Waiting

Time is a whole different thing here. It’s almost a truism among people from the Caribbean in the US – and the US Americans who interact with them – that Caribbean time and American time are different things. I remember a priest at a mostly Jamaican parish in Roxbury once announcing that something was going to begin at a particular time, and he followed with “that’s American time, not Caribbean time!” What I’m struggling to figure out is whether or not the tendency for things to be late, and to have to wait forever for things and people, is a product of circumstances outside of people’s control, or if it’s just an excuse to be late all the time. Yesterday was an amazing demonstration of this frustrating dynamic, and a real challenge to my efficient, overscheduled American way of living.

When we got to food for the poor, we were dropped off and told that we’d be picked up at noon. We were given a cell phone number in case there was a problem, and left to sort through the ginormous box of books. We worked hard for about three hours in the hot dusty warehouse and started to pack up and get our boxes organized at about 11:30 so we’d be ready to go at 12. The three of us had also left before breakfast, so we hadn’t eaten all day. We sat on our boxes of books in the warehouse and waited. 12:30 rolled around and as our stomachs growled and we commented on our lightheadedness, I couldn’t help but laugh at the awesome irony of three rich Americans starving inside the Food for the Poor warehouse in Port au Prince. You just can’t make this stuff up. We tried to remind ourselves that the hunger we were feeling was what many people in this country live with daily, not just for a few hours on a Wednesday morning. But damn, we were hungry, and the minutes were dragging. At 12:30 I decided to go ask someone if we could use a phone to make sure that our ride was on its way, and when I talked to Patrick, he said they were on their way and that since we had by that point missed lunch, we could come eat at his house when we got back. Finally just after 1, our ride arrived, and he apologized for being late, but explained that a meeting had just taken forever,

Before we could leave, the staff from the Food for the Poor needed to make us a receipt so they could keep track of their inventory. As we sat on the bumper of the truck and waited, this process took an additional hour and 15 minutes. At one point we thought we were ready to go, but then the man realized we had all that toothpaste, and it wasn’t on the original list, so they had to go back and redo it. I decided at that moment not to inform him that we also had a box of much needed dish towels. I think that in so doing, I might have committed my first crime in Haiti – stealing dish towels from food for the poor … but seriously, the rags we use are foul, so I didn’t care. ANYWAY … we finally loaded the boxes at about 2:15 and 6 of us piled into the five person car.

We got back on the road, and I though we were on our way home, but we had to stop and pick up someone else who had gone to the hardware store (and who had probably been waiting there for hours.) So person number 7 piled in. So I thought we were home free … but then we got a phone call asking us to wait for a different car full of 4 other people because we needed to swap drivers. Seriously, I have no idea why, and no one was able to explain it. But we waited on the hot dusty side of the road for another 20 minutes until they arrived. When we made the passenger swap and headed off, we got stuck in the most ridiculous gridlock traffic that I have ever experienced. For about 20 more minutes. Finally, just after 3, we arrived back at LCS, hungry, dusty and tired, but happy with our haul from Food for the Poor.

As we got out of the car, some of the other volunteers informed us that there was a staff meeting starting right away. I made an executive decision that we were going to be late, and it was OK, because we were all dizzy from hunger. So we found some bananas and peanut butter and bread, shoved that in our faces, and headed to the meeting.

The content of the meeting is the subject of a whole separate message, but what matters, is that it took 3 hours. I have never sat through a three hour meeting, in which one person is doing most of the talking. And it was in Kreyol. And I was sharing a hard wooden student bench with two other people. I understand enough Kreyol to get the gist of the discussion and to appreciate the fact that it was important, but as it dragged on and on I felt closer and closer to jumping out a window. Finally, just after 6, it was over. Dinner usually starts at 6, but since everyone who was supposed to make the dinner was in the meeting, that didn’t happen. I suggested that we scrap the dinner plan that would have taken at least an hour, and just use the ingredients to make cheese and veggie sandwiches instead. We did, and it was delicious. And we all survived.

But wow, that was a frustrating day of waiting. Was it all necessary? Maybe. Are there circumstances beyond people’s control, and are there things that go on that I have no idea about? Absolutely. Did it really take three hours to make sure that everyone understood the content of the meeting? Possibly. But in this country, I’m going to have to seriously let go of my need to be in charge of things, or I will go nuts.