In
line to check my bag for Haiti, I noticed many families checking more bags then
they could handle. I assumed they were
all filled with American products to be sold in Haiti. After a fairly short plane ride from Fort
Lauderdale, we landed in Port au Prince.
The airport was small but seemed very modern and functioning. I was happy to be able to speak French even
though the employees were capable of speaking English well enough. There were many people willing to help us
with our bags, expecting a generous tip of course. A director of Sustain Haiti was there to pick
us up along with two security guards.
They loaded our luggage into the bed of the truck and were careful to
cover it with a blanket, which made me wonder about the risk of our things
being stolen. I felt very safe and trusted that everything would be ok. The drive to our new home was long,
especially since we were all crowded into the cab of the truck because the sun
was too hot for anyone to sit on top of the truck as one of the guards had
begun to do.
I
immediately felt rejuvenated and very excited.
Everything was so chaotic but it seemed to be normal to all the
people. People walked wherever they
could. People stopped to buy whatever they need, even at the risk of holding
everyone else up. There was trash
everywhere and piles of rubble.
Buildings and cars were colorful.
Leaving the airport, I was looking around, very impressed by how stable
and clean and normal the buildings looked.
I knew that a lot of damage from the earthquake still remained and was
wondering how bad that would look. Soon
we came to a community of shelters. They
were made of metal, sticks, and mostly tarps.
I noticed many tarps with USAID on them.
There was a strong smell, from either the outhouses or the livestock,
such as goats tied to random fences or objects.
The
city of Leogane, where we stayed was a mix of these tent shelters and houses
that had mostly been rebuilt after the earthquake. They had recently paved or installed
cobblestones for streets. People often
sat outside on porches or along the streets.
It was easy to find people selling objects like clothes or other
toiletries, food or drinks, and sometimes electronics. There were not many souvenirs, but mostly
objects that looked to come from America.
People wore American clothes, sometimes mismatched or with little holes.
Often it was clear that they did not understand what a T-shirt said. Most of
them wore pants and sometimes sweatshirts, even though we were always in shorts
and T-shirts. We noticed that they did
not assign genders to certain things the way we did; we often saw men with pink
or purple, flowery backpacks. The women
had purses or carried baskets or other possessions on their heads, usually not
even holding on. Most nights, certain
streets were roped off for soccer games and they even held tournaments on the
little courts they had painted on. There
was a big main square being rebuilt and in the city there were things like a
hospital, a marketplace, schools and many churches.
There
was often music and singing coming from the churches and once there was even a
concert put on in the schoolyard were we taught which was shared with a
church. People were mostly Christian but
certain Haitians told us that it was often a mixture of Christianity and
voodoo. One of the villages we taught in
had a voodoo priestess as their leader.
She was also a nurse. They told
us not to let her take our picture, but she was always taking pictures of
everything, so it was a little difficult.
We asked one of our translators what voodoo was like and she said it was
a lot of drumming and music and dancing and that she did not like it. Religion is a part of their everyday lives. Many
of the stores were named things like Sacre
Coeur or Bon Dieu and cars had
phrases like Merci Jesus painted on
them. There was an LDS church in Leogane
with two wards. It was so nice to see
everyone in their white shirts and ties and I could not help but wonder how
weird that might have been to them to conform to things that are normal for
us. They were always so impressed when I
said I have been a member all my life. They pointed out that their children
would be the generation to say that in Haiti.
Something
that struck me was the clash of modernity with underdevelopment. Most people had cell phones and some people
had laptops but the power was out more than half of the time. In our house there was an old battery for
charging cars and other things that they used to charge electronics, but if the
power was out for too long, it too would run out. There were stands affiliated with different
cell phone carriers where people paid to charge their phones. Some places like the church building had
generators. People joked that a
highlight of going to church was that there were ceiling fans there. All of the
outlets would be filled with cell phones and people would pick them up and move
them with them as they switched rooms.
We gave the Haitian employees headlamps before leaving and some of them
said that they did not need them because they could see very well in the
dark. I did not mind the lack of stable
electricity because I had told myself this would be like camping as I packed,
but it is hard to imagine living with those conditions for longer than a
summer. It is interesting how normal it
seemed and how it affected even things like what food they ate because there
were no refrigerators. There were
coolers made from freezer chests with ice and cardboard or burlap in them. Once I saw a man on a motorcycle wearing a
winter coat with seven huge blocks of ice tied to the back of his bike.
When
there was electricity, we often watched the TV at night. Shows and movies were often French. Commercials were funny because they would
change the words to popular songs, clearly not caring about copyright. Near the end of July, there was a “Carnival
of Flowers” in Port-au-Prince, so we followed that. It was usually just the mass of people in the
streets of the capitol in costume. There
was music and a lot of color. At one
point the president came out with a few guards and was walking through the
crowd. I mentioned that this would never
happen in America because anyone could attack or shoot the president, and one
of the translators said that they would never shoot their president. Michel Martelly is their president and a
former pop singer. They explained that
he was very naughty and showed me a video of him dancing and singing dressed as
a woman. I explained again that this
would never happen in the USA, to have a man voted to be president with such a
scandalous past. There was always so
much music and dancing and laughter in Haiti.
The people are so happy despite the hardships. They especially love listening to Celine
Dion.
We did
not visit the capitol other than seeing what surrounded the airport, but we
were sure to see some other touristic spots.
We liked to go to the beach on the weekends and spent a day travelling
to visit Jacmel, which is a former French resort town on the southern
coast. We hiked to the Basin Bleu to see the waterfalls and
jump into the clear pools. We went to
the beach to swim in the warm, salty ocean.
There we were followed by many people selling souvenirs such as paintings,
bracelets, statues, T-shirts, and more.
They even sat on the beach and waited for us to be done swimming. The city was beautiful and clearly less
damaged by the earthquake. The French
influence is clear not only in the architecture but in the existence of
buildings like La Poste. They clearly understand that this is a
touristic place and do more to beautify it and to keep it up.
To
get to and from Jacmel, we passed over the mountains. Nine of us were riding in the bed of a truck
that we rented. The only scary part was
the big trucks passing very close. One
has to be a talented driver to handle to roads in Haiti. The only rule seems to be: smaller moves over
for bigger. Generally they drive on the
right side but pass pretty much whenever they have the nerve too. Instead of stop
signs, there are horns. They honk to let
people around them know where they are.
Any many people as can fit in and on the car will ride. Sometimes there is no door or the windshield
is all cracked. Usually people use taxi
motorcycles to get around and the moto will go anywhere it can fit. Four people could fit on a bike or more if
there are children. There are a lot of
speed bumps and puddles, and sometimes dust, but they are good at going fast
and swerving in and out of traffic anyway.
For farther distances there are vans or tap-taps, which are like buses
and almost have routes. You either go to
a “station” or wait on the road for one.
They are colorful and are basically covered trucks with benches in the
back and racks on the top for as many people and possessions can fit. Once
there were even live goats roped to the roof.
You tap or bang on the side or wherever to tell the driver to stop.
We
were amazed to see the distances that people travelled. Most of the work we did were in villages surrounding
the city, some of them long hikes into the mountains. There were often chickens and roosters just
roaming around and sometimes pigs, horses, cows, or goats tied up
randomly. The livestock were the
skinniest I had ever seen. Sometimes
there were houses with a few families living in them; often there were tarp
shelters of even camping tents. There
were always outhouses which were actually fairly clean and they were always
nice enough to give you toilet paper and water to wash your hands if you needed
to use the bathroom. We noticed many
unfinished houses that they said were ones that Canadians or Americans started
but never completed construction. Not
everyone in the villages spoke French but were always eager to learn what we
had to teach them.
There
are four programs that Sustain Haiti works on with the local people. In the city we taught daily morning and
evening English classes, at beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels. We also taught once or twice a week in
surrounding communities at varying levels.
These classes were very important to them because they believe that
knowing English will get them better jobs.
Sometimes we paused from the usual vocabulary and grammar lessons to
teach them something they requested like American history or an American pop
song. We also taught health classes, such
as treating sprains, giving CPR, and more basic things like always washing the
wound and changing bandages. Also, we taught when to go to the hospital and how
to treat the injury in the meantime.
There were also business classes that included lessons like separating
your money from the company’s money. We
also helped with gardens and gave advice.
There were personal gardens for individual households, and community
gardens that we helped create, and weed.
An important project is the reforestation of the mountains. Too many of the trees have been cut down for
charcoal and it is causing mudslides and other ecological problems. The trees must be grown in a nursery for 6
months or so before they are big and strong enough to be planted in the
hillsides. Leogane is one of the most
fertile places on earth and plants grow very fast and fruit within a few years.
The trees that were being planted will provide fruit the communities will eat
and sell. This will provide income and deter them from cutting the trees down
again.
I
asked one of our translators, Styven about the education in Haiti. He said that their schools were not very good
but mostly that the pupils who had the opportunity to go to school were not
always appreciative and did not always push themselves; they were usually rowdy
in class. All of their education is done
in French, so many of them speak at least Creole and French. Many also know
some English and some Spanish, as they share the island with the Dominican Republic.
He estimated that about eighty percent of the population is illiterate. Of those who go to school, maybe only about
sixty percent of those graduate and only about ten percent earn a job thanks to
their studies. In reality, the literacy
rate is about fifty-five percent. It was
interesting to see the difference between the educated in the city and the less
educated in the villages. It makes you
wonder what it is they need to know to live in the mountains.
As a
former French colony, there are traces of French culture still left. Haiti is the first black republic and has
been independent since 1804. Since the
Africans were brought there as slaves and they rejected the French after the
revolution, I wondered why they keep their French heritage intact. I asked Styven why they still speak French
and he said that many of the Haitians have French in their blood and are proud
of this. Early on, there were people
with Creole speaking parents and French parents as well, so they spoke both
languages. He mentioned that sometimes
people will try to write books or movies bringing up the ugly past with the
French but that the government with not let that happen because they do not
want people to have hard feelings toward the French, especially since they
still send aid to Haiti. I think it is a
blessing that Haiti still speaks French; this might keep them closer with the
international public, allowing organizations such as the United Nations to
communicate and send help more easily.
We
often passed the UN base and waved to the guard in the tower. Someone said they were not sure that they
were very well liked because they arrived in the country around the same time
as the cholera outbreak. Many of the agents came from Sri Lanka. We also came in contact with many other
NGOs. You could see the help that had
been given to rebuild in the cities and the country. There were sometimes villages with groups of
houses that were all the same and very well built. When speaking with one of my
classes, I asked them their opinion on foreign aid. They said that it is very
important to a small country like Haiti; countries such as the US can help
itself in the case of a natural disaster, but they need aid from the
outside. They are very appreciative. The work that was being done in the center of
Leogane and the recent fixing of the roads were being paid for by a German
organization. There were temporary
schools that had been built by France and the USA.
Many
people live in shelters in Leogane, where the earthquake hit the hardest,
because almost all of the buildings fell.
People had no idea it was coming and were going about their daily lives
when the first quake started. Styven
said it lasted about ten minutes and that many buildings fell down. It was so powerful that it knocked people
over and could move people ten feet or more.
It was very loud; all they could hear was the crashing. It stopped and some people went back inside
or started searching through rubble, thinking it was over. They say that when
you yell in Leogane, it echos off the mountains near Port-au-Prince so all they
could hear was everyone yelling Aidem Jesus
or “Help me Jesus”. Styven said he
knew there would be another quake because it had been so powerful. The second tremor was even more powerful and
longer. Few things that had not fallen
down the first time now came down. He
himself pulled at least seven people out of fallen buidlings. The aftershocks continued for a few days,
occurring every few hours. They were
nowhere near as strong. People found
their families and made shelter. He said
that sometimes it was scary at night when there were strange noises and
problems came when rainy season started: the roads were like rivers. I asked if he was eventually able to recover
a lot of his possessions from his destroyed home and he said he was. We asked if things had improved a lot since
right after the earthquake and how different things were before. They said that there were more schools and
hospitals than before, so in some ways that is an improvement. Not everyone will talk about it, but many
will say that they were blessed by Jesus to have survived.
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