Thursday, April 26, 2012

Amazing Moments


Photo from a writing workshop in L'Acul du Nord (a few days ago)
So, I have these amazing days. Even my ordinary days have amazing moments. It's not just that I love my job, although I do work with wonderful people who are doing all they can do to transform their communities. But I also live in a place of amazing beauty and laughter and dignity and tragedy.

My days are very full and I do not take the time to jot down the special moments. I then forget them. Over the past few weeks I've been translating for a writing workshop and I've been reflecting on what a loss it is to not record these moments. Here's a slice from today:

Today we were in Bas Duty for our sixth writing workshop. The participants were a mixture of trainers, committee members, and house-to-house volunteers from the Community Health Evangelism programs in Bas Duty and its neighbor, Haut Duty. As usual, the work that the participants did was remarkable, both in content and style. Amelina, a trainer, wrote about a trip she took to neighboring Dominican Republic and her thoughts on the two countries. She wrote, “Our country is charged/loaded with riches, but all those riches turn into nothing.” St. Hiloine Platiny commented on how important it was to have written stories, not just oral stories. “If we do not remember where we've come from, we cannot have a future tomorrow.”

During the training I was reminded that my job description includes the need to be physically strong. The site only had a semi-latrine -- a hole low on the back wall extending down to the sloping floor – for men to urinate. It was a huge leap to get up to the latrine. One reached the latrine only after navigating a slippery, muddy path. Thankfully they had loaned us a bucket for the women to use. There were lots of mosquitoes, and I'd only thought to put repellent on my lower legs, not on my behind. Itchy.

We had to work to overcome the noise from the soccer game during the second half of the workshop -- the television for the community was right next door to the building in which we were meeting. There were a lot of people watching the game since Real Madrid, a favorite team, was playing. Some kids lounged in the branches of a mango tree to better see the TV.

As at the conclusion of the other trainings, after several of the participants commented on how much they enjoyed the training and the effort of the facilitators, then it was our job to thank the participants for their time and thank the trainers for their preparations. Then the trainers and the committee presidents spoke. (I'm very please that I'm finally getting better at this sort of thing – I used to forget to do it but now these formalities come naturally.) The first part of the ride home was in the Hamilton's truck, with four extra passengers who were at our training. Hitching a ride is called a wou lib, or “free wheel.”

The second part of the trip home was in a taptap, a small pickup that has the bed fitted with benches and a roof. It's only 10 gourds, or 25 cents, for the 30- to 60-minute ride. I love riding in taptaps. Yes, it's true, the roofs aren't exactly rainproof. And everyone is squished in, and one's head hits the roof or other body parts smash painfully into things due to the bumpy roads. But, as my supervisor once remarked, during the short time of the ride a small community is formed. People discuss politics, yell at other passengers for littering, provide laps for other people's children.

Traveling here is never boring. Today, as we started out along National Highway #1, a man was leading seven cows home. They were tied to walk all seven abreast, taking up most of the road. Then we passed a funeral procession – people slowly marching in front of and behind the hearse. This procession included a choir that was singing beautifully.

Across from me was seated an older woman, wearing a mauve scrub top with the logo of an American homehealth agency and a leopard print skirt. After we passed the procession she started singing the same song that we'd heard from the choir. After a minute my co-worker, the other end of the taptap, said, “You'll make me cry.” He said it several times, albeit with a smile on his face, but she didn't stop. Someone else said, “Madam, maybe he just had someone die, he says you'll make him cry.” She kept singing the rest of the trip, different hymns in Kreyol and French.

Soon we see people streaming down the street, some laughing and shouting and running. Someone in the taptap says, “The soccer game must be over.”

I get off at the end of the line in downtown Cap Haitien. I start to walk home since it is only 30-some short blocks. I love walking, there is so much to see. As usual, I pass by the Boy Chill Barbershop, its doors painted with combs, a hairdryer, a razor, and also painted heads of men with very neat haircuts and trimmed beards.

I love living here.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Traveling Again!

I just got back from northeastern Haiti -- we're doing a series of workshops for some of our Community Health Evangelism volunteers. I hope to write a post on these workshops soon, but till then I'll leave you with links to others' posts about them:

Deborah Carr, writing coach and our workshop facilitator

Rhonda Hamilton, intern with Medical Ambassadors Canada

Both of these women are great photographers, so I encourage you to go to their blogs not just to read but also to see!

I, on the other hand, am not a talented photographer. I could not even seem to get a great picture of my leg -- and I so wanted you to be able to appreciate my latest drama.


Both of my lower legs are covered in two kinds of bites: these bites surrounded by red halos, and smaller punctate bites (in clumps of 20-ish). Yup, I didn't think I needed to take insect repellent to the mountains because of the lower temperatures there. Oops.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

A couple of days in the Dominican Republic

It was phenomenal to stay at Marie's brother's place in Santo Domingo. (Marie is the wife of our Haiti director, and I accompanied her back to the Dominican Republic for more medical tests.) It has been great to get to know her better, and this trip I got to spend two nights at her brother Filone's place. The house is in a nice neighborhood but was left unoccupied for some years, so it was stripped of electrical wiring and doesn't have running water. A nice neighbor, Ito, fills buckets with water for Filone. So we took bucket baths via cell phone light in the evenings. Marie's three other brothers and her sister's husband also live in Santo Domingo and the evenings were filled with visitors – including Marie's adorable 16-month-old twin nieces and some of Filone's Dominican neighbors.
Marie with her brother and his twin daughters

Filone took me on a run the last evening. I haven't run for months, so it was awesome. He really should be an athletic trainer – he kept encouraging me to add in all sorts of Rocky-like moves to my run.


Ito supplied a book so that I could help one of Marie's nieces, Franchesca, with her reading. She's been held back in school and so I'd asked Ito if he had any children's books. At first he said no, but then he came back with a manual on aqueducts and water systems! It had some nice cartoon pictures of community meetings and wells, and we actually did use it for a bit.

Franchesca and I played games with letters and then she did some drawings. She made a lovely drawing of the two of us as princesses in a castle, dancing! Marie later told me that after the first night she and her parents visited, Franchesca – who had seemed rather shy – had asked her mother if I “like black people.” The need for her to ask kind of depresses me, but I love that she was apparently satisfied enough with the answer to play with me that second night.

Franchesca with her mom.

There is no kitchen in the house so Ito, the neighbor, provided coffee the first morning that we were there. The second morning we had to get up at 4:15 am to take the bus to Santiago for another medical appointment, so at midnight the night before Ito brought over a thermos of coffee – what a sweetheart!

In the Santiago hospital the next day I was reminded of Dominican manners, which are similar to Haitian ones in some ways. When you walk into a waiting room you say “good morning” to the people already there, and you also greet people when you get on an elevator.  I think I might make some people nervous in the US if I start doing this....

The next day Marie and I went to the bus station so that she could go back home to Haiti. God really provided for us – Genson and Claudia, two acquaintances of mine, were there waiting for the same bus! So she wasn't alone on the trip, and they were able to help her at the border crossing. Also, a mutual friend came to pick up Genson and Claudia from the bus station and also took Marie home. What a blessing!

After seeing Marie off, I got on a bus to go up to the north coast for a few days of vacation. The bus dropped me off in the bigger city down the road, and I was informed by a fellow passenger that a carro would be cheaper than a taxi to get to Cabarete, my final destination. The taxi drivers at the bus drop-off nicely told me where to wait for a carro, and that I should look for one with a blue gorrita (that means ball-cap, but in the DR apparently also means a little plastic sign on top of the car). A van pulled up and I got in – 25 pesos for me and another 25 for my carry-on-sized bag, since it would be taking the space of a person. I got a little over half of my behind on the seat, and held on to the outside of the roof with the sliding side door open beside me. The cobrador – who assigns people to their places, signals the driver when to stop, and takes the fares – was standing in the open doorway. At one point as we were curving sharply he held up his leg to block me from falling out!