Journals from Haiti

Clark took us to the market down the road, which was open-air and less crowded. There was a lot of livestock, especially cattle, and food products. I saw one woman carrying a string of purplish crabs - probably mud crabs, Pat said later. We stopped in a little restaurant, basically a wooden shack, for cokes, and sat together on wooden benches at a little table with a red bandana tablecloth. I made room for Valery to sit next to me.

On the way back we met Pastor DeGonzaque (sp?) and stopped to talk. He said the injured man might be taken to the D.R., which would probably be a good thing.

Back at the clinic, I looked around and didn’t see any of the kids, but they slowly began to reappear. I passed out the bandanas, tying some around the their necks or on their heads, and gave one to a woman who seemed to be Fabienne’s mother. David passed out hair accessories to some of the girls. I took out a chocolate bar, unwrapped it, and held it out so they could break off pieces, then gave it to one of the older kids and said “separe” (share). They seemed to understand.

People here are so kind. When we share the smallest gifts, even those who don’t take anything give grateful smiles. Joell (sp?), another builder, greeting me as he passed. One small girl held on to my hand, never smiling, just gazing at me with huge, heartbreakingly beautiful brown eyes.

We said goodbye and drove away, dropping off Valery and Camila on the way. David told me that Valery wants to be a doctor, and that he would like to help with his education.

A few of the girls suddenly lead me to the road. A procession of Haitians was walking down the road to the clinic, and I could soon see that they were carrying an elderly man on a door. As we joined the crowd that had gathered at the clinic to watch, a few people questioned the girls about the “blans” they were with. Some smiled.

David, who is a doctor, took charge as they cleared out the back of Pat and Clark’s pickup to make room for the man. They carefully laid him, still on the door, flat across the bed of the truck. The man’s family and Pastor Dorlean rode in the back with him, so the six of us who were traveling back to Pat’s house piled into the cab. I sat on the console, and Valery had to walk home. I waved to him sadly as we passed. It wasn’t far to his home but I didn’t think I’d see him again.

Apparently the man had fallen - from fairly high, a tree or a church roof or something - and injured his back. He couldn’t feel his legs. The people had carried him from his home in the mountains, probably at least a mile away. We had the only vehicle nearby.

It was a long, bumpy ride to Justinian Hospital in Cap Haitien, not far from the Moores’ home. David grimaced for the injured man as we jolted over a particularly large pothole. I felt the same. I could tell David and Abby understood more than I did about the man’s condition.

When we finally arrived at the hospital they took him inside and the family thanked us. I saw a boy waiting outside with a cardboard splint on his arm. He was crying and his mother, holding him, was crying too. I wondered how long they’d been waiting.

David seemed reluctant to leave. I think as a doctor, he felt compelled to do something more to help. He told me, back in the truck, about the deplorable conditions inside the hospital.

I’d been practicing my Creole so I could communicate better with the little boys. Back at the clinic, I asked a few of their names. One was named July (sp? pronounced like Julie). They wanted me to get Abby so I did, and Pat helped us talk to them. She offered us drinks so we went and sat on the benches outside the clinic and had Limonades/sodas.

One of the little girls beckoned me across a dry creek. A few of the children wanted a picture. Soon David came over with bubbles and had me take pictures with his digital camera while he played with the kids. They loved it. He was soon surrounded by jumping, giggling children and bubbles floating overhead. They’d been disappointed with my old 35mm camera, but with David’s they could see themselves on the screen and point each other out in the photos. They wanted pictures with Abby and me, too.

Some of the girls organized us and the other children for some kind of games. We were a little slow to figure it out, but they led us in something like London Bridges and Ring Around the Rosie. They sang, in Creole of course, the appropraite songs and clapped and beat their feet on the ground to the rhythm.

Because this was the last day we planned to be at the clinic, I took a bag of trail mic I’d brought with me and went and sat down in the middle of a group of children by a tree. They looked at me with big, sad eyes like I wasn’t going to share. I opened the bag and held it out to them. Slowly, timidly they came and took handfuls until it was gone, smiling at me. Even the surrounding adults and they young people passing by on the road, who recieved nothing from me, smiled with deep gratitude for such a small act of kindness.

A bit later Pat and Abby and I went to distribute the crocs to a few elderly people living nearby. Valery came with us and we picked up his friend Josnel so they could show us where to go.

We parked the truck and walked along dirt paths to get to a few houses out in the countryside. I remember stick fences and some kind of plants that resembled small palm trees. Josnel, who was walking in front of me, said something quietly to Valery (probably asking how to say “koumann ou rele” in English) and then turned and asked me, “what is your name?” I told him and then asked his name (another moment of failing to think; I already knew his name).

The families we visited lived in little concrete shacks like the ones I described earlier - dirt floors, probably sheet metal rooves, and curtains for doors. The people were sitting or standing outside. They were very grateful to recieve the shoes, but told Pat they had nothing. One elderly man told her he had not eaten that day, and sadly we had no food with us.

Next Pat took us to the place where they make cassava bread so we could see how it’s done. They start with cassava - a potato-like root - press it to drain out the liquid, which is paralytic, grind it into flour, and bake it on round metal plates over fire. It comes out looking like a huge tortilla, maybe four feet wide. They sometimes add sugar, coconut, or ginger.

As Valery and I continued to paint, some U.N. vehicles appeared on the road. Just as I noticed them, Valery said something in his thick Creole accent that I did not understand. After he’d repeated it several times, I finally understood him - “United Nations.” I apologized, with very incorrect grammar, attempting to say that my Creole is not very good. I then realized that this made no sense because he was, in fact, speaking English.

Meanwhile, the U.N. soldiers had parked their vehicles across the road. They came over and began to photograph us and our work. Pat had told us earlier, when I was gushing about finally catching a photo of a tank, that many of the U.N. soldiers are Chiléan and that they like to photograph us too.

Valery and I were just finishing, so I stood. Ron, I think, asked if I’d gotten a photo of their tank. I said no and ran to fetch my camera. I was a little timid but the soldier in the tank smiled, so I snapped a shot.

Right then, another soldier approached me and began to speak rapidly in what I did not realize was Spanish. Just this morning I’d been wondering if Chiléans spoke Spanish so I could say “hola” if I passed one close up, but I somehow could not comprehend a single word.

I finally figured out he was directing me to their tank for a photo. I went and stood in front of it until I realized they wanted me to get in. I stood in the hatch while people snapped a few pictures, and I talked awkwardly with the soldier, whose name, I discovered, was Gaston. I somehow forgot to use my three years of high school Spanish, except when I said “adios!” as they drove away.

I’ve since had a lot of conflicting thoughts about this experience. I’ve heard that a lot of Haitians don’t like the U.N.’s presence in their country, but there also seem to be legitimate reasons for their peacekeeping mission, such as gang violence in the slums and riots due to rising food costs. From what I understand, there is a lot of corruption in the leadership of the U.N. so that money often does not go where it’s needed, but at least some of the soldiers seem to be there to help.

We finally left around ten o’clock. It was very crowded and the drive to LaBruyere took a particularly long time. Twice we lost the corrugated tin that we had tied to the back of the truck and had to stop and fix it. We stopped in a village near the clinic to pick up Valery, a Haitian boy who was coming to help. He is 18 but looks younger to me. We all squished into the back of the truck.

Abby and I were led to the upstairs storeroom of the clinic to paint the window frame and bars. Tony, one of the Haitian construction workers, came and finished the job. Clark told him not to take our work away but we agreed that he was better at it.

After we finished, we went outside to help paint roof panels with a lovely shade of red that is still streaked over the clothes I wore. Valery helped, and we mostly painted in silence because of our language barrier. I felt that I should have tried harder to communicate - he spoke some English, and even saying things he didn’t entirely understand might have been better than nothing.

We just about finished before the paint ran out, and then we leaned against the truck and watched the men work. A crowd of little Haitian boys came over, looking at me and inching closer until they surrounded the place where I stood. Some of them touched my skin and giggled; some of them spoke in Creole that I mostly didn’t understand. The boy who had asked for a photo wanted another, and I got one of them all together.

The boy pointed to David and asked, “ou papa?” (your father?). I replied “non” (no) and he pointed to Abby and asked, “ou sè?” (your sister?). I replied “non” and said she was my friend, “zanmi.” He asked some of my team members’ names and the kids repeated them. He asked, “ki lan je ou?” which I later discovered means “how old are you?” but at the time all I could say was “m’ pa konprann” (I don’t understand).

They found some kind of chalk on the ground and used it to write arithmetic problems on the hood of the truck for me to solve. It was neat that we could all understand this because like Cady Heron says in the movie “Mean Girls,” math is “the same in every language.”

The clinic, one of the area’s most advanced facilities, was a concrete building painted green and white. It had a few rooms and, unlike most of the nearby houses, running water. Most or all of the medical supplies were stored on shelves in a single room about the size of a small bedroom. A few people waited inside, and many more on benches outside. At least there was an overhang that gave them shade.

At first there was not much for Abby and me to do while the men nailed up boards, but after a while we sacked up corn (courtesy of the U.N., who I’d learn more about later). We even got to saw a few boards, and later Abby filed while I swept.

During times when we just waited outside without much to do, I watched people, especially the small children who had gathered nearby. I didn’t know if they would want me to photograph them, but after a while one little boy motioned to me to take his picture, so I did.

For lunch we had peanut butter and jelly and sandwiches, some kind of lime sandwich cookies with Spanish packaging, and sodas in glass bottles. I would see a variety of interesting labels, since supplies seem to come from all different places to get here.

As we approached land, I began to notice how big and shiny everything was. I looked at vast crops and asked myself why we couldn’t feed our friends.

Allan’s wife was waiting for him when we landed. We went through customs and to the rental car with our luggage. I was thankful to have Florida as a transition - at least it still has palm trees and black people - and I hoped I wasn’t creeping them out with my smile.

We checked into the hotel, where there was a group of young men, apparently a sports team. They were using swear words I had not missed. Things were clean. People were speaking English. I frowned.

We went to the Golden Corral for a buffet dinner. I tried fried okra since we were in the South. Everything was good and we all ate plenty, observing that it didn’t take long to return to American habits.

I say these things not out of ingratitude for what we have, or dislike for my own country, but because I missed Haiti already, and because I believe we are blessed so we can be a blessing to others. I think we all forget sometimes.

Back at the hotel, Abby and I called our families. Mom said my email update was pretty exciting. Natalie had stories she would tell me in the car. I also called Brian and Steve.

I enjoyed taking a hot shower and feeling clean. We turned out the lights. I prayed and went to bed, and I think I slept better and woke up feeling rested.