First Days

Leaving Miami on the way here was sort of surreal – knowing that it was the last air conditioning and CNN and the last Starbucks iced coffee I’d enjoy for a long while. The flight itself was uneventful, but interesting. There were several white people other than us, but mostly it was very well dressed Haitian people – some who seemed to Americans visiting, and others who seemed to be Haitians going home. All of the flight announcements were in English, French and Kreyol. As we started to descend, we flew over what I think was Cuba, then over that picturesque Caribbean blue water. We approached land, which I knew was the western coast of Haiti, and flew over the capital of Port au Prince. From the air, it seemed much like any sprawling city – just without any particularly tall buildings. Out the other side of the plane the water quickly gave way to mountains, and I could see how deforested they were. The soil was more brown than green, and seemed parched and rugged. We landed and climbed down the stairs onto the tarmac and were met with an incredibly hot wind and a band playing Haitian music just inside the terminal door. Customs was orderly and official, and the baggage claim area was simple – only 2 carousels – but people waited patiently for their suitcases to emerge. Then we stepped outside. The staff who had met us in Miami explained that once we got our luggage we would all go outside together. They warned us to stick together, not to let anyone help with our bags. There was a barrier behind which about a hundred people were standing, waiting for people on the flight. We wheeled our luggage carts to the corner of the fenced in section, where we handed our 50 pound suitcases over the wall to the school staff waiting on the other side. Once all of our luggage was safely in the hands of the school staff, we walked around the barrier, through the crowd, to the three waiting cars. Much of our luggage was thrown in the back of a pickup truck, and the rest was tied on the roofs of the 2 other vehicles. About 20 of us crowded into those three cars for the ride to the school.

The road was paved, but rugged and it was lined with people the whole 20 minute drive. There were stands selling food and gifts, and people just sitting on the roadside. At intersections, little kids came to the windows asking for money or food or to wash our windows. It was hard to look at them, but even harder not to. I had read about “rap taps,” brightly painted, covered pickup trucks that serve as Haiti’s public transportation system, and couldn’t help but smile when I started seeing them all over the road. I don’t really think there are any traffic rules here … it was definitely every man for himself!

Our first days in the school have been spent getting used to living here – learning how to flush toilets, and where to find water, and which water to drink, and how to do laundry. We’ve also been working each morning from about 7 to 11:30 on some cleaning and renovation projects. In the afternoon we’ve been meeting with people on the academic side of the school to begin to prepare for teaching here. Evenings have been spent playing basketball, watching movies, reading, talking and sleeping like a rock.

A person’s most prized possessions here are a little different than back home. Duct tape, for example, is an essential for everything from patching mosquito nets, to repairing a crack in a bucket to simply hanging things on walls. /Our first morning here we were presented with two five gallon buckets with our name on them – one written in green and the other in red. Our hosts explained that the red bucket was for personal use – laundry and for taking showers when the water pump wasn’t working well enough to get anything from the shower. The green bucket was for cleaning projects – to fill with bleach for cleaning bathrooms, or paint thinner for cleaning paintbrushes. These 2 buckets have become prized possessions. When they get dirty, we take the time to clean them carefully, and when not in use we store them in our rooms. And of course a 5 gallon bucket also makes a pretty excellent chair or stool!

Today is Saturday, and it was delightful to sleep in … until about 6:30 when the barking dogs and bright sunlight made sleep impossible. But we didn’t have any work to do this morning, so I spent it reading, and doing yoga outside on the back basketball court. That was really nice … though dodging the ants in my downward facing dog was a bit challenging. Then we got our first laundry lesson where we learned the basics of how to wash clothes by hand. Wow, it’s hard. Without hot water, friction is the key to actually getting the clothes clean. After my first attempt, my knuckles are all a bit raw and I’m not actually convinced that any of my clothes are clean. We’ll see when I pull them off the line later!

Saturday afternoon we piled into 2 cars – about 20 of us – and drove 20 minutes (3 miles) to a seminary nearby for Sunday Mass. It was good to get out in a car again and see the area around the school. After turning off the one paved road, the roads became incredibly bumpy and dusty. People walked along the side leading animals, carrying buckets of water on their head, and a lot of people just seemed to be sitting around. A motorcycle behind us had 4 people on it, and a young girl started chasing after our car as we passed her, I think just for fun. We turned into the grounds of the seminary and it was lush and green with the most beautiful soccer field and fruit trees all around. It’s a Scalabrini Brothers seminary, and also the meeting place for the national council of Bishops. We attended Mass in a partially open air chapel with an Italian priest who generally started sentences in French and ended them in Kreyol. There was a group of kids from a nearby school – the girls neatly dressed in blue dresses and yellow ties, and the boys in blue pants, yellow shirts and yellow ties. The priest addressed his passionate, enthusiastic words mostly to those children. He spoke of the transformation of the resurrection, and the transformation needed in this country. He urged these children to be active, rather than passive, to be optimists rather than pessimists, and to be the people who rebuild their country. Even the Americans in the crowd who didn’t understand his words, knew that he was saying something important. After Mass we walked around the beautiful grounds and the seminarians prepared dinner for us – papaya, tuna salad, pizza and beer. Most delicious beer ever.