Continuing my posts from last year's travels to collect stories from Community Health Evangelism (CHE) communities
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Seen while walking just outside the village of Mombin Crochu
(My first picture of the pastoral scene didn't quite turn out since one of these donkeys abruptly mounted the other one! Nature.) |
Thursday, July 18, 2013
I
wake up and look at the fruit basket that was placed in my room yesterday. Curiously,
there's part of a mango missing. While washing fruit later in the
day (for mangos this means scrubbing and soaking them in “regular”
water, then rinsing them in treated water) I show the half-eaten one
to Adelin. He says, “Oh, yeah, a rat must have started eating it.”
I say I didn't know they liked mangos. He answers,
“Oh, sure. Rats are wily – they will even climb up a mango tree
to eat the mangos!” (FYI, mango trees are really tall!)
After a rough motorcycle ride we arrive in Logat. Osse enters the church and sits down on a pew,
extending his legs, looking tired. I say, “These roads are not a
joke.” He answers, “No indeed, they are not a joke. They are
body-breaking.” I think about this often while traveling – that
in other countries people pay dearly to play “extreme” sports, and in
Arizona they build little hills for dirt bikers to have fun. But
here these things are tiring, and sometimes life-threatening. (Stay tuned for stories from Logat.)
I found out on this trip that Osse has been involved in community development since even before he started working with CHE in 1993. He was
the founding member of an organization that helped to start the first high school in his village in the early 1990s. Osse was invited to the high school graduation in the evening and he'd asked if we would accompany him.
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| Kids playing with a make-shift kite on the grounds of the new high school building in Mombin Crochu. The government built a second high school some years after Osse's group started their high school. The new president of Haiti has a building campaign and is constructing this larger building to accommodate the increasing number of secondary school students. |
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| Continuing adventures with a kite! |
The small Catholic school that Osse helped found threw a great celebration. There were, of course, a lot of speeches: the president of the graduating class, the
president of the junior year class, the “godfathers” of each of
those classes, the “godfather” of both classes combined. Then
the “delegate,” Osse, the “sponsor,” and the class president
of the high school all spoke.
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| Roselande (dance instructor Claudin's wife) with a sandwich and kleren (raw rum) with pineapple. |
The
students put on a play in typical Haitian comedy style: two of the
actors are dressed as country bumpkins and there is broad physical
comedy. At one point one of them pretends to own a rich man's house
to impress his girlfriend. He invites her in to the house and starts
telling tall tales, including about how he'd cut a deal with a
foreigner for something. Later, he repeats the story about the
foreigner and, for proof, he points to me and says, “See, there she
is!” Nice bit of improv!
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| There were many beverages served, all very typical. After the kleren we were given a choice of sparkling wine, Prestige beer, or the energy drink Robusto. Above are some of the drinks on my table. |
At around 11 pm we were told there was a slight problem and the food wasn't yet ready. They played some music and the kids started dancing konpa.
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| Konpa! |
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| Supper! Fried plantains, beet salad, goat, beans and rice. After supper we each received a Dixie cup full of popcorn. This was followed by bwason dous (a sweet liqueur) and cake. |
By
2:00 am the festivities were done. We started to walk home –
super-slowly, the way everyone walks that I'd always attributed to
the hot sun, or the steep mountains. But even in the cool night air
on a flat road we are sauntering. Osse dropped me off at his house -- where everyone was already asleep -- and left to accompany the couple to the house they're staying at.
Taking advantage of the fact that the house wouldn't be locked up for
the night until Osse got back, I took a quick bucket bath and was in
bed by 3 am.
