manager told us that he couldn’t let us in the upper part of the park because there was heavy construction going on and it was dangerous, but we were welcome to explore the lower part. Which is what we wanted to do anyways. So we had lots of fun climbing in and around half-finished buildings and fountains and swimming pools, chasing after huge lizards, hunting for mangoes (it's mango season, and they are everywhere and delicious and huge) and of course, taking silly pictures. Although that was mostly me.

It kind of felt like we were on an Indiana Jones set.

Angel Cecelia? Or something like that. This building was designed like a greek temple on the outside, and had goats sleeping on the roof, so we referred to it all day as 'The Goat Temple'.

Nate climbed down a storm drain to rescue a chick

Banana leaves make geat hiding places, except for the feet. (No giant crickets this time Mom!)

This is (or would be if it had water) an enormous swimming pool, with a swim-up bar, and a water slide.

In other adventures, we’re trying to organize a building project with a tiny local church up the hill. There’s a team of college students coming next week from Boston, and they’ve raised money to help this church repair their building. So we’ve been meeting with the pastors to hammer out a plan and budget. It has been an adventure in Haitian planning, and has stretched our patience at times, but has also been a lot of fun. We originally sat down with one pastor and asked him to list and prioritize the needs of the church. Then we got an idea of how much money we had, and how many people were coming to help, and went back to the same pastor to ask him to provide a budget and plan for building a new metal roof, new chalkboards and benches, and installing new lights and fans. On Monday the three pastors arrived beaming with plans for a completely new two-story building. Oh Haiti. So we had a long meeting explaining that we have nowhere near that amount of money to spend, talked over more ideas for the project and explained that we want to hire two Haitian workers to direct the team. Yesterday evening they came back again with a realistic budget, but they hadn’t included the two Haitian workers, so we had to go through all that again. Luckily one of our older boys sat down with us to help translate. Throughout this last meeting it became more and more apparent the youngest associate pastor was hitting on me. I was a little slow to pick up on this, as usual. I tried to distract him by introducing Katelyn, and then the head pastor asked what denomination she was, so we were trying to explain Calvary Chapel, which prompted Mano and the two older pastors to get into an exuberant theological debate. Katelyn was worried she’d offended someone, but I assured her that this was normal, and they were thoroughly enjoying themselves. (A few months ago I attended a baptism service at their church, during which the Pastor Emmanuel and several people in the congregation had a 30-minute debate on the finer theological points of baptism in the middle of the sermon). The young pastor took this opportunity to ask for my email and phone number, and left me with a letter that could be interpreted as a marriage proposal. The theological debate was about to wrap up and Nate opened his mouth to launch into goodbyes, when Mano got a twinkle in his eye and interjected, “So Cecelia over here is Catholic…”, and that started a lecture on how all Christians are members of one church, Mano jumped up and ducked out of the room to avoid Nate smacking him and to burst out laughing, and I just laughed and thanked the elder pastors for being so supportive of my Catholocism, tried unsuccessfully to convince the younger pastor that he did not need a picture of me on his cell phone, and started the round of goodbyes that would eventually get the pastors out the door. All just a typical business meeting in Haiti, sorta. Maybe minus the almost marriage proposal.

Even though I know I’ll be home in two days (!!!) I can’t quite wrap my head around it. I am quite happy and settled here, and although I am SO excited to see everyone and have a wonderful summer planned, I do not want to leave here. At all. I think this just about every night as I sit on the roof, enjoying the breeze and watching the sun set into the Caribbean while eating a giant fresh mango. I am also worried that it’s going to be very difficult for me to jump back into busy American life. As I put it to a friend this week, “I am very very happy living life at Haitian speed. Which is 10 times slower than psychotic hamster on drugs American speed”. Amusing, but also true. Life just goes a little slower here, people value time much differently, and I like it this way. It’s one of the many things I’ll be trying to hold on to as I come back to the states.

Easter

My Easter in Haiti was much different than it has been in previous years. I spent a lot of it being very homesick, both for home and Swarthmore. But it was so beautiful in different ways that I wasn't expecting. On Maundy thursday, I decided to skip going to church in the afternoon because it was the last day of Kelly and Emma's visit, and they had brought everything to do tie-dye with the kids. So I spent the afternoon twisting t-shirts, shooting people with rubber bands, and trying to convince the kids that yes, the dye really would stain their skin. Overall we ended up with more dye on the shirts than on the kids, so I think it was a success. After that Emma brought out several packs of party balloons she had brought with her. The kids blew them up and predictably started whacking each other upside the head. Pretty soon one got knocked away, and the breeze caught it and sent it flying over the edge of the roof and out over the neighborhood. Everybody stopped and stared as this big yellow balloon hung suspended over the street. And then the kids looked at each other and their eyes lit up with the 'you're thinking what I'm thinking!' look. Everybody blew up three or four balloons, and then stood at the edge of the roof. On the count of three everyone threw their balloons in the air, and then watched in delight as 100 huge colorful balloons floated serenely down the hill in the light of the sunset. Everyone in the neighborhood below stopped what they were doing to watch, we nearly caused several motorcycle accidents, and kids gaped open-mouthed and silent for a moment before they set off in happy shrieking pursuit to try to catch the balloons when they finally landed. It was beautiful, and kind of surreal. I felt like I might be in a Pixar movie, or one of those colorful Sony Bravia Colour commercials (if you haven't seen their bouncy ball spot, go find it on youtube, it's amazing).

On Friday I went to the Good Friday service at Caridad parish, but I had a lot of trouble focusing. I love the Easter week services, it's my favorite part of the year. And I was frustrated that I was missing all of my favorite parts because I don't understand the language very well. I felt lonely and isolated and rushed, and just wanted 10 seconds where I could be still and pray without feeling people's eyes staring into me. It wasn't any of the things I wanted from Good Friday service. But, God is great, and he very quietly let me know several things: first that Easter actually isn't about me, at all. Second that I shouldn't take for granted the beautiful familiarity of liturgy in my own language. And thirdly that Jesus was dead, and that's about as lonely as it gets, so suck it up. (Okay, maybe that's not exactly how he said it...)

Saturday morning we decided to go for a walk. Nate's mom was visiting and wanted to see some of the city. The week before we'd climbed to the top of the mountain, so we decided to try to go the complete opposite direction and try to get down to the ocean.  I looked at a map and scouted my path from the roof, but mostly I was just winging it, as usual. Unfortunately the main road was terribly flooded - I think a water main may have broken - and trying to find a path to walk, rather than wade, was really difficult. This prompted me to turn off the main road much too early. I still knew I had us heading directly towards the ocean, I just hadn't gone as far as I wanted to reach an easy access from the main road. Instead we started winding our way down little streets, through a neighborhood. I do mean 'winding' because none of them kept in the same direction for more than a few hundred feet and it felt like we were in a maze.

I don't quite know how to describe the rest of this. The three of us got quieter and quieter. This was supposed to be a fun jaunt to the 'beach'. Instead we were half-lost, zig-zagging through the tangled streets of the area i'd been trying to avoid, and none of us were having fun anymore. But we felt that the water must be just beyond the next row of houses, so we kept going picking our way along as the neighborhood went from bad to worse, and then you couldn't call it a neighborhood anymore, and then it was definitely a slum, going from bad, to worse, to desperate, to incomprehensible. Cardboard and plastic bags strung together with twine, sitting precariously a few inches above the water on a bank of trash that has slowly accumulated into semi-solid land. Here we'd made it to the bay, the Caribbean ocean! And all I wanted to do was cry, for what should have been a breathtakingly beautiful paradise but is instead a hell on earth. For the naked children scavenging in the trash next to the goats and the pigs. For the young mothers staring at us from dark doorways, too exhausted and desolate to even be surprised at our presence. For the knowledge that every storm that churns up the bay wipes out their flimsy homes and they are at the mercy of the weather and their only barely less destitute neighbors.

What a place to be on Holy Saturday. I felt so strongly that despite my maps and plans God had led me directly to the heart of all that is miserable and wrong in this city, to remind me exactly why this world needs a redeemer and convict me of my complacency.

Back at the orphanage later that afternoon, we hid Easter Eggs for our kids, thanks to Nate's mom bringing lots of Easter candy specifically for this purpose. I wasn't sure it would be a big hit, so I was amazed to see even the girls with attitudes the size of Texas sprinting and elbowing their way down the stairs with the rest when I yelled 'go!'. Watching 40 teenagers shout and scream and squeal with delight and frustration (these kids are sneaky, they find an egg, eat the candy, then replace the egg and hide to watch someone else find it and discover it's already empty...and then they laugh their butt off), I was remembering the people in the houses down by the water, and was so thankful that our kids have been able to have a happy life here.

Sunday morning Nate and his mom came with me to Caridad, where it was packed. You think churches are crowded in the states on Easter? This was insane. And that made it a little hard to concentrate on translating the mass. But it was impossible to not catch the joy that was just radiating from people, especially the old ladies. They were literally dancing in the pews every time there was music, as if to say, "I have been solemn and penitential for all of lent, and now it is time to CELEBRATE gosh darn it!" Truly wonderful. Dr. Bernard and Claudette came down for a wonderful Easter feast, and then invited us up for the rest of the day to Tomasin. So the rest of my Easter was spent covered in babies. And it was there that the restless discontent I'd been holding onto for the past few days - wanting to be celebrating holy week with Tri-Co, thinking of past Easter dinners in the friend's meeting house, wanting an Easter basket, being annoyed that things weren't in English - finally melted away. Holding my favorite baby and playing with several others, watching the sunset light up their beautiful faces, I realized that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

This is Jonathan. When I first came to Haiti he was two months old and the newest baby at the orphanage so he's been my favorite.  He always looks terrified in pictures, (this is the least petrified face of about 20 pictures), but I swear the rest of the time he's smiling, especially when you sing to him.

I LOVE this guy. Always happy. (Notice Janmbelin wrapped around my legs, very annoyed that someone else is getting my attention).

The face pretty much says it all. She may be tiny and adorable, but she is 100% full of Haitian attitude.

Valencia is totally conked out in my lap, and John and I are counting rocks. It's very exciting, we gathered a small crowd. Oh, and Emily slides into my back, I tickle her, and then she climbs up to do it again. That's also what's happening with Samuel and Nate's mom on the right.

Up up and away!

Most of you probably know that I really like to climb things. (I really dislike climbing down, but that rarely stops me anymore). Trees, roofs, sculptures, monuments, ruins...pretty much anything is fair game. Mountains have a special pull, and I have a mental list of heights that I desperately wanted to climb but didn't have time to (the Petit and Gran Pitons in St Lucia, and the bluff at Corrymeela, especially), and that I am itching to return and conquer. The orphanage is settled into the base of the mountain ridge that marks the southern edge of Port-au-Prince, so I've been looking at these mountains every day for months, and Friday I finally got to climb them!

Thursday night I looked at googlemaps and sketched what looked like it might be a route to the top on a piece of notebook paper. In several places the paths didn't connect and I just drew arrows to signify "climb straight up the hill until you find the other road". I also tried to add terrain features, and contour lines to help me follow. Mostly it looked like modern art. 

Friday morning we set out after breakfast, armed with water bottles, granola bars, and my oh-so-high-tech map. We started by just continuing up our road until we were out of the city, and the dusty road started to snake along the base of the ridge.  Eventually we decided to ditch the real road, and follow a path up a ravine (this was one of my arrows on the map). 

We know up is the general direction we want. And this donkey-path is going up. Let's do it.

Only half-way, and the view is already incredible! Also, when did the path disappear?

Whatever, paths are for sissies. I'll just climb up this ravine that's so steep it had to be terraced to be in any way useful.

Eventually we were basically rock-climbing up terraces, and then carefully picking our way across the terraces to avoid stepping on beans and corn growing there. How the farmers get up/down there to take care of the crops, or haul out the harvest, I do not know. There were lots of beautiful flowers, rock lizards, and best of all, singing birds! The only birds around the orphanage are pigeons, so it was so nice to hear and see beautiful song-birds.

Zandolit (pronounced zahn-doh-leet. Sounds so much cooler than 'lizard')

After pulling my way up one particularly tricky ledge, I turned to warn Nate about a loose rock, and then turned to find myself nose-to-nose with a cow. I about had a heart-attack. The poor cow probably did too. I squealed something very intelligent along the lines of "IT'S A COW!!!" and nearly fell back down the ledge, but caught myself, saying, "oh, it's a cow. Okay, just a cow. cool. whew." Then Nate and I stood there puzzling and puzzling over how in hell the cow got to be tied on that terrace, or was ever going to leave. If we could barely climb up or down, how was a cow going to do it?? Still wondering about that one. 

So she kind of looks threatening in this picture. But she's actually just pouting and backing away. She'd probably never seen a white person before. Now the poor thing believes in ghosts.

After stopping for a rest, passing some farmers who were quite amused to see two white kids struggling up the ravine, and encountering several varieties of stinging/thorny plants, we finally made it to the road. Probably the happiest I have ever been to see a road before (and I am using the term 'road' loosely here). This was probably the nicest part of the whole hike. The road followed a very gradual incline and wound along the side of the ridge, with incredible views of the city and ocean. 

Look how it's like we're level with the clouds. Crazy gorgeous.

 

We met an adorable donkey, a very threatening, smelly, and HUGE bull, who was luckily tied a fair ways off the road (so glad I didn't run into him coming up the ravine!), and lots and lots of really cute goats. After seven months here, I still had yet to touch a Haitian goat, they're very skittish. So with all these goats staked out by the road, and theoretically unable to escape, I was on a mission. But no matter how slowly and non-threateningly I approached, I always got rejected. :(  

King of the hill.

"Just because I'm small and cute doesn't mean I'm stupid. There is nothing in your hand."

At one point we came around a bend and saw one of the most impressive trees I have ever seen, growing out of the side of a cliff. And, of course, I climbed it, much to the amusement of a bunch of little kids who came around the bend and were shocked and delighted to find a blan way up in a tree. I'm pretty sure I overheard this conversation: 

boy - how did she get up there? 

girl - she climbed. duh.

boy - no she didn't, blans can't climb trees.

girl - that's stupid, yes they can. 

boy - no they can't! 

girl - well how did she get up there then? 

boy - ummmm...

And yes, I did climb all the way up and then down from there without help.

Shortly after this we decided to leave the road and start heading in a more upward direction. We followed a footpath that led us through a tiny village tucked into some trees, where we skirted nervously around an angry dog, tried to avoid stepping on a flock of spazzy chicks that couldn't figure out which way to run, and surprising the heck out of several old ladies and giving them something to talk about for the next week. Then the path led us out of the trees and steeply up a grassy slope. By this point Nate and I were both exhausted (we don't get much/any exercise here, so we're really out of shape) and I was stopping every hundred feet or so to rest.

Paths are for sissies? Yeah, well, that would be me at this point. My legs are done with working, thanks very much

The "top" of the mountain turned out to be a rather vague concept, and every time I thought we were there another little ridge appeared. Finally I stopped short in front of a farmer's field, unable to walk through it without destroying all the new corn. We decided this was "top" enough, and plonked down underneath a convenient tree to eat the snacks we brought and drink the last of our water (why did we think one water bottle each would be enough?). The view was breathtaking, the breeze was lovely, the grass was comfortable...so of course I fell asleep. Only for a few minutes, I think. Oops. I earned it, I guess.

Post-nap victory picture

Now that we had a second wind, we decided to wander down the mountain by a different way. We could see that we had come a lot farther east than we'd intended, so we decided to start by walking along the crest of the ridge. Here I FINALLY found a friendly goat.

Aww hey little buddy. So glad I finally found you. 

Later we started walking past some huge mansions, apparently a good road comes up the backside of the mountain. We were able to look out over to the valley and dry riverbed (dry until rainy season starts next month), and pick out Dr. Bernard's house. There were farms and fields laid out over the hills, like a green patchwork quilt. I was surprised at how much it looked like a mountainous version of Ireland. The soil is so rich here, and the land is capable of producing so much! The problem is that it's difficult to farm on steep hillsides. But with terracing, patience, and tenacity, they do it.

Eventually we left the crest and started winding down the hill. At one point we found raspberry bushes along the path. They were only half-ripe, but I was so excited I ate a whole bunch anyways. Beyond that we found a very large cow standing in the middle of the path. Not as menacing as the bull, but nearly as large, and very much not moving. We faced off for a while, and then without thinking I took a step forward and did a cow wave (for those of you not in the know, this involves moving your arms up and down kinda like you're doing the wave in a stadiu). To my surprise and delight, the cow lumbered off the path. Apparently that arm wave is the universal sign for "move, cow".

Continuing down the hill, the path got worse and worse, until we were rock-hopping along a deep washed out gully. We heard voices calling "blan" and looked back to see two men and a woman standing a little ways behind us motioning for us to come back. They were wearing the uniform of the work crew we'd seen working on the road at the very top of the mountain, and they told us that the path we were following had fallen away from the mountainside a little further down and was very dangerous. They asked where we were going, and when we said Ft. Mekredi they all beamed and motioned for us to come with them down an alternate 'path' that they could follow without hesitation, but I could barely make out. So we zig-zagged down the steep mountainside behind our new friends, hopping down rocky slopes at high speed. I felt like a very tired and dehydrated mountain goat. After nearly an hour of descending so quickly my ears were popping, we came to the edge of the city, and one of the guys stopped at the first vendor we passed and bought water for all of us. So kind of him, and he had no idea how much I needed it; I was starting to feel woozy. After threading through a tangle of alleys we popped out on our street, just above the orphanage. Our guides led us to our door, smiled goodbye, and then parted ways to their own homes. I have no idea how far out of their way they went to bring us home, but we were so so grateful! Yay for random kindness of strangers.

(P.S.Thank you to Nate who took all of these wonderful pictures!)

Life is good...

...because I have this to play with every day.

Three of this, actually. :D

(PS: Darren - you cannot simply cannot argue for hedgehogs in the face of this picture)

The other side of the island

At the beginning of March I went to the Dominican Republic with my parents to visit friends from Virginia who are living in Santo Domingo for two years on a state department posting. I took the bus from P-au-P to Santo Domingo, but I made the newbie mistake of trying to travel across the border on Thursday…which happens to be market day. Fail. So I paid for that by spending over four hours crawling through the border, moving about a bus length every 20 minutes. But I didn’t have it so bad, it was actually the most comfortable bus I have ever been on, and we got to watch a bunch of movies. Four Jim Carrey movies in a row (dubbed in Spanish), then No Country for Old Men (Spanish subtitles), and then German crime thrillers dubbed in Spanish with English subtitles. Quite the experience.

 I was rather flummoxed by the whole customs system at the border. It’s so random and inefficient I think they would actually be better off not even trying to regulate things. It’s not for the faint of heart. The bus stops next to a building that doesn’t look any different from the others, everyone is ordered off the bus, and the driver has all of your passports (or so you’ve been told) so you’re standing in no-man’s-land between countries with no passport. Nerve-wracking to say the least. Then you see a large group of young men shouting and arguing in Spanish and Creole, hauling all the luggage off the bus. You run over and finally establish that they’re just porters, trying to grab your bags and carry them inside for you…for an exorbitant fee. I told them very firmly in three languages to unhand my baggage because I wasn’t going to pay them, and carried my things inside, where a man (supposedly a customs official, with no ID or uniform) directed me to place all my bags on a table, then he dumped them all upside down, roughly searched through the pile, and then tried to convince me to pay him for his trouble. First he asked in Spanish, but I was listening for Creole and didn’t understand. Then he tried Creole but now I was trying to listen for Spanish, and didn’t understand again. He gave up, so I just packed up my things and went back outside, to see that about half of the passengers had simply collected their bags and were waiting by the side of the building. No one seemed to notice or care that they were skipping the customs building entirely. Eventually all the luggage and passengers were chaotically bundled back on the bus, and we crossed the border, although I still had no idea who had my passport, if they had shown it to the proper official, or whether I was entering the country illegally. A few hours later the driver’s assistant finally got around to handing back everyone’s passport, and I saw that it had been stamped. So at least one part of the border crossing was semi-regulated.  I guess they just trust that the passenger on the bus is really Cecelia, not a 50-year old Indian man named Jamil who’s stolen her passport.

Immediately after crossing the border it was like being in a whole different world, not just a different country. Hard to believe it was the same island. Just so much more developed, and not so devastatingly poor. The courthouse and police headquarters in a little podunk town about an hour after the border was bigger and nicer than many of the national government buildings were in Port-au-prince…before the earthquake. After 10 hours on the bus we finally started coming into Santo Domingo, which was so much larger than I expected. As I told Dad when I got off the bus, “I didn’t realize Santo Domingo was, like, a real city, with roads and buildings and stuff!” Yes. Not so eloquent, but really, I was surprised by roads without potholes, and skyscrapers, and shopping malls. Also parking lots! Those don’t exist in Port-au-Prince. 

I had a wonderful time with my parents and our friends the Conaways. We stayed in their lovely apartment (enjoying the 19th floor ocean view), toured the state department offices where Mary Sue works, and visited the orphanage Vern works with (Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos, the same organization that runs the children's hospital where mom works in Haiti). There we got spoiled with yet more adorable children, toured the bakery and got fresh bread, visited the special needs house, and then got invited to tea with a bunch of the volunteers at the house of the orphanage director, who happens to be Irish, so the tea was wonderful. I got to meet several of the orphanage volunteers, as well as some peace corps volunteers who live in the area, and hear about what they do.  

Kattia, in the special needs house at NPH Casa Hogar in the DR.

After all that, we headed to Vern’s favorite restaurant, which happens to be on a beautiful beach.  I’ve been looking at the Caribbean ocean every day for six months and FINALLY got to actually touch it! We did a lot of snorkeling; in one 20 minute swim I found at least 30 kind of fish, lots of coral, a sting ray with ruffly edges, and a 3-foot long sea snake. The next day we joined a very international group (Spanish, French, German, Danish, Russian, Dominican, and Haitian) for a boat ride out to an island called Catalina where we spent the afternoon snorkeling. Dad and I were standing on the empty beach talking about how this would be a perfect place to take some Captain Jack Sparrow pictures, if only we had a bottle of rum…and we looked down at our feet and there was an empty green bottle tucked into some seaweed at the waters edge. Many silly pictures followed.

Captain Jack Sparrow..."but why is all the rum gone?"

Caribbean! Beautiful, blue, very warm water.

Sunday we walked around the Colonial Zone of Santo Domingo. Lots of very old buildings built by Columbus, or someone related to him. In a church where lots of famous people were buried, we stopped to admire a fresco on the arched ceiling. A tourguide jumped in to explain that this fresco represents hell on the left side, and heaven on the right. “When I die, heaven is where I want to go so I can be with John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Michael Jackson.” An interesting trio, no?

We also visited a big fort (apparently I didn’t notice the names of any of the things we visited). We walked the walls and turrets, climbed on the cannons, sat on the more modern tanks and machine guns on display, and explored the castle at the center. Later, at the impressive ruins of the oldest hospital in the Western hemisphere we saw more pigeons than I have ever seen in one place, ever. And consequently, no one actually wanted to walk into the ruins for fear of being pooped on.

At the end of our walk we met up with a large group of the Conaway’s friends to have dinner at a restaurant where all the waiters were dressed like pirates. Lots of fun, and fantastic food. The next day after dad left for the airport, mom and I returned the colonial zone and just wandered around window shopping, eating ice cream, visiting the amber museum, enjoying the sunshine, and walking home along the ocean. It felt more like Europe than the Caribbean, and a whole world away from Haiti. That night we decided to go see the movie Rango. We sort of forgot that of course the movie would be in Spanish, but honestly I think it might have been even funnier in Spanish than it is in English. I’ll have to watch it again when I get home and compare. Despite not understanding most of the dialogue, mom and I still laughed our heads off and had a great time.

On Tuesday we took the bus back to Haiti with a ridiculous amount of luggage (Mom brought all sorts of supplies for the children’s hospital and therapy center), and enjoyed the beautiful drive through the mountains to Port-au-Prince. The border crossing was much faster without the market day crowds, and this time they didn’t even bother taking the luggage off the bus. Mom spent a few days with me at the orphanage, and then went over to the NPH hospital in Tabarre, where she did pool therapy and started to train some of the Haitian employees in pool therapy as well. I went to visit her right before she left, and had a great time playing with kids in the pool, playing with the kids in the abandoned baby room at the hospital, and later going out for drinks with several of the amazing NPH workers. Our group consisted of an Irish physical therapist, two Argentinian physical therapists, a Canadian nun/occupational therapist, a German social worker, two Haitian girls my age, and then my mom and I. A ridiculously fun group of people, and I could totally see myself being them in a few years.

La Cucaracha

Recently someone asked me what I am most looking forward to about going home in May (little over a month away, what? where did the time go??). Without even thinking about i blurted out, "Going 24 hours without seeing a cockroach". I stopped to think about it, and really? What about ice cream? Or hot showers? Or my family? But let me try to explain.

I think it's fair to say that I am less phobic than the average person when it comes to dealing with cockroaches. My first experience with them came freshman year of college when I ran across the hall to figure out why my hallmates were screaming and standing on their desks...and then patiently chased the cockroach out from under the bed, caught it in a plastic cup, and let it go outside. Yes, really.

Then there was the movie Wall.E, with the cute cockroach sidekick. How could you not love that faithful, indestructible little guy who closely resembles a cricket?

As an RA senior year my attitude towards the little buggers hardened, as I was responsible for making sure that people didn't transport them or their eggs upstairs or into other dorms from storage boxes in the basement of my building.

I was expecting to deal with lots of strange insects in Haiti, and I have seen some beautiful spiders, waged war on tiny but vicious mosquitos, been perplexed by the steady nowhere to nowhere trek of miniscule ants trooping across my walls, and been bitten by a horde of angry red ants I mistakenly invited onto me when leaning against our little roof garden. That one actually ended with me whipping my shirt off and madly slapping myself trying to get rid of them all. I'm sure a bunch of neighbors saw me and were permanently convinced that I am insane, but there was nothing else to be done. I must say though, that the cockroaches here really go above and beyond the call of duty. First off, there are apparently several different types. I didn't know this. There are the tiny roaches which can be found in every crevice of the kitchen and dining room, no matter how often we scrub it or chase them out with boiling water. There are the medium size ones that at least have the decency to scuttle out of sight when you turn the light on. We mutually scare the hell out of each other in the bathroom at night, when they panic not knowing where to hide from the sudden intruder, and I flip out because in their panic they ran across my foot.  And then there are the giant ones, and they fly. Cockroaches are not supposed to fly. They scuttle, they are stealthy and sneaky, that's why we don't trust them. But flying puts them almost into the 'bat' category, and that I simply cannot handle. After the appearance of one of these sends me (and all the other girls) screeching from the room, we regroup, remind ourselves that we are at least a thousand times their size, arm ourselves with flip-flops, and attack without mercy. We maintain an uneasy equilibrium.

Recently the situation has gotten out of hand. I think that the sudden spurt of activity from our resident plumber/handyman has forced several communities of cockroaches out into the open. A few days ago I was attacked by a particularly frenetic one while in the shower. Later a medium-sized one appeared on my bed, sitting innocently next to my pillow. In broad daylight!! That combined with picking a few small crawly ones off my pant legs prompted me to take apart my entire room searching for the source. I found nothing, no purse-like garnet egg capsules, no hidden homes underneath the mattress, not even a few loners hiding underneath my dresser. I was at least comforted by knowing they're not living in my room, they just find it a desirable vacation destination. I still slept that night with my bed pulled out away from the walls into the middle of the room (not sure how this was supposed to help, but it made me feel better) and had dreams that the pantry downstairs had been invaded by a horde of cockroaches 6 inches long and for some reason I was expected to sleep down there.

So, ice cream? hot showers? family and friends? All wonderful, and I'm very excited for them, but now that my creepy crawly buddies have invaded even my dreams, they are officially the number one thing I am excited about leaving behind.

Kembe

Back in February, I started asking around to figure out where the nearest Catholic church is. After a very tangled chain of questions/people, I established that a very ambiguous "we" think the blue and white church you can see across the ravine might be Catholic. Armed with that information, Nate and I ventured out one Saturday morning and attempted to find it. This was more difficult than it sounds, because to get there you have to go all the way down the hill, get across the ravine, and then work your way back up the hill trying to maintain your bearings through windy narrow streets. After several dead ends and much backtracking, the blue and white bell tower finally popped up in front of us, and we found an office tucked in the wall of the courtyard where I was able to ask what time mass was the next morning. She told me 6am. I was so excited about the chance to get to Catholic mass that I didn't even realize this would mean waking up while it was still dark. But, get up early I did, and stalled until it wasn't quite 'dark' anymore (although it sure wasn't 'light' either!) before setting out for mass. And I was so glad I did! Turns out the service didn't actually start until 6:30, (more like 6:45, Haitian time), but getting there early meant I actually got a seat. The church was absolutely packed, even by Haitian standards. And mass was wonderful, great worship, the congregation was awake and involved, and everyone clapped after the sermon! (Don't know why, but this made me really happy).

One of the colorful characters I've met in our neighborhood is Madam Girard. I think she's probably over 60, but still a ball of energy. Her house is situated about 2/3rds of the way up the hill with a clear view in all directions, and she takes it upon herself to know everything about everybody in our neighborhood. When you need to coordinate something, or find someone, you mention to anyone within earshot that you'd like to talk to her, it spreads by word of mouth across the neighborhood, and 10 minutes later she appears. Last week she appeared unexpectedly on Friday afternoon and announced that she was taking me to church. I was very confused; this was the first I'd heard about it! And unfortunately I was in the middle of something and couldn't go with her. A few days later I realized that she was probably trying to take me to Stations of the Cross, a prayerful meditation on Jesus' walk to Calvary that happens in Catholic churches around the world on Friday afternoons during Lent. Yesterday I made sure to keep my Friday afternoon clear, and headed over at 3:15 (Madam Girard was pretty sure it started at 3:30), and arrived to a nearly empty church. Shoot, apparently it's not happening. Now what. Frustrated, and wanting to escape the piercing stares and whispering I inevitably attract whenever I go anywhere, I tucked myself into a pew in the corner and bowed my head. Crankily I thought, "Well, I walked all the way over here, I might as well stay and pray for a while." Thank goodness when I don't make time for prayer, God steps in and makes the time for me.  Thirty minutes later, more people started to trickle in and it became obvious that something would be happening in the church eventually, so I decided to wait around until it did. Gradually the section I was sitting in filled up, and I realized I had unknowingly chosen a seat in the tiny old lady section. I was surrounded by very short, mostly deaf, at least 70-year old women. This got awkward later when every time we stood up I literally towered over everyone around me.

Deciding to wait around for something to happen in Haiti can be a rather large commitment. Sometime after 5pm the priest arrived and the Stations of the Cross started. By this time the church was full, and I have never seen people take this meditation so much to heart. For starters, it took over 2 hours to get through the 14 stations. Very few people had programs, but everyone seemed to know the accompanying prayers and songs from memory. The songs that go with the stations are more like laments. In American churches, they have an unfortunate tendency to become emotionless dirges sung by less than enthusiastic participants (Americans just aren't very good at music, I'm starting to think). But here people poured their whole heart and soul into these songs, and sang them lovingly, powerfully, as the laments they are; reaching into places of pain and suffering in their own lives and connecting that to Jesus' suffering on the way of the cross. I suppose in most of the Stations of the Cross I've ever led or participated in, the meditations have centered on the emotional anguish. Yesterday I realized that in America we tend to have little to no experience of physical suffering, and we too easily gloss over the physical suffering of Calvary. It's hard for us to relate to, it's messy and uncomfortable. But here in this church, on a steep hillside in a Port-au-Prince slum, I was probably the only person there who hadn't experienced physical suffering as a part of daily life, especially during the past year. Carrying a cross up the hill to Calvary? The women around me could relate, they've carried water weighing nearly as much as themselves up the steep hill under an unmerciful sun every day of their lives. The people who gathered in the church were tired, coming from the end of a long week. Here was a place to pour out their suffering, their pain, their despair, and know that Jesus carries it all with them, every step of the way. They drank in the words of the service like they were filling up on strength and energy.

There's a creole phrase, "kembe", which literally translates to "keep", but also means "hold on" or "stay strong". It encompasses a lot of Haitian life: the patience, the waiting, the quiet strength. As we ended the last station, with Jesus lying in the tomb, the final words of the priest "kembe, zanmi(friends), kembe" followed us as everyone drifted out of the church and hurried towards homes in the enveloping darkness. Kembe through another week of life and pain and uncertainty. Kembe until next week when they will gather to pray these stations again, and again every week until finally...Easter, the victory, the symbol of everything we kembe for.

adventures in public transportation

This week has been a lot of fun. The kittens are getting bigger. They look less like rodents and more like cats now, which is exciting. And so we've been taking pictures. Of course.

Tea-kitty.

I wish I could say this was not my idea.

 I have caught Nate carrying around a kitten in his shirt several times now, and the best part is that our janitor/doorman, Soufrant, is deathly afraid of kittens. Yes you read that right. He just dislikes cats, but kittens are to him, in the words of one of my college roommates, "little tiny furry terrors". So of course, we've been chasing him around the building with kittens all week. It's been great. Today I found out the girls have named them. The big one (pictured here) is Tom, the middle one is Jerry, and the littlest has been named Cecelia, for reasons unclear to me, but hey! I have a cat named after me, woohoo. 

Another awesome part of last week was that I got to see Mike Ruth! I'll just say he's my non-biologically related uncle. He was in Haiti doing mapping work for World Vision and some other NGOs, and I got to meet up with him in Petionville on Sunday for lunch. 

Sorry it's kind of dark, Haitian sun makes pictures very difficult.

The incredible view from Mike's hotel. 

Getting up to Petionville was an adventure, and my first solo attempt at public transportation (before I've always had someone from the orphanage I could follow blindly). People who move to totally new places often talk about "integrating with the local culture". The meaning is that you have your own cultural way of doing things, and when you move to a new place you should be conscious of the way you do things, and make an effort to replace some of those ways with the local ways. This includes things like eating stuff you didn't realize was edible, learning to function by candle-light, showering from a bucket, not eating in public places, dressing very formally for church, etc. In this case, I decided it was time to integrate Port-au-Prince public transportation into my way of life here, instead of asking Dr. Bernard to arrange for a driver to take me all the way to Petionville on what should be his day off.

As you may know, during my semester abroad in Europe I used public transportation extensively for the first time, and found out that I was pretty good at figuring out how it worked in each new city, and really enjoyed the challenge.  Unfortunately, this knowledge really doesn't translate to Haiti. I set out on Sunday morning armed with knowledge of point A and point B, but only a very vague idea of how I was going to get from one to the other. Luckily the rule that you can figure out any transportation system via trial and error (as long as you're willing to walk a lot when you make mistakes) is still true here. I found a tap-tap that brought me to the city centre, and then walked north until I found a fairly large street going the direction I wanted (up the hill), and waved down another passing tap-tap. When that one pulled over for gas, I hopped across the road to a motorcycle taxi stand and showed a driver the address of Mike's hotel. Then the fun part, flying up the mountain on the back of a motorcycle, (you may pretend I was wearing a helmet and protective gear, if that makes you feel better), weaving in and out of trucks and cars, and honking the horn excessively. After about 20 minutes of this, I realized the driver actually had no idea where he was going, and made him pull over and ask for directions. Aaaand back down the mountain we go. I decided to think of it as a scenic detour, and really the view from that road (Route de Kenscoff) is gorgeous. After a couple more stops for directions we finally got to the right place, the driver started to demand more money because it took more time and gas than he expected, then took one look at my face and thought better of it. Probably he remembered that I was - unlike your typical blan in Haiti -capable of telling him it was his own darn fault for lying about knowing the address.

I had a wonderful lunch with Mike, talking about life at the orphanage, his work for World Vision, and Haiti in general. I found myself ordering the biggest steak on the menu. Guess I'm craving protein? We're basically on the reverse Atkin's diet here. I probably enjoyed it more than I have enjoyed any other steak in my life, thank you Mike! When it was time to go, I looked at my map to find out the name of the street that led back down the hill, and then wandered around Petionville until I found it. This was the part where I got my first real sunburn in Haiti. On the one hand I'm proud of myself for not getting terribly burnt before this. On the other hand...ow, and my neck is now peeling. People were definitely confused about seeing a white girl walking. ("What is she doing? Where is her driver? She must be lost. White people don't ever walk anywhere!") But eventually I flagged a tap tap and squeezed in between a very old farmer carrying a rooster, and a young mom with her adorable baby. Down in the city we got dropped off in a part I didn't recognize, but I just picked a direction and it happened to be the right one and I saw landmarks I knew. I walked the 10 blocks or so to where I knew I could catch a tap tap home. At the end of the trip I decided to spring for a motorcycle taxi up our hill...I was tired, my feet hurt, and I didn't care about not being pathetic, I just wanted to be home and take my shoes off. In my defense, what I call a hill is technically a small mountain. 

Interestingly the taxi ride up the hill, which lasted approximately 40 seconds, cost 15 gouds. That's approximately 40 cents. The tap tap ride from the city all the way to Petionville (a trip of at least 20 minutes)? Also 15 gouds. Somehow that is just not right. Economist friends, please tell me. Did I get super-ripped off, or could the rate difference really be that big?

A picture's worth a thousand words...

I was going to try to describe a recent attempt at leading yoga...but I think this picture pretty much sums up the hilarity:

 And this picture holds several hundred thousand words. This is a pile of all the books I read between September 15th and January 5th. Some I brought with me, some my mom brought for me, and some are in the library here.

 

And for my fellow bookworms...titles, authors, and comments...

Kittens and Clouds

This light and fluffy blog post brought to you by Mother Nature.

We have a very sweet cat here who lives in the kitchen and pantry and does wonders for our mice problem. Or at least she did until she learned to beg from the table. But I don't see mice anymore, so I think she's still doing her job. Last week she had 3 kittens! I had somehow failed to notice that she was pregnant (?? I don't pick her up very much, and she's so skinny to begin with. I guess I'm used to fat American cats and just thought she was finally approaching normal cat weight.) So now there are three white and black kittens living in a box in the back of the dining room. They mostly just look like blind rats at the moment, but they're still pretty cute, and we're very excited for when their eyes open in another week and we can start playing with them.  

Mimi and her 3 kittens

The other big event of the past week is that dry season is officially over. Hallelujah! It has rained several nights in a row this week, after nearly two months of no rain at all, and it is such a welcome relief. Thursday night a huge storm came through, and Friday morning we woke up to clear blue skies and amazing clouds! I had forgotten what it was like to be able to see the mountains on the other side of the city, or the island (Île de la Gonâve) out in the bay. Sometimes the mountains here remind me of Ireland, because they are green, but covered in brush, not trees. The first thing I noticed when I woke up and looked out the window was how vibrant all the colors were when not seen through a thick film of dust hanging on the air and coating every object. "Oh right, this is a Caribbean island! It's gorgeous here!"

After breakfast I went up on the roof to take pictures of the incredible clouds. I've always been a fan of clouds, but thanks to my friend Maria's amazing cloud blog (The Accidental Naturalist) I've started noticing them a lot more on a day-to-day basis and I have quite a collection of cloud pictures from our roof. But these clouds were making everybody do a double take and say "woah, awesome!" I know because the girls asked to borrow my camera, and when I looked later to see what they'd been taking pictures of, I found nearly 30 pictures of the clouds. Not the bay and the clouds, not the mountains and the clouds, just the clouds, they were that captivating.

I think part of what made them spectacular was that they were very close.

Clouds hovering just overheard, and churning above the opposite mountains.

Clouds over the bay, this is so delicate it looks like a painting!

Urban Fabric

A friend of mine in architecture school is participating in a capstone seminar that is focused on rebuilding Haiti. I’ve been sharing a lot of descriptions about the neighborhood I live in to help him get a sense of what life is like in this city. I decided to post here the notes I wrote up for him.  They’re not particularly riveting, but they do give a pretty detailed picture of the neighborhood around me, and I thought some of you might be interested. 

One thing to keep in mind - this is just one a description of our particular bit of hillside. There are parts of the city with really nice houses. There are parts of the city that are business districts. There are parts of the city that are just tin and cardboard shacks sitting on a mound of trash extending out into the bay. So this is only one cross-section of the city, but hopefully an eye-opening one.

Streets: Our street is recently paved so it’s fairly smooth and actually has curbs to define its edges. All the other roads are in pretty bad shape. Huuuge potholes, cars get stuck in them all the time. In addition there’s a permanently compacted layer of rubble and trash on most roads, especially intersections. Also any roads in our neighborhood are lined on both sides by vendors, carts, stalls, baskets, etc. There may or may not be room for 2 trucks to pass each other. Houses go up right to he roadside, no yards to speak of. Doors exit right onto the street. In some places the road has risen up faster than the houses, so a doorway contains a few steps down into a house below the level of the road. This is bad for a lot of reasons. Gutters overflow down into house, and sunlight never gets in to dry things up, or kill germs and mold. As far as traffic, not a lot of cars/trucks on our hill. Maybe one ever 30 minutes? There’s a constant stream of motorcycles, probably about 10 per minute. And pedestrian traffic. No sidewalks, so they’re just on either side of the road. Greatest volume between 5:30-7:30 am, with water fetching, people going to school/work.

Silent Night - the third verse is actually the most important

The most exciting thing that happened to me over Christmas break was that I started speaking Creole. Yes! Me! Creole! I still can’t quite believe it. Granted I am using the term “speaking” very loosely here; something along the lines of “I understand more than 50% of what people are saying to me, and occasionally I can respond in complete, vaguely grammatical sentences.” Doesn’t sound so impressive, but really this is huge, as anyone who’s ever tried living in the midst of a totally foreign language can attest. At one point in late December I noticed that I had started to make jokes with a few of the nannies. This is significant because jokes generally rely on comedic timing; a quick response that doesn’t allow for slow English to Creole mental translation or consulting a dictionary. So this was a much needed confidence boost. Another key factor in kicking my language butt into gear was that I was the only American here over the Christmas holidays. So it was either have conversations in Creole, or not have any conversations more significant than “Hi, how are you?” for two weeks. And you know what I realized once I started trying? That the girls had been using less and less English in conversations with me for quite a while already, and for the most part were speaking to me totally in Creole. It had been such a gradual transition I hadn’t realized how well I understood the language!

Moving right along...

It’s been quite a while since I posted here. Our internet was permanently down after a 3-year old tripped into the satellite dish on the roof and broke a part. The internet is still down, but thanks to my Dad who did all the research, I was able to go to the Digicell headquarters (which is easily the biggest, fanciest building in Port-au-Prince, and the only one with an elevator, I’m told) and get a USB modem that gets us broadband wireless internet. Not super-fast, but so much more reliable.

This morning the government finally announced the long-awaited election results. This is what I wrote yesterday about waiting for them.

"Everybody is edgy and anxious. Rafael is walking around with his little radio glued to his ear. Rumors are flying around about what time the announcement will be made. 5pm. Noon. 9pm. Tomorrow. Never. So many questions! Is Preval trying to hold onto his power? Is Aristide coming? Why is Duvalier here? If Aristide comes, will everything derail? What if Preval says Celestin should be in the run-off and we’re back to square one and rioting? The total uncertainty is the most unnerving thing. Everyone knows that significant questions are being decided, but no one knows when or how things will be decided, so we are suspended in a sort of delicate limbo that could easily come crashing down into a messy, violent political confrontation. Up until yesterday, the political situation remained essentially the same as it was in mid-December, except with a mounting sense of pressure, because President Preval is constitutionally bound to name the candidates in the run-off election and set a date for those elections before Feb. 7^th. If he does not do so, he will have effectively declared that he does not intend to step down as president, and the UN and OAS will no longer recognize him as legitimate president and will begin taking aggressive steps to remove him. This would be really really bad and everyone’s hoping it doesn’t come to that. So most people are hoping that he will follow the OAS recommendations on the outcome of the first-round elections, name Manigat and Martelly the two competitors for the run-off, and acknowledge that his hand-picked successor Celestin is out of the race"

Last night the power was out in half the city, so the streets were eerily quiet. No one wanted to be caught out on the street if the “wrong” results were announced and there were riots again. Still no announcement by 10 o’clock, so I went to bed, but stayed up for a long time listening to the faint sound of a radio playing somewhere down the street, jolting awake every time I heard the candidate’s names. This morning the announcement finally came. Around 7:30 am I heard the whole neighborhood reacting to something and I jumped up to look out the window. People listening to the radio on the corner passed the news up the hill and through the neighborhood. “Manigat and Martelly. Goodbye Celestin.” There were a few cheers, but mostly it seemed everyone (including me) just breathed a huge sigh of relief.

The kids are happy though. None of the teachers came in today because they were worried they might get stranded here if riots started after the announcement, so school got cancelled. It’s only fair, we don’t get snow days here, so they get ‘election results’ days instead. 

And now even though it’s already February (how did that happen? Time is going by so much faster than it ever did while I was in school!), I’ll go back and tell stories from Christmas break.

As soon as exams were over and the kids had a lot more time on their hands, they asked to braid my hair. So a full day of braiding later, I had purple, blonde, and black extensions braided into my own hair to make braids that hung down to my waist.

 

At first my head felt really weird and I freaked out every time I looked in the mirror, but after a few days I got used to it and realized that it was really nice not to have to brush/arrange my hair a zillion times a day. One of our janitors told me that I was Haitian now because I had Haitian hair (literally translated, “a Haitian head”). It actually got me quite a lot of street cred, if I may be allowed to use that phrase. Basically, people stopped assuming that I was a tourist, and I got a lot less off-color comments from guys on the street.

When Nate (the new intern) came in at the beginning of January, I went with our driver to go pick him up at the airport. This was a little daunting because the airport is a bit crazy and I had no idea what Nate looked like. But I shouldn’t have really worried. He knew I would be there to meet him, and I was the only white woman waiting in the pick-up area. In a random and over-zealous enforcement of immigration policy, the passport officers refused to let him through customs because he didn’t know the address of the place he would be staying in Haiti. (I should point out that street addresses in Port-au-Prince are a rather vague concept…anywhere else in the country they’re pretty much nonexistent, so this is really an absurd requirement). Anyways, he managed to explain to them that I was outside and would (hopefully) know the address they wanted. So they made him leave his bags and papers in the office, and then let him out a side door into the parking lot to find me. He and I then went backwards through the baggage claim, customs desks, and passport control with nobody even giving us a second glance. After I erased “Cecelia” from where the officer had written it on the address line of the immigration form, I wrote our address and the gruff officer stamped away at forms and passport with much gusto and very little attention to where exactly he was stamping, and we left the office. At this point I realized that I was on the wrong side of immigration and customs with no ID whatsoever. Not to worry, I simply shouldered one of Nate’s duffel bags, explained to the customs guy in an offhand manner, in Creole, that “He’s been through here already, and I’m with him” and we both got waved through without a thought. Not a very comforting representation of government security or control, I’ll admit, but I prefer to think of the whole thing as me busting a friend out of the immigration office with my awesome braids, passable Creole, and confident attitude. :-p