A Week in Mombin Crochu (northeastern Haiti) -- Day 2

Beautiful countryside seen on our trip today.

Tuesday, July 16

In the morning Adelin asks me if I “don't have anything he can throw away for me.” He means the pee basin. Thankfully, I was able to tell him that I'd already emptied it.

I'll be riding with Adelin today, and Osse will drive Eric.  Did I say that the roads were bad between Cap Haitien and Mombin Crochu?  Well, it's true -- but the roads even further up the mountains are even worse. I've been around this area via both truck and motorcycle before. The driver has his feet down lots of the time for balance. Adelin's motorcycle doesn't have a working horn, which is unfortunate, since these are rocky, curvy, rutted, mountain roads and we drive all over the road to find the best path.

Just like in the US, when passing people in rural areas in Haiti you greet them. When we would pass by people that Osse or Adelin knew, they often say, “Woy, woy, woy” and the other driver responds, “Okay, okay, okay!” For people that are not known as well, it's a head nod and, “Gentlemen,” or “Ladies and Gentlemen.”

It's ridiculously beautiful here. I'm also getting a good workout – I posted the following on my Facebook:

I have come up with a new interval workout -- traveling by motorcycle through the mountains of northeastern Haiti. You start out with an arm workout (holding the back of the motorcycle to stay on). You switch to legs periodically: lifting them up high as you cross rivers and go through mud puddles, or jamming your feet into the footholds to keep from sliding into the driver on steep downhills, or getting off the bike and hiking up the mountain when it's too steep/rough for the moto to carry two.

It's steeper than it looks in the picture!  I've jumped off to walk up the hill.

I am humbled, for the millionth time, at the hard work that my brothers and sisters do to transform their communities. Adelin worked part time for a USAID/PLAN project doing HIV/AIDS prevention, which is how he got this motorcycle. It needs a new chain, which he hasn't been able to find, so he greased it before we started out this morning. Somehow because he also needs new “sprockets” the motorcycle can't haul us both up every mountain. He doesn't want to push it and risk breaking something. Once even he has to get off and push his motorcycle up the last stretch – I can't imagine how hard this is with a heavy bike.

Yet another hill too steep for this bike's current condition -- as I watch while walking up from below, Adelin has to get off and push his bike the rest of the way.

Today's trip is to the village of Bois de Laurence, where they've asked volunteers from the surrounding villages of Mapou, Lagwamit, Venbal, Birèl, Derrière Garde, and Sylvestre to come and share their stories. (Stay tuned, because I'll put their stories up next!)

After I'm done typing everyone's stories, Osse, Eric, and Adelin meet with the local trainers and answer questions.  Phone signals aren't always good out here and the bad roads (and lack of finances for travel) make it difficult for our master trainers to get out here as often as they would like.   Soon, however, they decide we should get going, since it looks like rain.  Thankfully we get back "home" to Mombin without any rain -- the clouds changed direction.

When I stay at someone's house I like to figure out something that I can do to contribute – here it looks like that is washing dishes. The first two days there is water in the reservoir at the house (it dried up after that and someone's job was to go to the pump closer to the village for water for us). I fill up two tubs for washing and rinsing and set the dishes in a laundry basket to drain. Washing dishes is one of my favorite household tasks. It's only slightly complicated here by the fact that there are stinging ants all around. So every few minutes I have to pause and jump around, scratching one foot with the other, stung again.

One of the guys sees me jumping around and asks if it's the ants. I tell him it's a shame they're the stinging kind, and he says that most ants he knows sting. He says they call non-stinging ones, “crazy ants.” I ask why and he says, “Well, because they don't sting!”

Throughout the night I realize that I'm using my basin several times a night. It's probably more than normal because I deliberately dehydrate a bit during the day so as not to have trouble while traveling. Then I drink a lot of water in the evening to make up for it. But again, the walls in the house do not go all the way up to the ceiling. Although the basin I've got is pretty shallow, it still seems extremely loud to me and, well, you know how time seems to be fluid? Sometimes lasting longer and other times passing by quickly? I swear it takes me five minutes to empty my bladder each time – enough time for every man in the house to wake up and think, “Is she peeing again? What is with her?” Sigh.

T-shirts seen around the village from a campaign we were a part of -- the phrase chosen for this HIV/AIDS prevention campaign is, "Control your pleasures to protect your life."