Saturday, July 3, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Final update
Hi loves,
The last week of my trip whirled by in a chaotic blur. My computer was lovingly taken over by the UNICEF data crew, and I wasn’t able to write for various other reasons. So, this will be a long entry, detailing the last week of my trip.
Last time I wrote, I was about to head to the UN complex to do data entry for UNICEF. They are compiling data on schools in Haiti – how many students they had before and after the quake, whether they’re open for classes, what damage they sustained, what levels they teach, whether they need debris cleared. Small portions of this information have been collected by various partner organizations who weren’t necessarily asking all the same questions or even using the same format for the data they collected. Our task was to consolidate and standardize the forms toward a single comprehensive database.
The tap-tap ride into Port au Prince was amazing. It always is. I never get tired of the journey into the city. The UN complex itself baffles me, though. It’s such a weird, insulated space, with clusters of organization reps who seem to be in a permanent state of self-important panic. There is constant movement, but not the same kind of movement you see in the streets. It just felt kind of strange and artificial to me. The UNICEF tents are very well set-up, and we were working in an open-walled tarp-tent shelter with tables and electrical outlets. One of the information managers briefed us on the project and we set to work.
For me, it was a profoundly unrewarding day. I’m pessimistic about one’s (or one’s organization’s) ability to recover from inconsistent record collection and management. If you don’t do things in an orderly way from the very beginning, there will always be fundamental problems you can never quite harmonize. Plus, I am not great with Excel and don’t particularly enjoy data work. Fortunately, a few of the other volunteers in our work group got the upper hand on the utter mess we were given, and managed to make some slow, steady progress. The less said about the day, the better. I don’t feel like I accomplished much personally, and though I absolutely see the importance of this kind of higher-level work, it’s just really not for me.
It’s actually been really interesting for me listening to local people talk about the big NGOs who work in Haiti. People call the UN “United Nothing”. They say the Red Cross only comes out when the media is there, to hand out t-shirts – no money or real aid. I know, intellectually, that these organizations are doing crucial work that doesn’t necessarily have immediate, visible products – that the trickle-down effect will eventually be important. But in the meantime, I follow the hearts of so many people who shared with me that, in that interim period, you need small groups doing local work with tangible results. I’ve never been a policy person. I like to break my heart and get my hands dirty. I’m glad that, with the exception of today, I stuck to my principles and did the work I felt was most important. Much respect to those individuals from our rotation of volunteers who continued to work with UNICEF to complete their project – I did not return.
On Thursday morning, I began the long trek along the coast through Cabaret to Good Samaritan orphanage. Today, Pastor Yves himself came to pick us up. He is an amazing man – I’ve probably written about him before, but I can’t remember. If I recall correctly, he runs fourteen churches, six schools and three orphanages in Haiti. He is an incredibly kind and philosophical man. I had been eager to return to Good Samaritan – it struck me deeply on my first visit, and I was anxious to see how my little ones were doing. We went with a small group this week, though – just three of us, and Baby, one of our local translators.
It was a difficult but rewarding day, which could sum up any day I spent in Haiti. One of the boys at Good Samaritan, who looks to be about six, was very clingy with me. Although he was able to communicate with me non-verbally, he cannot seem to articulate words. He’s clearly very intelligent and responsive, and I suspect his speech development is simply delayed (as opposed to any kind of mental handicap). It was exhausting, though; he wept and gnashed his little pearl-chip teeth whenever I put him down, so I spent most of my time with his legs around my waist, his head on my shoulder and his fingers twisted in my hair. Not that it stopped any of the other kids from wanting to engage and have physical contact – I spent most of my time sitting on the ground so they could crowd in for hugs, and to hold hands, and beam their perfect little smiles at me.
When my little guy finally soothed himself and went off to play with the other kiddies, I was reunited with Chelan, my little beauty who stole my heart on my first visit. She looks to be maybe eight months old, with huge, sad eyes and tiny, perfect hands that clasp your fingers and make you just melt. Over the course of the morning, three of the little boys at the orphanage started calling me “mama”. I was glad we had Baby to translate for me; I find I can connect and communicate with the kids well enough without speaking fluent Creole, but I was grateful that I could call him over to tell me what they were shyly whispering in my ear. Grateful, and also heartbroken. Mostly, it was things I just couldn’t help: “I have a headache”, “I’m so hungry”, “I miss my family”. One little boy was asking me to take him away and be his mother. Bless the sweet woman who runs the orphanage – she spoke enough English and leaned on Baby to tell me that the kids loved me – didn’t I love them? Wouldn’t I take one home to Canada with me?
When we finally left, my sweet little guy came over to me, tapped on his wee chest over his heart, then put his hand on my chest and started to cry. Me, I seem to have turned into a total softie. I cried for most of the hour’s drive home, the dusty-green scenery a blur I hardly registered. Fuck, my whole time in Haiti was an endless looming range of emotional peaks and valleys – I’ve never felt such simple joy, and I’ve never been so broken-hearted.
The tail of my afternoon back at Ecole Shalom was quiet and reserved. Particularly with Good Samaritan, I needed space to decompress – sometimes a difficult thing to achieve in shared living space with so many people, but I’m also deeply grateful that I was constantly surrounded by friends.
In the evening, after dinner, most of us headed over to Bar Optimum to unwind with a Prestige and hit the dance floor. I have perfected the art of dancing in the dark in gumboots – top that. One of our translators took it upon himself to teach me “how to dance like a Haitian woman” – which was a hilarious misadventure if I’ve ever had one, though he was satisfied by the end of the night that I was a passable dance partner. The short walk back to the compound from Optimum was always marked by still air, bright stars, slow headlights on the road and hard dirt under my feet – I’m going to miss that walk home.
On Friday, I returned to Dr. Roberts’ orphanage for a completely amazing day! Of all the places we worked, I feel like we made the greatest strides with Dr. Roberts. We repaired some huge tears in the tent that houses the boys – which solved their flooding problem in the twilight bursts of rain. We also cleared a flat space on higher ground to move the tent, and yesterday (though I didn’t see it as I was departing) our team was putting the finishing touches on a permanent protective structure over the tent to give it additional shields from the wind and rain. We finished leveling and clearing their little soccer field, removed the vast majority of the trash that ringed the orphanage compound, and...
We made them a rope swing! There is a huge, sturdy tree in the center of the yard, and at the negligible cost of $17 US, we installed a swing for them to play. I’ll post pictures and – if I can figure out how – the video once I’m back on the ground. I can’t even explain to you how moving and amazing it was to watch them stand in awed amusement in a line, watching their playmates with total glee as we took turns pushing them through the air, whirling across the yard and up skyward. It wasn’t until I heard them laughing that I realized what had seemed off all this time about the orphanage – that was the first time I’d heard the kids just being kids.
Beyond all the improvements I’ve already mentioned, we fundraised amongst ourselves to purchase thirty mattresses for the kids and staff, most of whom slept on the concrete floor or the bottom of the tent that flooded with every rain. And we raised enough money to buy each of the kids two more sets of clothing. Volunteers who are still in Croix des Bouquets are working hard to develop a hundred lesson plans to provide continuity across new rotations, so we can have a strong teaching program for the kids as well. They’re bright and eager to learn, and until we can afford to send them to a proper school, at the very least we can give them a strong foundation and try to instill a sense of curiosity and wonder in their little minds. I’m really proud of my contributions and the contributions of my comrades to the good work that was accomplished at Dr. Roberts’ orphanage over the last two weeks. I know the momentum will only continue to build.
I returned to Ecole Shalom only to become, in rapid order, violently ill. Let’s not dwell on that, but it will explain why there’s essentially a two-day gap in my journal. The jury is still hung over what exactly made me so ill – I couldn’t keep down so much as a sip of water, and I was running an amazing fever. It’s all a hot, dark blur. I was dehydrated, I was weakened to an extent that scares and astonishes me in retrospect, and I couldn’t keep down Cipro or painkillers or anything else to help me. Much to my incredible good fortune, we had two wonderful nurses with us, who managed to root through the boxes of assorted medical supplies and find both a clean needle and some kind of medication that broke my fever and eased most of my pain. For about twelve hours, all through the night, I was more or less wishing that whatever was making me sick would just put me out of my fucking misery. I am much obliged to one of my fellow volunteers, Pastor Keri, for the comfort and companionship and constant cool towels (I don’t know how you found anything cold in the compound!) I’m sure, too, that my sweet mama thanks you for being there when she couldn’t.
I spent all of Saturday in bed, which was horrid and boring and miserable and utterly necessary. Honestly, even now I still feel like the last bits of my strength are just returning. On Saturday, I hardly felt like I could peel myself off the cot. Sadly, my forced convalescence upstairs in the compound meant I missed an incredible event: a field trip for the kids from Dr. Roberts’ orphanage. Volunteers from our rotation arranged for a tap-tap to bring the kids to Ecole Shalom to play on our large soccer field, and have lunch in the schoolyard. Judging by the peals of laughter that drifted up the stairwell to my bed, it was a beautiful day for them. It was the first time, apparently, that they had left the orphanage since the quake. I am proud of my friends who organized this – they’ve started a tradition, I hope, and given the kids a really great gift.
On Sunday, I spent the morning sprawled out staring through the gap in the unfinished wall at the compound. I wasn’t feeling anything close to fully recovered, but I really think I would have gone utterly mad if I’d stayed there any longer, so, when a few of the ladies made plans to take a trip into the city, I hopped on for the ride. We returned to the market we’d visited on our first weekend, which was a jarring and crazy and beautiful cultural experience in itself. I wanted to purchase a painting to bring home, and when we exited the hired vehicle and started walked toward the stalls, we got mobbed. I ended up with three paintings and a handful of other souvenirs – not that I mind.
I hope that someone is benefitting from the money, and I won’t have trouble finding people to whom I can give the pretty things I’ve bought. But I don’t particularly enjoy haggling, especially with people who have only learned enough English to manipulate “rich Americans” with emotional guilt-trips. I spent the most money with a man who helped me to find the perfect painting and negotiated a fair price without the frantic begging and veiled threats. Maybe it would have been a different experience if I’d been more physically strong – after half an hour of wandering through the market, I could no longer handle the cluster of men pleading for me to “make them survivors” by giving them money – in exchange for art and trinkets, or just because – they thought I would give them money? It’s a misapprehension anyway – I haven’t got a penny to my name once I’ve paid out my expenses for the trip. All I have to give is love and hard work.
Anyway, after we left the market, we returned to Visa Lodge, where we’d lunched the previous weekend. We had a quiet dinner and enjoyed having a bit of air conditioning and ice in our water which was cold! Also, I am absolutely not a soda drinker at home, but Coke is amazing in Haiti. Actually, every bottled beverage I had was infinitely better down there – something about the real sugar I guess, and the extra layer of appreciation that came from having something cold and sweet. By the time we returned to Croix des Bouquets, I was wiped out. I had an early night, and slept wonderfully after eating my first real food in about three days.
On Monday morning, I decided – in spite of some lingering weakness – to break routine once again. I was part of the first group of GVN volunteers to visit Rays of Hope for Haiti, an orphanage which houses 37 special needs children in Port au Prince. They have wonderful facilities and a great staff, and I really admire the space they’ve established for the children. The kids ranged in age from infants to teenagers, and ranged across the whole spectrum of disability. To be honest, I’m not sure that I’m able to really write about my experience there yet. It was a positive and challenging day, but one that I found extremely personally difficult. I would really like to get some training in working with special needs children. I feel privileged to be part of establishing a new relationship between our volunteer base and their organization, and I’m awed and moved in ways I don’t even fully recognize by my experience. But it was a tough day for me.
I guess it must have been on Monday night when it started to sink in that my time in Croix des Bouquets was drawing to a close. I struggled with my feelings about leaving – I went through stages of feeling angry and frustrated, to be honest, that I had to leave at loose ends so many things I’d invested in over the last two weeks. I was at a place where the novelty was gone – being where I was just felt completely natural and normal. I was comfortable in my surroundings, with the heat and the weather, waking up each morning at 5 AM with the mountains pushing up the daybreak-sky. I could navigate through the market at Croix des Bouquets, I could pick my way by landmarks through the drives to various projects, I didn’t hesitate anymore about jogging after a moving tap-tap and leaping onto the tailgate. I was really happy where I was, doing what I was doing. Monday was a hard night, realizing I was about to give it all up just as I was realized what a gift I’d been given in adjusting so whole-heartedly to such a beautiful place.
And I also feel so moved by the wonderful group of people who shared my experience. Some were there longer than me; others stayed on after my departure. All of them were special and wonderful in important ways. All of them had good hearts, and all of them gave me strength, some of them without even realizing it. Our relationships developed rapidly because we were thrown into circumstances that depended on the immediate. When you part, after a time like that, there is always a fear that it will be difficult to sustain friendships across distance and time. Reflecting afterward, though, as I sit on the plane heading home, I know that the gift of their friendship has already changed me, and the laughter and challenges and moments we shared are impressed upon me in ways that I can’t believe will dwindle or fade just because we’re not together. I’m stronger just knowing that these sweet people exist somewhere in the world. I hope I will see them again, and soon, and I even trust that it will happen. But I’ve also grown to be at peace with parting. I wish them all well.
Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. Tuesday morning was tough for me. Technically, it was supposed to be my last day of work, since I was departing the following day. But I was crossing my fingers that, since my flight on Wednesday was late in the afternoon, that I’d still be able to go out on a project. I felt a strong urge to return to both Dr. Roberts’ orphanage and Good Samaritan orphanage one last time before my departure, two places in which I had invested myself heavily on an emotional and physical level throughout my trip. Ultimately, it was a gamble – I wasn’t sure I could do both.
On Tuesday morning, I returned to Good Samaritan for my final visit. I will keep it brief. I had a hard time saying goodbye to all my little ones. But I also left feeling good in my heart – on our first visit, the kids were dispirited, sickly, clingy and deeply sad on a level that shook me right to the marrow in my bones. I’m not going to pretend that a few visits fixed anything – but across my visits to Good Samaritan, I noticed a measureable difference in those kids. They were more alert and responsive, they wanted to play and engage, and some of the younger ones who had particularly worried me with their evident illness had more colour in their cheeks and life in their eyes than I’d seen previously. There were more smiles, and more laughter. We brought a huge bag full of bottles of multivitamins, tins of powdered milk, and some more good food. We’ll keep bringing them love, too. And I hope to hear someday from a future volunteer, or to see for myself, that the momentum continued to build. Those kids are really special. I’m going to miss my little Chelan, my wee boys – I hardly remember how I said goodbye. I tried to hard not to let myself get attached, but clearly I’m no longer the master of my own heart.
On Tuesday evening, I packed up my tent and sorted through all my belongings. My rucksack is a lot lighter on my return journey. I left behind most of my gear and clothing, my supplies – everything but my books (I can never part with my books) and my artwork. And I’m leaving behind a large piece of my heart. I know it will pull me back again someday. We closed the evening with a really touching meeting, where we each got a chance to reflect on what our time had offered to us. Anything more on the subject would bore you, I think – the last few days were intensely personal, full of moments you can never really communicate to people who didn’t live them, with scraps of promises and long, parceled-out farewells and laughter and fervent hopeful wishes for the future. If any of you guys from Croix des Bouquets ever read this: I love you. I really love you. And I miss you already.
On Wednesday, I realized I had gambled and lost. I was unable to go out on a project without potentially compromising my ride to the airport, so I had to content myself with sending a note to Dr. Roberts and spent my final day in the increasingly-quiet compound, seeing off clusters of people with earlier flights, and volunteers departing for different projects. The building was echoing with every footstep by the time I had my quiet lunch of ripe mango and black coffee, made my last survey of Ecole Shalom, and boarded the tap-tap for the airport. It was a long-dusty ride, with familiar landmarks passing by for the last time; the crush of people leading into the airport felt like a chaotic blur. Inside, it was an interminable line, then a long slump of a wait in the impossibly breezy airport. I couldn’t look out the window as the plane left the ground.
That’s probably all I can write, right now. The rest of my trip homeward has been smooth. I traveled with two other volunteers as far as Miami, where we shared a hotel room for our long layovers. One of them flew with me as far as Dallas where we parted ways this morning, and now my current flight is just beginning the descent into Vancouver. Maybe when I’ve had a little more space to reflect and digest, I’ll have more to share with you. For now, please just know that I am so grateful that you’ve allowed me to share with you what has proven to be one of the best experiences of my life so far – and I love what it promises for the future. I’m looking forward to seeing family, to holding my nephew, having tea with my mom, a cigar with my dad, to being in my sweetheart’s arms. I’m looking forward to the unfolding realizations of the profound ways this has affected me in ways I can only guess at now.
This I wrote on my last night in Haiti, tucked in my corner of the GVN/HAC compound at Ecole Shalom in Croix des Bouquets - a small space that quickly and briefly became my home entire. I'll count it now among the places I've lived, laid down my head each night in anticipation of a beautiful day to come:
"Haiti is a bold place, with beauty beyond the trash heaps and life behind the rubble and hope written across the nude hills under the relentless sun. There is a resilience here that is older than the quake, older than I'm ever likely to comprehend - and dignity and strength that will form a strong foundation for the history still being written. It is rough, raw and breathtaking, utterly unapologetic, utterly beautiful.
In just seventeen days, I have been beckoned and transformed and sent off again reeling. I've learned that no matter how much I have to give, I always reap greater returns. No matter how much I have to teach and share, the lessons given to me are always more profound. Giving is the richest gift; it initiates an exchange of love and generosity the worth of which will never be known by bestower or recipient. I came here a rich woman, with many stories and much love to give me strength already. I depart wealthier still, and leave behind the promise of a someday-migration to carry me back here again.
I'm proud of my time here, not because I feel I've done anything extraordinary (I haven't) - but simply because I've acted with the same love and care, the same sense of wonder, the same respect and the same deep values that guide me everywhere I go in life, and had the sense to let this place nourish all those aspects of my being.
That's all. I'm proud of myself for having the simple sense to know this was bigger than me, and lay myself down as a canvas for the words and images that capture this place far better than my journal ever will. So when I come home, ask me how my trip went. All I'll do is smile. And you can read in that smile a story I'll never be able to fully articulate, that I'll carry with me wherever I go."
Thanks for keeping up with me all this way, guys. I'm sending you more love than you know, and I'll see you soon.
The last week of my trip whirled by in a chaotic blur. My computer was lovingly taken over by the UNICEF data crew, and I wasn’t able to write for various other reasons. So, this will be a long entry, detailing the last week of my trip.
Last time I wrote, I was about to head to the UN complex to do data entry for UNICEF. They are compiling data on schools in Haiti – how many students they had before and after the quake, whether they’re open for classes, what damage they sustained, what levels they teach, whether they need debris cleared. Small portions of this information have been collected by various partner organizations who weren’t necessarily asking all the same questions or even using the same format for the data they collected. Our task was to consolidate and standardize the forms toward a single comprehensive database.
The tap-tap ride into Port au Prince was amazing. It always is. I never get tired of the journey into the city. The UN complex itself baffles me, though. It’s such a weird, insulated space, with clusters of organization reps who seem to be in a permanent state of self-important panic. There is constant movement, but not the same kind of movement you see in the streets. It just felt kind of strange and artificial to me. The UNICEF tents are very well set-up, and we were working in an open-walled tarp-tent shelter with tables and electrical outlets. One of the information managers briefed us on the project and we set to work.
For me, it was a profoundly unrewarding day. I’m pessimistic about one’s (or one’s organization’s) ability to recover from inconsistent record collection and management. If you don’t do things in an orderly way from the very beginning, there will always be fundamental problems you can never quite harmonize. Plus, I am not great with Excel and don’t particularly enjoy data work. Fortunately, a few of the other volunteers in our work group got the upper hand on the utter mess we were given, and managed to make some slow, steady progress. The less said about the day, the better. I don’t feel like I accomplished much personally, and though I absolutely see the importance of this kind of higher-level work, it’s just really not for me.
It’s actually been really interesting for me listening to local people talk about the big NGOs who work in Haiti. People call the UN “United Nothing”. They say the Red Cross only comes out when the media is there, to hand out t-shirts – no money or real aid. I know, intellectually, that these organizations are doing crucial work that doesn’t necessarily have immediate, visible products – that the trickle-down effect will eventually be important. But in the meantime, I follow the hearts of so many people who shared with me that, in that interim period, you need small groups doing local work with tangible results. I’ve never been a policy person. I like to break my heart and get my hands dirty. I’m glad that, with the exception of today, I stuck to my principles and did the work I felt was most important. Much respect to those individuals from our rotation of volunteers who continued to work with UNICEF to complete their project – I did not return.
On Thursday morning, I began the long trek along the coast through Cabaret to Good Samaritan orphanage. Today, Pastor Yves himself came to pick us up. He is an amazing man – I’ve probably written about him before, but I can’t remember. If I recall correctly, he runs fourteen churches, six schools and three orphanages in Haiti. He is an incredibly kind and philosophical man. I had been eager to return to Good Samaritan – it struck me deeply on my first visit, and I was anxious to see how my little ones were doing. We went with a small group this week, though – just three of us, and Baby, one of our local translators.
It was a difficult but rewarding day, which could sum up any day I spent in Haiti. One of the boys at Good Samaritan, who looks to be about six, was very clingy with me. Although he was able to communicate with me non-verbally, he cannot seem to articulate words. He’s clearly very intelligent and responsive, and I suspect his speech development is simply delayed (as opposed to any kind of mental handicap). It was exhausting, though; he wept and gnashed his little pearl-chip teeth whenever I put him down, so I spent most of my time with his legs around my waist, his head on my shoulder and his fingers twisted in my hair. Not that it stopped any of the other kids from wanting to engage and have physical contact – I spent most of my time sitting on the ground so they could crowd in for hugs, and to hold hands, and beam their perfect little smiles at me.
When my little guy finally soothed himself and went off to play with the other kiddies, I was reunited with Chelan, my little beauty who stole my heart on my first visit. She looks to be maybe eight months old, with huge, sad eyes and tiny, perfect hands that clasp your fingers and make you just melt. Over the course of the morning, three of the little boys at the orphanage started calling me “mama”. I was glad we had Baby to translate for me; I find I can connect and communicate with the kids well enough without speaking fluent Creole, but I was grateful that I could call him over to tell me what they were shyly whispering in my ear. Grateful, and also heartbroken. Mostly, it was things I just couldn’t help: “I have a headache”, “I’m so hungry”, “I miss my family”. One little boy was asking me to take him away and be his mother. Bless the sweet woman who runs the orphanage – she spoke enough English and leaned on Baby to tell me that the kids loved me – didn’t I love them? Wouldn’t I take one home to Canada with me?
When we finally left, my sweet little guy came over to me, tapped on his wee chest over his heart, then put his hand on my chest and started to cry. Me, I seem to have turned into a total softie. I cried for most of the hour’s drive home, the dusty-green scenery a blur I hardly registered. Fuck, my whole time in Haiti was an endless looming range of emotional peaks and valleys – I’ve never felt such simple joy, and I’ve never been so broken-hearted.
The tail of my afternoon back at Ecole Shalom was quiet and reserved. Particularly with Good Samaritan, I needed space to decompress – sometimes a difficult thing to achieve in shared living space with so many people, but I’m also deeply grateful that I was constantly surrounded by friends.
In the evening, after dinner, most of us headed over to Bar Optimum to unwind with a Prestige and hit the dance floor. I have perfected the art of dancing in the dark in gumboots – top that. One of our translators took it upon himself to teach me “how to dance like a Haitian woman” – which was a hilarious misadventure if I’ve ever had one, though he was satisfied by the end of the night that I was a passable dance partner. The short walk back to the compound from Optimum was always marked by still air, bright stars, slow headlights on the road and hard dirt under my feet – I’m going to miss that walk home.
On Friday, I returned to Dr. Roberts’ orphanage for a completely amazing day! Of all the places we worked, I feel like we made the greatest strides with Dr. Roberts. We repaired some huge tears in the tent that houses the boys – which solved their flooding problem in the twilight bursts of rain. We also cleared a flat space on higher ground to move the tent, and yesterday (though I didn’t see it as I was departing) our team was putting the finishing touches on a permanent protective structure over the tent to give it additional shields from the wind and rain. We finished leveling and clearing their little soccer field, removed the vast majority of the trash that ringed the orphanage compound, and...
We made them a rope swing! There is a huge, sturdy tree in the center of the yard, and at the negligible cost of $17 US, we installed a swing for them to play. I’ll post pictures and – if I can figure out how – the video once I’m back on the ground. I can’t even explain to you how moving and amazing it was to watch them stand in awed amusement in a line, watching their playmates with total glee as we took turns pushing them through the air, whirling across the yard and up skyward. It wasn’t until I heard them laughing that I realized what had seemed off all this time about the orphanage – that was the first time I’d heard the kids just being kids.
Beyond all the improvements I’ve already mentioned, we fundraised amongst ourselves to purchase thirty mattresses for the kids and staff, most of whom slept on the concrete floor or the bottom of the tent that flooded with every rain. And we raised enough money to buy each of the kids two more sets of clothing. Volunteers who are still in Croix des Bouquets are working hard to develop a hundred lesson plans to provide continuity across new rotations, so we can have a strong teaching program for the kids as well. They’re bright and eager to learn, and until we can afford to send them to a proper school, at the very least we can give them a strong foundation and try to instill a sense of curiosity and wonder in their little minds. I’m really proud of my contributions and the contributions of my comrades to the good work that was accomplished at Dr. Roberts’ orphanage over the last two weeks. I know the momentum will only continue to build.
I returned to Ecole Shalom only to become, in rapid order, violently ill. Let’s not dwell on that, but it will explain why there’s essentially a two-day gap in my journal. The jury is still hung over what exactly made me so ill – I couldn’t keep down so much as a sip of water, and I was running an amazing fever. It’s all a hot, dark blur. I was dehydrated, I was weakened to an extent that scares and astonishes me in retrospect, and I couldn’t keep down Cipro or painkillers or anything else to help me. Much to my incredible good fortune, we had two wonderful nurses with us, who managed to root through the boxes of assorted medical supplies and find both a clean needle and some kind of medication that broke my fever and eased most of my pain. For about twelve hours, all through the night, I was more or less wishing that whatever was making me sick would just put me out of my fucking misery. I am much obliged to one of my fellow volunteers, Pastor Keri, for the comfort and companionship and constant cool towels (I don’t know how you found anything cold in the compound!) I’m sure, too, that my sweet mama thanks you for being there when she couldn’t.
I spent all of Saturday in bed, which was horrid and boring and miserable and utterly necessary. Honestly, even now I still feel like the last bits of my strength are just returning. On Saturday, I hardly felt like I could peel myself off the cot. Sadly, my forced convalescence upstairs in the compound meant I missed an incredible event: a field trip for the kids from Dr. Roberts’ orphanage. Volunteers from our rotation arranged for a tap-tap to bring the kids to Ecole Shalom to play on our large soccer field, and have lunch in the schoolyard. Judging by the peals of laughter that drifted up the stairwell to my bed, it was a beautiful day for them. It was the first time, apparently, that they had left the orphanage since the quake. I am proud of my friends who organized this – they’ve started a tradition, I hope, and given the kids a really great gift.
On Sunday, I spent the morning sprawled out staring through the gap in the unfinished wall at the compound. I wasn’t feeling anything close to fully recovered, but I really think I would have gone utterly mad if I’d stayed there any longer, so, when a few of the ladies made plans to take a trip into the city, I hopped on for the ride. We returned to the market we’d visited on our first weekend, which was a jarring and crazy and beautiful cultural experience in itself. I wanted to purchase a painting to bring home, and when we exited the hired vehicle and started walked toward the stalls, we got mobbed. I ended up with three paintings and a handful of other souvenirs – not that I mind.
I hope that someone is benefitting from the money, and I won’t have trouble finding people to whom I can give the pretty things I’ve bought. But I don’t particularly enjoy haggling, especially with people who have only learned enough English to manipulate “rich Americans” with emotional guilt-trips. I spent the most money with a man who helped me to find the perfect painting and negotiated a fair price without the frantic begging and veiled threats. Maybe it would have been a different experience if I’d been more physically strong – after half an hour of wandering through the market, I could no longer handle the cluster of men pleading for me to “make them survivors” by giving them money – in exchange for art and trinkets, or just because – they thought I would give them money? It’s a misapprehension anyway – I haven’t got a penny to my name once I’ve paid out my expenses for the trip. All I have to give is love and hard work.
Anyway, after we left the market, we returned to Visa Lodge, where we’d lunched the previous weekend. We had a quiet dinner and enjoyed having a bit of air conditioning and ice in our water which was cold! Also, I am absolutely not a soda drinker at home, but Coke is amazing in Haiti. Actually, every bottled beverage I had was infinitely better down there – something about the real sugar I guess, and the extra layer of appreciation that came from having something cold and sweet. By the time we returned to Croix des Bouquets, I was wiped out. I had an early night, and slept wonderfully after eating my first real food in about three days.
On Monday morning, I decided – in spite of some lingering weakness – to break routine once again. I was part of the first group of GVN volunteers to visit Rays of Hope for Haiti, an orphanage which houses 37 special needs children in Port au Prince. They have wonderful facilities and a great staff, and I really admire the space they’ve established for the children. The kids ranged in age from infants to teenagers, and ranged across the whole spectrum of disability. To be honest, I’m not sure that I’m able to really write about my experience there yet. It was a positive and challenging day, but one that I found extremely personally difficult. I would really like to get some training in working with special needs children. I feel privileged to be part of establishing a new relationship between our volunteer base and their organization, and I’m awed and moved in ways I don’t even fully recognize by my experience. But it was a tough day for me.
I guess it must have been on Monday night when it started to sink in that my time in Croix des Bouquets was drawing to a close. I struggled with my feelings about leaving – I went through stages of feeling angry and frustrated, to be honest, that I had to leave at loose ends so many things I’d invested in over the last two weeks. I was at a place where the novelty was gone – being where I was just felt completely natural and normal. I was comfortable in my surroundings, with the heat and the weather, waking up each morning at 5 AM with the mountains pushing up the daybreak-sky. I could navigate through the market at Croix des Bouquets, I could pick my way by landmarks through the drives to various projects, I didn’t hesitate anymore about jogging after a moving tap-tap and leaping onto the tailgate. I was really happy where I was, doing what I was doing. Monday was a hard night, realizing I was about to give it all up just as I was realized what a gift I’d been given in adjusting so whole-heartedly to such a beautiful place.
And I also feel so moved by the wonderful group of people who shared my experience. Some were there longer than me; others stayed on after my departure. All of them were special and wonderful in important ways. All of them had good hearts, and all of them gave me strength, some of them without even realizing it. Our relationships developed rapidly because we were thrown into circumstances that depended on the immediate. When you part, after a time like that, there is always a fear that it will be difficult to sustain friendships across distance and time. Reflecting afterward, though, as I sit on the plane heading home, I know that the gift of their friendship has already changed me, and the laughter and challenges and moments we shared are impressed upon me in ways that I can’t believe will dwindle or fade just because we’re not together. I’m stronger just knowing that these sweet people exist somewhere in the world. I hope I will see them again, and soon, and I even trust that it will happen. But I’ve also grown to be at peace with parting. I wish them all well.
Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. Tuesday morning was tough for me. Technically, it was supposed to be my last day of work, since I was departing the following day. But I was crossing my fingers that, since my flight on Wednesday was late in the afternoon, that I’d still be able to go out on a project. I felt a strong urge to return to both Dr. Roberts’ orphanage and Good Samaritan orphanage one last time before my departure, two places in which I had invested myself heavily on an emotional and physical level throughout my trip. Ultimately, it was a gamble – I wasn’t sure I could do both.
On Tuesday morning, I returned to Good Samaritan for my final visit. I will keep it brief. I had a hard time saying goodbye to all my little ones. But I also left feeling good in my heart – on our first visit, the kids were dispirited, sickly, clingy and deeply sad on a level that shook me right to the marrow in my bones. I’m not going to pretend that a few visits fixed anything – but across my visits to Good Samaritan, I noticed a measureable difference in those kids. They were more alert and responsive, they wanted to play and engage, and some of the younger ones who had particularly worried me with their evident illness had more colour in their cheeks and life in their eyes than I’d seen previously. There were more smiles, and more laughter. We brought a huge bag full of bottles of multivitamins, tins of powdered milk, and some more good food. We’ll keep bringing them love, too. And I hope to hear someday from a future volunteer, or to see for myself, that the momentum continued to build. Those kids are really special. I’m going to miss my little Chelan, my wee boys – I hardly remember how I said goodbye. I tried to hard not to let myself get attached, but clearly I’m no longer the master of my own heart.
On Tuesday evening, I packed up my tent and sorted through all my belongings. My rucksack is a lot lighter on my return journey. I left behind most of my gear and clothing, my supplies – everything but my books (I can never part with my books) and my artwork. And I’m leaving behind a large piece of my heart. I know it will pull me back again someday. We closed the evening with a really touching meeting, where we each got a chance to reflect on what our time had offered to us. Anything more on the subject would bore you, I think – the last few days were intensely personal, full of moments you can never really communicate to people who didn’t live them, with scraps of promises and long, parceled-out farewells and laughter and fervent hopeful wishes for the future. If any of you guys from Croix des Bouquets ever read this: I love you. I really love you. And I miss you already.
On Wednesday, I realized I had gambled and lost. I was unable to go out on a project without potentially compromising my ride to the airport, so I had to content myself with sending a note to Dr. Roberts and spent my final day in the increasingly-quiet compound, seeing off clusters of people with earlier flights, and volunteers departing for different projects. The building was echoing with every footstep by the time I had my quiet lunch of ripe mango and black coffee, made my last survey of Ecole Shalom, and boarded the tap-tap for the airport. It was a long-dusty ride, with familiar landmarks passing by for the last time; the crush of people leading into the airport felt like a chaotic blur. Inside, it was an interminable line, then a long slump of a wait in the impossibly breezy airport. I couldn’t look out the window as the plane left the ground.
That’s probably all I can write, right now. The rest of my trip homeward has been smooth. I traveled with two other volunteers as far as Miami, where we shared a hotel room for our long layovers. One of them flew with me as far as Dallas where we parted ways this morning, and now my current flight is just beginning the descent into Vancouver. Maybe when I’ve had a little more space to reflect and digest, I’ll have more to share with you. For now, please just know that I am so grateful that you’ve allowed me to share with you what has proven to be one of the best experiences of my life so far – and I love what it promises for the future. I’m looking forward to seeing family, to holding my nephew, having tea with my mom, a cigar with my dad, to being in my sweetheart’s arms. I’m looking forward to the unfolding realizations of the profound ways this has affected me in ways I can only guess at now.
This I wrote on my last night in Haiti, tucked in my corner of the GVN/HAC compound at Ecole Shalom in Croix des Bouquets - a small space that quickly and briefly became my home entire. I'll count it now among the places I've lived, laid down my head each night in anticipation of a beautiful day to come:
"Haiti is a bold place, with beauty beyond the trash heaps and life behind the rubble and hope written across the nude hills under the relentless sun. There is a resilience here that is older than the quake, older than I'm ever likely to comprehend - and dignity and strength that will form a strong foundation for the history still being written. It is rough, raw and breathtaking, utterly unapologetic, utterly beautiful.
In just seventeen days, I have been beckoned and transformed and sent off again reeling. I've learned that no matter how much I have to give, I always reap greater returns. No matter how much I have to teach and share, the lessons given to me are always more profound. Giving is the richest gift; it initiates an exchange of love and generosity the worth of which will never be known by bestower or recipient. I came here a rich woman, with many stories and much love to give me strength already. I depart wealthier still, and leave behind the promise of a someday-migration to carry me back here again.
I'm proud of my time here, not because I feel I've done anything extraordinary (I haven't) - but simply because I've acted with the same love and care, the same sense of wonder, the same respect and the same deep values that guide me everywhere I go in life, and had the sense to let this place nourish all those aspects of my being.
That's all. I'm proud of myself for having the simple sense to know this was bigger than me, and lay myself down as a canvas for the words and images that capture this place far better than my journal ever will. So when I come home, ask me how my trip went. All I'll do is smile. And you can read in that smile a story I'll never be able to fully articulate, that I'll carry with me wherever I go."
Thanks for keeping up with me all this way, guys. I'm sending you more love than you know, and I'll see you soon.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
photos
Hey loves,
No time to update this blog with photos, but you can click here to view the few I managed to upload to Facebook. You shouldn't need an account to look at them:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2153952&id=122500083&l=bade6b1452
Be good!
Love,
Jess
No time to update this blog with photos, but you can click here to view the few I managed to upload to Facebook. You shouldn't need an account to look at them:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2153952&id=122500083&l=bade6b1452
Be good!
Love,
Jess
hello...
Hey everyone,
I am in Port au Prince at the UN complex doing data entry and management for UNICEF. Except that I'm terrible at MS Excel, so it's slow going!
Just a quick note to say I added two posts (from June 20 and 22). Also, if anything I write seems totally weird...I haven't been rereading things before I post them. If I repeat stuff, or totally fail to explain anything, or seem moody or say anything totally inexplicable...sorry. No time to self-edit, so take it as it comes. :)
Lots of love! Please take care of yourselves - and please take care of each other.
Jess
I am in Port au Prince at the UN complex doing data entry and management for UNICEF. Except that I'm terrible at MS Excel, so it's slow going!
Just a quick note to say I added two posts (from June 20 and 22). Also, if anything I write seems totally weird...I haven't been rereading things before I post them. If I repeat stuff, or totally fail to explain anything, or seem moody or say anything totally inexplicable...sorry. No time to self-edit, so take it as it comes. :)
Lots of love! Please take care of yourselves - and please take care of each other.
Jess
from June 22
Dear friends and family and random voyeuristic strangers who have no idea who I am but read this anyway,
Or, dear no one, because I don’t know if anyone reads this!
Hello again from Ecole Shalom in Croix des Bouquets! I didn’t write yesterday, not because I didn’t have a full and wonderful day, but simply because I was tired and I didn’t get a chance to plug in my computer while the generator was running.
Let me try to make up for it tonight, yeah? Yesterday I was at Dr. Roberts’ orphanage teaching English to the nursing students once again, and playing with the sweet little kiddies. They serenade us with “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” when we walk through the gate; today we tried to teach them “You Are My Sunshine”. Class went well, though we’ve been taking some of the older kids from the orphanage as well and it’s been challenging to cope with the mixed age group and level of comprehension. I think we’d like to try to have separate classes – one for the kids, in their little school area, and one for the nurses, which already takes place out in the front courtyard of the complex.
It’s been fun to return so often to the same place, and build up relationships with some of the kids. I find they’re opening up a lot more with me each day, wanting more snuggles, trying harder to communicate with me. Some of them have started talking a little bit about the family members they lost, how they dream of them at night and wake up sad in the morning. It’s challenging to respond in a way that’s meaningful, especially given the language barrier (though my Creole is improving and my French is coming back to me). I sense that they benefit from one another’s support, though. The older kids take very good care of the younger ones. They’re like a big family. The four women who work at the orphanage are all totally wonderful as well.
After we finished at the orphanage and came home to Ecole Shalom, I had a brief rest and then headed into central Croix des Bouquets with Isara and Caroline (two fellow volunteers). One of our translators, Justaland, decided to come along with us. So I had my first adventure in a public tap-tap! Every other time, I’ve either been in a private vehicle, or walked to where I needed to go. Contrary to what I vaguely remember saying last time I wrote, the public tap-taps are hilarious and amazing. Imagine a big truck with a grated canopy and two benches inside, open at the back. You’re so close to the people across from you that your knees are touching, and the canopy is so low you’re stooping. The whole vehicle throbs with this intense, ridiculously loud music – and I’ve talked to people who wait until a tap-tap goes by that’s playing the right song before they decide to get on. When you get to where you need to go, you bang on the window, jump out the back, toss the driver five gourds and you’re on your way. Except that I’ve never seen a tap-tap come to a complete stop – usually you have to run and jump to get on, and jog along beside it to pay.
So we took the tap-tap into the market, and checked in at the internet cafe. Then, Justaland guided us around downtown Croix des Bouquets, showed us where he went to school, walked us to the edge of a beautiful cemetery, and gave us a tour of all the little stalls and side streets. It was nice to get out and explore the area a little. I am starting to tune out all the random shouts of “I love you, lady!” and “give me a dollar” and “hey sexy girl”, which is nice, because it means I’m cutting out one hell of a distraction. But yesterday, while we were walking in the market, I ignored a group of three men who were calling after me...only to have one of them pull out a megaphone and continue flattering me at great volume until I turned the corner. That was definitely a new one for me!
We returned to Ecole Shalom for an utterly fucking delicious dinner (seriously, you guys have never eaten as good as I eat three times a day...this almost rivals gran’s cooking). Then I just had a quiet night of hanging out at the compound, reading my Mandeville and visiting with people. I went to bed quite early – I was still feeling a little punky from my lack of water – and actually had a really amazing sleep. I’d been sleeping pretty sketchily for the first few nights here – the roosters at night are almost as bad as on Kauai, and the neighbourhood dogs and goats sing a rousing chorus as soon as it gets dark. The night bugs I find soothing, and everything else has started to fade into an oddly comforting (if cacophonous) white noise. I sleep deeply enough now that I dream intensely and remember it in the mornings.
Today, I was back at Dr. Roberts’ orphanage. Every other time I’ve been there, I’ve been teaching English to the Doctor’s nursing students for the majority of my time there. But that’s only Monday-Wednesday-Friday, so today, I wasn’t teaching English! This means I had more time to spend with the kiddies! I’m going to be honest. I don’t really like teaching English. I don’t particularly mind it, and I do really enjoy assisting other people who are leading the class. I love interacting with the nurses, and they’re all complete sweethearts. But I’m not big on teaching. More power to people who enjoy it, because I think it’s awesome and worthwhile! I love working out the lesson plans and staying in the background, but...I will never be a teacher. I guess it’s nice, at least, to be able to decisively cross things off the list, huh?
Anyway, don’t misinterpret that as a complaint, because I’ve had a lot of fun with Bonnie (who is an amazing teacher!) and the nurses. But I realized today, when I had my first full, uninterrupted day at the orphanage with the kids, that I had a really fulfilling day in a totally different way. The layout of the orphanage, at least the outdoor portion, is pretty simple. There is a school area in one corner, with chalk boards and benches; a washing area and tent in the next corner; and along the length of those, a gravel soccer field. The perimeter of the compound is bristly vegetation, ringed with garbage, and the soccer field is full of big rocks and broken glass.
We decided today that we had a big enough team going to the orphanage that we could keep the kids having fun and also do some repairs! So we patched up some huge tears in the wall tent, where many of the children sleep – they told us that, when it rains, several inches of water pour in and accumulate in the bottom of the tent. We also brought garbage bags, and started cleaning up the play area. The older boys were really excited about helping, so they pitched in from the beginning, but even the younger kids started trickling over to lend a hand. Soon, we had the five of us and about twenty kids raking the large rocks out of the soccer field, donning gloves to pick up the broken glass, bagging all the garbage, clearing some of the vegetation, making new goalposts for the soccer field, and repairing the tents.
It’s tons of fun just playing with the kids, but it was also really exciting to see them getting engaged with a different kind of activity. They have a strong sense of pride in their little space, and when we explained to them (through Basil, one of the older boys who speaks some English and good French) why it’s important to keep clean, they were really curious and energetic and all wound up to help us! We’re hoping to propose projects that future rotations of volunteers can pick up, like clearing some of the vegetation to create raised beds for a garden, and more urgently, building some kind of lavatory so the kids aren’t defecating at the edge of their play area.
We returned to Ecole Shalom in the afternoon, got fed and watered up, and then I wandered into town again. I’m getting the hang of public tap-taps, I’m telling you. I can’t wait to show you guys pictures – the tap-taps are the most extraordinarily beautiful works of art. Everyone one is unique, bright, and totally bizarre. I can’t even explain it. The entire truck is painted with a rainbow of colours, often with religious slogans on the window, or lines from love songs. They’ll have sunbursts and paintings of the Virgin Mary and bikini-clad women and cartoon characters and celebrities and everything you can imagine, all of it blossoming in the most intense palette of colours you’ll ever see, all across the cab and the windows and the canopy. Sometimes when they’re packed you’re honestly just clinging to the back bar, standing on the rear bumper as the tap-tap bounces along through the potholes and puddles. All the while blaring dance music and hip-hop, of course.
We’ve discovered a place where you can buy ice-cold Prestige (a Haitian lager) about a five-minute walk from Ecole Shalom, so the last couple of late afternoons a few of us have stopped in for a frosty beer to drink as we stroll home in the rolling showers of rain. I have to say, it’s a refreshing way to cool down after a sweaty, dusty day. We returned from town, with a stop at the beer guy’s shed/cooler, and had a predictably exquisite dinner. Once again I had a chilled out visit downstairs, and tonight a long visit with Justaland (who is baffled by the idea of a small island like Bella Bella, and endlessly amused when I talk about driving boats). Now I’m writing this extremely long journal entry, sitting in the dark in my tent trying to keep my eyes open long enough to end this coherently. Am I doing a good job?
Who knows. I need to get some sleep, though. Tomorrow I’m taking a break from orphanage work to test out a new project for GVN – data entry for UNICEF, as they’re surveying all 5,000 schools in a specific area to gather information about how many students they have, what resources are at hand, how much damage they suffered in the quake, and even just super basic stuff like...are they still open. Once they have all this data, they’ll be able to build a database that will help them to support schools in the Port au Prince area. So, it won’t be very glamorous, but it’ll be a nice break.
The weather has been winding up to something very intense, and I’ll be glad to be inside tomorrow. It’s become increasingly overcast and windy the last couple of days, though still intermittently very hot. I’m told there’s a 40% chance of a hurricane hitting in the next 48 hours, so we’re bracing ourselves for some wicked weather. Wish me luck – Ecole Shalom is very safe and sturdy, but I’d still rather not get flooded out or caught out in bad weather. Hopefully it dissipates without building into something destructive, especially given the untold number of people still living in tents and unstable shelters.
Okay, until next time I write, love to you all, and hey! Shit, time flies, in just one more week I’ll be on the verge of coming home to you.
Huge hugs,
Jess
Or, dear no one, because I don’t know if anyone reads this!
Hello again from Ecole Shalom in Croix des Bouquets! I didn’t write yesterday, not because I didn’t have a full and wonderful day, but simply because I was tired and I didn’t get a chance to plug in my computer while the generator was running.
Let me try to make up for it tonight, yeah? Yesterday I was at Dr. Roberts’ orphanage teaching English to the nursing students once again, and playing with the sweet little kiddies. They serenade us with “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” when we walk through the gate; today we tried to teach them “You Are My Sunshine”. Class went well, though we’ve been taking some of the older kids from the orphanage as well and it’s been challenging to cope with the mixed age group and level of comprehension. I think we’d like to try to have separate classes – one for the kids, in their little school area, and one for the nurses, which already takes place out in the front courtyard of the complex.
It’s been fun to return so often to the same place, and build up relationships with some of the kids. I find they’re opening up a lot more with me each day, wanting more snuggles, trying harder to communicate with me. Some of them have started talking a little bit about the family members they lost, how they dream of them at night and wake up sad in the morning. It’s challenging to respond in a way that’s meaningful, especially given the language barrier (though my Creole is improving and my French is coming back to me). I sense that they benefit from one another’s support, though. The older kids take very good care of the younger ones. They’re like a big family. The four women who work at the orphanage are all totally wonderful as well.
After we finished at the orphanage and came home to Ecole Shalom, I had a brief rest and then headed into central Croix des Bouquets with Isara and Caroline (two fellow volunteers). One of our translators, Justaland, decided to come along with us. So I had my first adventure in a public tap-tap! Every other time, I’ve either been in a private vehicle, or walked to where I needed to go. Contrary to what I vaguely remember saying last time I wrote, the public tap-taps are hilarious and amazing. Imagine a big truck with a grated canopy and two benches inside, open at the back. You’re so close to the people across from you that your knees are touching, and the canopy is so low you’re stooping. The whole vehicle throbs with this intense, ridiculously loud music – and I’ve talked to people who wait until a tap-tap goes by that’s playing the right song before they decide to get on. When you get to where you need to go, you bang on the window, jump out the back, toss the driver five gourds and you’re on your way. Except that I’ve never seen a tap-tap come to a complete stop – usually you have to run and jump to get on, and jog along beside it to pay.
So we took the tap-tap into the market, and checked in at the internet cafe. Then, Justaland guided us around downtown Croix des Bouquets, showed us where he went to school, walked us to the edge of a beautiful cemetery, and gave us a tour of all the little stalls and side streets. It was nice to get out and explore the area a little. I am starting to tune out all the random shouts of “I love you, lady!” and “give me a dollar” and “hey sexy girl”, which is nice, because it means I’m cutting out one hell of a distraction. But yesterday, while we were walking in the market, I ignored a group of three men who were calling after me...only to have one of them pull out a megaphone and continue flattering me at great volume until I turned the corner. That was definitely a new one for me!
We returned to Ecole Shalom for an utterly fucking delicious dinner (seriously, you guys have never eaten as good as I eat three times a day...this almost rivals gran’s cooking). Then I just had a quiet night of hanging out at the compound, reading my Mandeville and visiting with people. I went to bed quite early – I was still feeling a little punky from my lack of water – and actually had a really amazing sleep. I’d been sleeping pretty sketchily for the first few nights here – the roosters at night are almost as bad as on Kauai, and the neighbourhood dogs and goats sing a rousing chorus as soon as it gets dark. The night bugs I find soothing, and everything else has started to fade into an oddly comforting (if cacophonous) white noise. I sleep deeply enough now that I dream intensely and remember it in the mornings.
Today, I was back at Dr. Roberts’ orphanage. Every other time I’ve been there, I’ve been teaching English to the Doctor’s nursing students for the majority of my time there. But that’s only Monday-Wednesday-Friday, so today, I wasn’t teaching English! This means I had more time to spend with the kiddies! I’m going to be honest. I don’t really like teaching English. I don’t particularly mind it, and I do really enjoy assisting other people who are leading the class. I love interacting with the nurses, and they’re all complete sweethearts. But I’m not big on teaching. More power to people who enjoy it, because I think it’s awesome and worthwhile! I love working out the lesson plans and staying in the background, but...I will never be a teacher. I guess it’s nice, at least, to be able to decisively cross things off the list, huh?
Anyway, don’t misinterpret that as a complaint, because I’ve had a lot of fun with Bonnie (who is an amazing teacher!) and the nurses. But I realized today, when I had my first full, uninterrupted day at the orphanage with the kids, that I had a really fulfilling day in a totally different way. The layout of the orphanage, at least the outdoor portion, is pretty simple. There is a school area in one corner, with chalk boards and benches; a washing area and tent in the next corner; and along the length of those, a gravel soccer field. The perimeter of the compound is bristly vegetation, ringed with garbage, and the soccer field is full of big rocks and broken glass.
We decided today that we had a big enough team going to the orphanage that we could keep the kids having fun and also do some repairs! So we patched up some huge tears in the wall tent, where many of the children sleep – they told us that, when it rains, several inches of water pour in and accumulate in the bottom of the tent. We also brought garbage bags, and started cleaning up the play area. The older boys were really excited about helping, so they pitched in from the beginning, but even the younger kids started trickling over to lend a hand. Soon, we had the five of us and about twenty kids raking the large rocks out of the soccer field, donning gloves to pick up the broken glass, bagging all the garbage, clearing some of the vegetation, making new goalposts for the soccer field, and repairing the tents.
It’s tons of fun just playing with the kids, but it was also really exciting to see them getting engaged with a different kind of activity. They have a strong sense of pride in their little space, and when we explained to them (through Basil, one of the older boys who speaks some English and good French) why it’s important to keep clean, they were really curious and energetic and all wound up to help us! We’re hoping to propose projects that future rotations of volunteers can pick up, like clearing some of the vegetation to create raised beds for a garden, and more urgently, building some kind of lavatory so the kids aren’t defecating at the edge of their play area.
We returned to Ecole Shalom in the afternoon, got fed and watered up, and then I wandered into town again. I’m getting the hang of public tap-taps, I’m telling you. I can’t wait to show you guys pictures – the tap-taps are the most extraordinarily beautiful works of art. Everyone one is unique, bright, and totally bizarre. I can’t even explain it. The entire truck is painted with a rainbow of colours, often with religious slogans on the window, or lines from love songs. They’ll have sunbursts and paintings of the Virgin Mary and bikini-clad women and cartoon characters and celebrities and everything you can imagine, all of it blossoming in the most intense palette of colours you’ll ever see, all across the cab and the windows and the canopy. Sometimes when they’re packed you’re honestly just clinging to the back bar, standing on the rear bumper as the tap-tap bounces along through the potholes and puddles. All the while blaring dance music and hip-hop, of course.
We’ve discovered a place where you can buy ice-cold Prestige (a Haitian lager) about a five-minute walk from Ecole Shalom, so the last couple of late afternoons a few of us have stopped in for a frosty beer to drink as we stroll home in the rolling showers of rain. I have to say, it’s a refreshing way to cool down after a sweaty, dusty day. We returned from town, with a stop at the beer guy’s shed/cooler, and had a predictably exquisite dinner. Once again I had a chilled out visit downstairs, and tonight a long visit with Justaland (who is baffled by the idea of a small island like Bella Bella, and endlessly amused when I talk about driving boats). Now I’m writing this extremely long journal entry, sitting in the dark in my tent trying to keep my eyes open long enough to end this coherently. Am I doing a good job?
Who knows. I need to get some sleep, though. Tomorrow I’m taking a break from orphanage work to test out a new project for GVN – data entry for UNICEF, as they’re surveying all 5,000 schools in a specific area to gather information about how many students they have, what resources are at hand, how much damage they suffered in the quake, and even just super basic stuff like...are they still open. Once they have all this data, they’ll be able to build a database that will help them to support schools in the Port au Prince area. So, it won’t be very glamorous, but it’ll be a nice break.
The weather has been winding up to something very intense, and I’ll be glad to be inside tomorrow. It’s become increasingly overcast and windy the last couple of days, though still intermittently very hot. I’m told there’s a 40% chance of a hurricane hitting in the next 48 hours, so we’re bracing ourselves for some wicked weather. Wish me luck – Ecole Shalom is very safe and sturdy, but I’d still rather not get flooded out or caught out in bad weather. Hopefully it dissipates without building into something destructive, especially given the untold number of people still living in tents and unstable shelters.
Okay, until next time I write, love to you all, and hey! Shit, time flies, in just one more week I’ll be on the verge of coming home to you.
Huge hugs,
Jess
from June 20
Dear everybody everywhere,
Hi again from Ecole Shalom, where the rumble of the generator is lulling me into a sleepy, over-sunshined, semi-dehydrated trance. Shit, man, you have to drink water constantly here. I never drink enough water at the best of times – and I’ve been really good about forcing liters of it down my throat every day – but I slacked off today, and I’m paying for it. Bad Jessie.
Today we spent our Sunday as we should – at rest. Except we decided to rest at Wahoo Bay Beach. Yes, Wahoo Bay. Nothing you can do, with a name like that you know it’s going to be a riot. Actually, it was a pretty artificial space – a private beach with waiters, a bar, a select few vendors with souvenirs and artwork, lounge chairs in the sand. It was insulated enough that I could just retreat into myself for a bit, though. And the water was just gorgeous. Nothing needs to be said about the resort space – it wasn’t outstanding, but it was nice. I will say, though, that this rotation of volunteers knows how to have a good time.
Highlight of the day: a handful of us hopped in a rowboat and decided to seek out something a little more rooted in reality. So, we paddled around the barrier – yes, the barrier – and along the shore to a public beach where tons of locals were hanging out. It was so much nicer and more real than the bizarre NGO crowd at the resort. Whole families in the water, people cuddling and sleeping in the sun, tons of food and conversation. A group of people were improvising music with amazing instruments – a stick against an empty bottle, two rocks together, a metal grate – and singing in Creole. It was totally amazing. I’d admittedly been imbibing a little, which made it even more relaxing and fun. (Haitian rum is nice, and that’s coming from someone who normally hates rum).
Anyway, lots of dancing! Hymns, love songs, songs about the earthquake, songs about the soccer game – one of the Haitian boys who spoke good English translated lyrics for me as the musicians played. The non-Haitian crowd at the beach was kind of bizarre, though – they were mostly South American, or from Southeast Asia, all men, and all with absolutely no sense of boundaries or personal space. See, local people were grabbing my hand when I walked by and pulling me up to dance and telling me I was beautiful, and that was fine! I like expressive people, so no big deal.
But when the bloated Argentinean men hit me with that disturbing, acquisitive gaze and propositioned me or asked me to become their mistress? Slightly less cool with that. And all the non-Haitian men, most of whom spoke little English, were obsessed with pictures. I’d been warned about that, so it wasn’t unexpected, but every single one of them wanted to pose for a picture with me, or with the other people from my group who came across to the public beach. Anyway, weird.
On the plus side, I discovered two amazing things: this sort of a peanut brittle thing – nuts, and sugarcane, and I think ginger? Which is unbearably sweet and delicious! And conch. Shit, I felt guilty eating it, because it’s probably hideously unsustainable, but it reminded me of abalone. It was pickled in something spicy and intoxicatingly flavourful.
After we decided to retire from the beach, we all got caught up in the open-air bar where they were broadcasting the Brazil soccer game. Now, don’t mistake me, I don’t care a whit for soccer, or any other sport – in fact, I don’t even know who Brazil was playing against. But the spirit of it was totally fun. The whole bar would erupt whenever Brazil scored a goal (they won 3-1). When the game was over, everyone leapt out of their chairs and broke out into this totally hilarious and amazing song and dance. It was unreal. I have pictures that I’ll post when I get home, but trust me...soccer fans are utterly crazy. I love it.
I am developing a secret fondness for long tap-tap rides, especially along the coast and in the rural areas. Today our ride was about an hour and a half each way, heading north through and past Cabaret. I don’t mind the bouncing and jostling so much – maybe it’s the experience on boats in rough weather, and on logging roads. I don’t know how I’d feel about it in one of the small public tap-taps, either – we have a large one, which we cram to capacity, that we hire just for our group. But it’s a really neat experience. The urban spaces are a pretty crazy visual to confront, but the rural areas are breathtakingly beautiful.
Okay, this feels totally disjointed and uninteresting. I am so tired, even I’m not interested in my day right now. Time to sleep off my overdose of sunshine. In fact, I think I’m going to break out my oral rehydration salts, because I know I’m dehydrated and I’m not willing to deal with that horrible, dangerous hangover feeling. Hopefully tomorrow I will have a little more spunk. It’s been a long week – I can’t believe it’s been a week since I arrived. In some moments, it feels like the time has soared by. In others, it feels like I’ve lived my whole life in this space. Ten more days – just ten more days. I can’t even believe it.
Alright folks, I’m going to bed. I’m sending my love to all of you.
Jess
Hi again from Ecole Shalom, where the rumble of the generator is lulling me into a sleepy, over-sunshined, semi-dehydrated trance. Shit, man, you have to drink water constantly here. I never drink enough water at the best of times – and I’ve been really good about forcing liters of it down my throat every day – but I slacked off today, and I’m paying for it. Bad Jessie.
Today we spent our Sunday as we should – at rest. Except we decided to rest at Wahoo Bay Beach. Yes, Wahoo Bay. Nothing you can do, with a name like that you know it’s going to be a riot. Actually, it was a pretty artificial space – a private beach with waiters, a bar, a select few vendors with souvenirs and artwork, lounge chairs in the sand. It was insulated enough that I could just retreat into myself for a bit, though. And the water was just gorgeous. Nothing needs to be said about the resort space – it wasn’t outstanding, but it was nice. I will say, though, that this rotation of volunteers knows how to have a good time.
Highlight of the day: a handful of us hopped in a rowboat and decided to seek out something a little more rooted in reality. So, we paddled around the barrier – yes, the barrier – and along the shore to a public beach where tons of locals were hanging out. It was so much nicer and more real than the bizarre NGO crowd at the resort. Whole families in the water, people cuddling and sleeping in the sun, tons of food and conversation. A group of people were improvising music with amazing instruments – a stick against an empty bottle, two rocks together, a metal grate – and singing in Creole. It was totally amazing. I’d admittedly been imbibing a little, which made it even more relaxing and fun. (Haitian rum is nice, and that’s coming from someone who normally hates rum).
Anyway, lots of dancing! Hymns, love songs, songs about the earthquake, songs about the soccer game – one of the Haitian boys who spoke good English translated lyrics for me as the musicians played. The non-Haitian crowd at the beach was kind of bizarre, though – they were mostly South American, or from Southeast Asia, all men, and all with absolutely no sense of boundaries or personal space. See, local people were grabbing my hand when I walked by and pulling me up to dance and telling me I was beautiful, and that was fine! I like expressive people, so no big deal.
But when the bloated Argentinean men hit me with that disturbing, acquisitive gaze and propositioned me or asked me to become their mistress? Slightly less cool with that. And all the non-Haitian men, most of whom spoke little English, were obsessed with pictures. I’d been warned about that, so it wasn’t unexpected, but every single one of them wanted to pose for a picture with me, or with the other people from my group who came across to the public beach. Anyway, weird.
On the plus side, I discovered two amazing things: this sort of a peanut brittle thing – nuts, and sugarcane, and I think ginger? Which is unbearably sweet and delicious! And conch. Shit, I felt guilty eating it, because it’s probably hideously unsustainable, but it reminded me of abalone. It was pickled in something spicy and intoxicatingly flavourful.
After we decided to retire from the beach, we all got caught up in the open-air bar where they were broadcasting the Brazil soccer game. Now, don’t mistake me, I don’t care a whit for soccer, or any other sport – in fact, I don’t even know who Brazil was playing against. But the spirit of it was totally fun. The whole bar would erupt whenever Brazil scored a goal (they won 3-1). When the game was over, everyone leapt out of their chairs and broke out into this totally hilarious and amazing song and dance. It was unreal. I have pictures that I’ll post when I get home, but trust me...soccer fans are utterly crazy. I love it.
I am developing a secret fondness for long tap-tap rides, especially along the coast and in the rural areas. Today our ride was about an hour and a half each way, heading north through and past Cabaret. I don’t mind the bouncing and jostling so much – maybe it’s the experience on boats in rough weather, and on logging roads. I don’t know how I’d feel about it in one of the small public tap-taps, either – we have a large one, which we cram to capacity, that we hire just for our group. But it’s a really neat experience. The urban spaces are a pretty crazy visual to confront, but the rural areas are breathtakingly beautiful.
Okay, this feels totally disjointed and uninteresting. I am so tired, even I’m not interested in my day right now. Time to sleep off my overdose of sunshine. In fact, I think I’m going to break out my oral rehydration salts, because I know I’m dehydrated and I’m not willing to deal with that horrible, dangerous hangover feeling. Hopefully tomorrow I will have a little more spunk. It’s been a long week – I can’t believe it’s been a week since I arrived. In some moments, it feels like the time has soared by. In others, it feels like I’ve lived my whole life in this space. Ten more days – just ten more days. I can’t even believe it.
Alright folks, I’m going to bed. I’m sending my love to all of you.
Jess
Saturday, June 19, 2010
update
hi guys,
in port au prince having a day of r&r. just added 4 substantial posts from the last few days. love you all.
in port au prince having a day of r&r. just added 4 substantial posts from the last few days. love you all.
from June 18
Dear everybody,
Hi from the GVN compound, where the boys jury-rigged the broken generator so we could have power and running water again!
I didn’t write a journal entry yesterday. Frankly, by the end of the day, I was so physically and emotionally exhausted that I wasn’t in a place to step back and write about my experiences. Even now, I’ll describe them briefly at best, since I’m not sure any time or distance will make it less heartbreaking, you know?
Yesterday morning, I went with four other volunteers to the Good Samaritan orphanage. It was about an hour and a half’s drive, mostly over very rough terrain, in a small town close to the coast. It was a stunning and heartbreaking drive – the intense blue of the ocean on one side, and fields of tarpflower tents dotted blue over the hills on the other. The orphanage is run by a man named Pastor Yves, and our driver was a member of his congregation who was volunteering his time and pickup truck to transport us. (We gave him a thousand gourds toward his gas.)
We stopped at Pastor Yves’ church and met him before continuing on to the orphanage. He was very welcoming and kind, and is clearly doing the best work he can with the limited resources at hand. That said, walking into the orphanage was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to see. There were about forty children – maybe more, since many were too timid to come out from the skeleton buildings. They ranged in age from infants to about ten years old. We’d brought some clothes, which went immediately on to the kids who didn’t have complete sets or whose clothing was so tattered they might as well have been naked. We also brought sandwiches, which they fell on like wee hungry wolves.
We spent about three hours with them – as much as we could spare, given the length of time taken up in transportation. I never could have guessed that I could carry four kids at once – but I don’t think I could have said no when they reached their little arms out. There were a few points where my emotions totally got the better of me – I spent a lot of time with one tiny little girl in a torn yellow dress, maybe six months old. She was fussing, and I was walking her around the yard trying to soothe her. I’m not naturally a kid person, and I racked my brain trying to think of what you say to little ones to calm them down. I asked myself what I say to Landon when he cries. I tell him I love him – what else can you say? So I told her I loved her, and she just looked up at me with these intense, sad, beautiful little eyes.
That’s all they want – that was the difference between Good Samaritan and Dr. Roberts’ orphanage. At Dr. Roberts’, the kids want to play and interact. At Good Samaritan, they want to be loved. They want contact. They just clutch you and stare at you with their heartbreaking unbroken gazes.
I think we were more or less the first GVN group to really go to Good Samaritan – at least, no one who is currently here as a long-term volunteer seems to have been there before. Everyone who went yesterday lobbied for GVN to go more than once a week, and to bring more supplies than we had on hand. Had we known what to expect, we might have been better prepared, and we will be next week. Many of the kids are ill, and we’ll bring what we can for medicine and hopefully also our volunteer with a nursing background. Otherwise, we managed food, multivitamins, some kitchen stores and some toys. But you can just never do enough. You can never bring enough.
So we all had a long cry when we left. I’m so grateful to be here with a group that is really committed to supporting one another. Walking away from that orphanage, disentangling myself from crying children who were calling “mama”...is the most unbearably difficult thing I’ve had to do. But it’s still nothing beside actually living in those conditions. Fuck me, it was a hard day.
Our driver was very sweet and patient, and since we were driving back along the ocean, he took us to a little beach so we could debrief a bit and go for a quick swim. It was so picturesque looking out to sea, with the ocean just so fucking blue it seemed impossible, unreal, and the sky so clear, and huge, rusted out ships anchored in the bay. Turn around to look inland, and you’d see a squalid shantytown, but that didn’t wipe the grins off the faces of the troop of little Haitian boys who came swimming with us and started an impromptu water fight. And we met MacKenzie, a boy from the nearest village who spoke a little English and was amused and curious about the six white girls who suddenly appeared to go swimming on the broken-glass beach. He was very sweet, told me he’d pray for God to keep me safe until I was back home, and to help me to remember him all the way from Canada.
When everyone reconvened back at Ecole Shalom, I think we were all exhausted. Other groups had been to Dr. Roberts’ orphanage and various construction projects in the vicinity. After dinner, we decided to walk to a nearby bar (Bar Optimum) to enjoy a cold Prestige and watch the Lakers v. Celtics game. Not that I know anything about basketball, but it was fun to get out and unwind. The bar was hilarious and amazing, and most of what went down you need never know about. It was dim, with pounding music, a crackling television set and murals on the walls – on the second storey of a dilapidated building about ten minutes away from Shalom.
It was great to have a few cold beers and just laugh. And dance. I am proud to say I showed everyone – we were expecting rain, so I went to the bar in skirts and gumboots, and everyone said I wouldn’t be able to dance in my gumboots. Well, you know what? I can. Every once in awhile, the power would black out, and they’d fire up an old generator to keep us going until it came back on. We were all on the dance floor in the middle of a great song when the power cut out – but we didn’t even fucking notice, because for the thirty seconds that the song cut out, we were all singing so loud that we just kept dancing in the dark. It was a blast.
This morning, I returned to Dr. Roberts’ orphanage with a group to teach the nursing students’ English class with Bonnie again. We’ll be teaching them Monday/Wednesday/Friday next week, and then the following Monday – then the new rotation will have to take over. Class went really well! We were joined by a group of older kids from the orphanage, and ended up with a class of about forty. They really wanted to build their vocabulary, so we covered about fifty objects and how you use them in conversation. Next Monday, we’re hoping to do conversational English and some more vocabulary-building, continue with the same for part of Wednesday, review in the second half of Wednesday’s class, and give them an informal test on Friday. They are very keen to do things as diligently as possible – I’ve never met a North American student that would ask for a test.
Dr. Roberts joined our class again, and I have to say I feel privileged to spend any amount of time with the man. In spite of all the obstacles in front of him, the smile never leaves his face. He told us today that he never thought he’d find such good teachers – he totally melts my heart. And he’s right – Bonnie is doing an incredible job with the teaching, and I am so pleased to be able to work with her.
After our class finished, we were able to join the other volunteers for awhile and play with the kiddies. Then we returned to the compound, where I totally passed out from sheer exhaustion. The heat today has been incredible. This evening, we had a low key time at Ecole Shalom, with a cold beer and a delicious dinner and a long visit by candelight while the boys fixed the broken generator. I had a quick coldwater shower to cool off and peel away a layer or two of grime, and I am very ready to get some sleep.
Tomorrow is Saturday, and we are going to get some R&R. We’re heading into Port au Prince to have a look around, take a bit of a tour. Then we’re planning to have lunch at one of the hotels in the city and just chill out for a bit. Initially, I thought I couldn’t conscionably take breaks for the weekends while I was here...but I’ve realized there is no sense in burning myself out. I’m no good to anyone if I’m sick with exhaustion and emotionally broken up – and the same goes for everyone else. We’ll have a good break tomorrow, head to the beach on Sunday after we go to church with Baby, our translator, and then it’ll be back to work on Monday.
Thinking of everyone, and sending so very much love. If nothing else, the last few days have taught me how profoundly lucky I am to have so many loved ones, and such a strong family, and such kind, sweet, wonderful friends. Someone hug my little sugarbeet Landon George for me, and give the twins a kiss, and tell them I love them. I’ve been saying that a lot lately. I mean it every time. I can’t wait to squeeze them tight and tell them they mean the world to me.
Love,
Jess
Hi from the GVN compound, where the boys jury-rigged the broken generator so we could have power and running water again!
I didn’t write a journal entry yesterday. Frankly, by the end of the day, I was so physically and emotionally exhausted that I wasn’t in a place to step back and write about my experiences. Even now, I’ll describe them briefly at best, since I’m not sure any time or distance will make it less heartbreaking, you know?
Yesterday morning, I went with four other volunteers to the Good Samaritan orphanage. It was about an hour and a half’s drive, mostly over very rough terrain, in a small town close to the coast. It was a stunning and heartbreaking drive – the intense blue of the ocean on one side, and fields of tarpflower tents dotted blue over the hills on the other. The orphanage is run by a man named Pastor Yves, and our driver was a member of his congregation who was volunteering his time and pickup truck to transport us. (We gave him a thousand gourds toward his gas.)
We stopped at Pastor Yves’ church and met him before continuing on to the orphanage. He was very welcoming and kind, and is clearly doing the best work he can with the limited resources at hand. That said, walking into the orphanage was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to see. There were about forty children – maybe more, since many were too timid to come out from the skeleton buildings. They ranged in age from infants to about ten years old. We’d brought some clothes, which went immediately on to the kids who didn’t have complete sets or whose clothing was so tattered they might as well have been naked. We also brought sandwiches, which they fell on like wee hungry wolves.
We spent about three hours with them – as much as we could spare, given the length of time taken up in transportation. I never could have guessed that I could carry four kids at once – but I don’t think I could have said no when they reached their little arms out. There were a few points where my emotions totally got the better of me – I spent a lot of time with one tiny little girl in a torn yellow dress, maybe six months old. She was fussing, and I was walking her around the yard trying to soothe her. I’m not naturally a kid person, and I racked my brain trying to think of what you say to little ones to calm them down. I asked myself what I say to Landon when he cries. I tell him I love him – what else can you say? So I told her I loved her, and she just looked up at me with these intense, sad, beautiful little eyes.
That’s all they want – that was the difference between Good Samaritan and Dr. Roberts’ orphanage. At Dr. Roberts’, the kids want to play and interact. At Good Samaritan, they want to be loved. They want contact. They just clutch you and stare at you with their heartbreaking unbroken gazes.
I think we were more or less the first GVN group to really go to Good Samaritan – at least, no one who is currently here as a long-term volunteer seems to have been there before. Everyone who went yesterday lobbied for GVN to go more than once a week, and to bring more supplies than we had on hand. Had we known what to expect, we might have been better prepared, and we will be next week. Many of the kids are ill, and we’ll bring what we can for medicine and hopefully also our volunteer with a nursing background. Otherwise, we managed food, multivitamins, some kitchen stores and some toys. But you can just never do enough. You can never bring enough.
So we all had a long cry when we left. I’m so grateful to be here with a group that is really committed to supporting one another. Walking away from that orphanage, disentangling myself from crying children who were calling “mama”...is the most unbearably difficult thing I’ve had to do. But it’s still nothing beside actually living in those conditions. Fuck me, it was a hard day.
Our driver was very sweet and patient, and since we were driving back along the ocean, he took us to a little beach so we could debrief a bit and go for a quick swim. It was so picturesque looking out to sea, with the ocean just so fucking blue it seemed impossible, unreal, and the sky so clear, and huge, rusted out ships anchored in the bay. Turn around to look inland, and you’d see a squalid shantytown, but that didn’t wipe the grins off the faces of the troop of little Haitian boys who came swimming with us and started an impromptu water fight. And we met MacKenzie, a boy from the nearest village who spoke a little English and was amused and curious about the six white girls who suddenly appeared to go swimming on the broken-glass beach. He was very sweet, told me he’d pray for God to keep me safe until I was back home, and to help me to remember him all the way from Canada.
When everyone reconvened back at Ecole Shalom, I think we were all exhausted. Other groups had been to Dr. Roberts’ orphanage and various construction projects in the vicinity. After dinner, we decided to walk to a nearby bar (Bar Optimum) to enjoy a cold Prestige and watch the Lakers v. Celtics game. Not that I know anything about basketball, but it was fun to get out and unwind. The bar was hilarious and amazing, and most of what went down you need never know about. It was dim, with pounding music, a crackling television set and murals on the walls – on the second storey of a dilapidated building about ten minutes away from Shalom.
It was great to have a few cold beers and just laugh. And dance. I am proud to say I showed everyone – we were expecting rain, so I went to the bar in skirts and gumboots, and everyone said I wouldn’t be able to dance in my gumboots. Well, you know what? I can. Every once in awhile, the power would black out, and they’d fire up an old generator to keep us going until it came back on. We were all on the dance floor in the middle of a great song when the power cut out – but we didn’t even fucking notice, because for the thirty seconds that the song cut out, we were all singing so loud that we just kept dancing in the dark. It was a blast.
This morning, I returned to Dr. Roberts’ orphanage with a group to teach the nursing students’ English class with Bonnie again. We’ll be teaching them Monday/Wednesday/Friday next week, and then the following Monday – then the new rotation will have to take over. Class went really well! We were joined by a group of older kids from the orphanage, and ended up with a class of about forty. They really wanted to build their vocabulary, so we covered about fifty objects and how you use them in conversation. Next Monday, we’re hoping to do conversational English and some more vocabulary-building, continue with the same for part of Wednesday, review in the second half of Wednesday’s class, and give them an informal test on Friday. They are very keen to do things as diligently as possible – I’ve never met a North American student that would ask for a test.
Dr. Roberts joined our class again, and I have to say I feel privileged to spend any amount of time with the man. In spite of all the obstacles in front of him, the smile never leaves his face. He told us today that he never thought he’d find such good teachers – he totally melts my heart. And he’s right – Bonnie is doing an incredible job with the teaching, and I am so pleased to be able to work with her.
After our class finished, we were able to join the other volunteers for awhile and play with the kiddies. Then we returned to the compound, where I totally passed out from sheer exhaustion. The heat today has been incredible. This evening, we had a low key time at Ecole Shalom, with a cold beer and a delicious dinner and a long visit by candelight while the boys fixed the broken generator. I had a quick coldwater shower to cool off and peel away a layer or two of grime, and I am very ready to get some sleep.
Tomorrow is Saturday, and we are going to get some R&R. We’re heading into Port au Prince to have a look around, take a bit of a tour. Then we’re planning to have lunch at one of the hotels in the city and just chill out for a bit. Initially, I thought I couldn’t conscionably take breaks for the weekends while I was here...but I’ve realized there is no sense in burning myself out. I’m no good to anyone if I’m sick with exhaustion and emotionally broken up – and the same goes for everyone else. We’ll have a good break tomorrow, head to the beach on Sunday after we go to church with Baby, our translator, and then it’ll be back to work on Monday.
Thinking of everyone, and sending so very much love. If nothing else, the last few days have taught me how profoundly lucky I am to have so many loved ones, and such a strong family, and such kind, sweet, wonderful friends. Someone hug my little sugarbeet Landon George for me, and give the twins a kiss, and tell them I love them. I’ve been saying that a lot lately. I mean it every time. I can’t wait to squeeze them tight and tell them they mean the world to me.
Love,
Jess
from June 16
Dear all,
Hi from my first full day of work in Haiti! I woke early to the sound of animals in the courtyard and people bustling outside. After a quick breakfast (something like oatmeal, but sweet and thick and delicious, and fresh bread and amazing coffee) we left for the orphanage.
Today we were at Dr. Roberts’ orphanage in Croix des Bouquets. Dr. Antoine Roberts is a Haitian man, a dentist I believe, who is just one of the best people I’ve ever met. After the quake, he founded an orphanage which currently has over thirty kids, and a medical clinic adjacent to the orphanage. Though they are underfunded, they are better off than many such facilities, and through a strong relationship with GVN have activities for the kids and English classes for the nursing students.
Though I hadn’t planned on doing so when we departed Ecole Shalom, I ended up working with a fellow volunteer named Bonnie to teach English to the nurses. For about two and a half hours, we used a makeshift chalkboard set against a tree in the courtyard of the orphanage compound, working from the basics (ABCs) up to more complicated vocabulary relevant to their training (anatomy, medical terms). It was an incredible learning experience. I’ve never taught English before, and had a limited chance to expose myself to Creole before coming to Haiti. I do have a little French, but it’s very rusty (though coming back to me more quickly than I could have hoped). With that as a foundation, and building with their previous exposure to English, we managed to have a good class!
It was almost all women, except for the compound’s security guard and Dr. Roberts himself. Fortunately for Bonnie and I, both men spoke broken but totally intelligible English, and helped us to communicate at some sticky points. I think Bonnie and I made a good team, and I admire her ability to adapt and respond to the feedback from the women today. I feel like body language and big smiles and lots of laughter go a long way, and where that’s not enough, mutual patience and enthusiasm for learning does the trick.
Dr. Roberts is really just an amazing individual. It is so strengthening for me in my own work and my own vision that everywhere I go in life, I meet good people. Knowing and remembering those people even when you’re thousands of miles away brings such strength to you. The challenges of running an orphanage, a clinic and a medical school are undoubtedly immense, but I’ve rarely seen anyone so happy as he was. It’s a good lesson. Remember the goodness in this world, and the people that are working with all their hearts and minds to achieve it.
Anyway, the English class was a lot of fun. The women were quite good about guiding us and giving us feedback, and we tried hard to be adaptive and fit our (improvised) “lesson” to their needs, interest, and existing abilities. We did some basic anatomy with an outline drawing of a human figure – head, arms, legs, hands, feet. When they asked for more detail, we drew in fingers, toes, facial features. We fit the anatomy lesson to the English medical terminology we’d taught them earlier (before you help a patient, you wash your hands; when you have a fever, the thermometer goes in the mouth).
Then it got interesting when they asked us for a diagram and vocabulary for male and female reproductive systems. I swear, it was not modesty that made me hesitate; it was purely the knowledge of my complete artistic failure. Besides, with all the external anatomy, we could clarify by pointing to our own body parts. Luckily, everyone was patient and full of good humour. Bonnie aptly drew the penis and testicles, but I had a little trouble figuring out how you draw a vagina on a makeshift chalkboard, explain about ovaries and the cervix and uterus, and how sperm...well, I don’t need to explain it all to you, and I already had a hell of a time trying to do it once today. But it was a success! All things I’m sure they knew, but attaching the right English names to the parts and processes was challenging for sure. (Not least of all because of the troop of young males hanging out across the courtyard chortling at our awkward lesson!)
After we finished our English class, we rejoined the rest of the volunteers from GVN, who were inside a play area with all the young kids. I realized pretty rapidly on my first day that the little girls at Ecole Shalom were fascinated with hair, and promptly pulled off my bandana and tried to give me braids. Much to their disappointment, my hair is short and very straight, but some of the other GVN ladies had ample locks and curls to satisfy all the aspiring stylists. The little boys promptly pulled me into a soccer game, with two sticks in the ground for goalposts and a mostly-deflated soccer ball for play. When we go back next, we’ll bring them a new ball. If something that simple brings them joy, I only hope I have the sense and the capacity to provide it.
They were also very excited about my camera, so I taught them how to turn it on and off and take pictures. They merrily ran around the yard taking pictures of one another, coming back once in awhile so I could show them the photos. I also have about twenty photos of me smiling awkwardly, half in and half out of the frame, that the wee ones took turns snapping. The last rotation of volunteers had taught them “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, and they learned to play “Duck Duck Goose” today, so there was lots of play and lots of singing and lots of kids that were just happy to have contact.
Personally, I found it to be incredibly emotionally challenging when we left. In the moment, with the kids, it was easy to just take things as they came. Kids are so present and immediate, and they draw you into that mentality; it was all about piecing together our French and Creole and English and playing and laughing and dancing. But as soon as we stood up to leave (we had to be back at Ecole Shalom at a certain time) many of the kids became visibly distressed. I think it was even more difficult for the volunteers who spent the whole day with the kids; I only had about an hour with them after the English class. When I was walking toward the gate, one of the little boys – who looked like he was about eight – came up and threw his arms around me and asked me if I was going to come back and play ball with him. I told him I would come back on Friday, and he asked if, when I came, I would take him away.
I don’t know what you say. It’s already been challenging in my life working with at-risk youth and dealing with that set of needs, but this is a completely different ballpark. I know that I want kids, and I also know that having children just completely conflicts with my values. I don’t believe this earth can sustain more people the way the population is growing, and furthermore, as I watch the global situation deteriorating on so many fronts, I don’t know that I want to bring a child into the world without being able to promise them a good life. But there are a lot of beautiful children in this world who need and deserve a lot of love. They don’t have to come from my womb for that to happen.
Still, this is an utterly impractical time in my life for me to think about adoption, and it’s clearly not something I can rationally think about while I’m here, completely emotional. I don’t even know why I’m writing about all this. I guess because it’s just present in my mind. It hurts me really deep to see kids suffering, and know I can only bring them a momentary distraction at best.
I anticipate that tomorrow will be even more challenging. Tomorrow, I will be visiting the Good Samaritan orphanage, which is larger and farther away. This orphanage is apparently destitute, the children packed in tiny tents, never enough food to go around. We’re bringing a ton of multivitamins and sandwiches with us tomorrow along with toys and art supplies. Because of the distance and traveling time, we’re only able to be there for a few hours. I’ve been told to expect that I will come home emotionally drained. I’m grateful that we have such a solid group here, and that we’re able to debrief and share at the end of each day – I may need it tomorrow even more than today.
After we returned from the orphanage today, we were able to relax for a little while over lunch. Then, we launched into Women’s Day! This happens each Wednesday afternoon. Today, we tried to organize an all-female soccer game...with limited success. We had about twenty girls and women show up, most of whom were pretty hesitant about playing soccer. A few of the boys ended up hanging around to help us with goalkeeping and retrieving stray balls. We did laps and stretches, then some fun drills, then had a full game. It was impossible to keep the boys away from the public soccer field, and their obvious soccer skills (and distracting cuteness) made it hard for many of the girls to focus. But we had a lot of fun!
Today was the first day I’ve had any sort of negative interaction with anyone about my ethnicity. One of the teenage girls was, as teenage girls are wont, quite socially aggressive and wanted to show off to her friends. I have become accustomed to people referring to me as blanc, and it doesn’t bother me, but she obviously intended it to be an insult and tried to push me around a little. She was a sassy little firebrand, which was fine – she was unhappy that I knew enough French to keep up with her, and eventually left off. It’s kind of odd – I know there’s no basis, here, for anyone to differentiate, but because I don’t self-identify as Caucasian it was initially really weird to be called blanc. I know it’s more of a descriptor than an insult 99% of the time, and when I stop and rationalize, of course it makes perfect sense. But hey, I’m just a different shade of brown, man...or if I’m half red and half white, maybe I’m just pink. Who knows.
The evening has just been pretty relaxing, hanging around Ecole Shalom and catching up on journals and doing some reading. Bonnie and I are already planning out our English lesson for Friday with the nurses. Tomorrow will be a good day – a hard day, probably, but a good day. I know it.
I’m off to get a good night’s sleep. Love to everyone.
Jess
Hi from my first full day of work in Haiti! I woke early to the sound of animals in the courtyard and people bustling outside. After a quick breakfast (something like oatmeal, but sweet and thick and delicious, and fresh bread and amazing coffee) we left for the orphanage.
Today we were at Dr. Roberts’ orphanage in Croix des Bouquets. Dr. Antoine Roberts is a Haitian man, a dentist I believe, who is just one of the best people I’ve ever met. After the quake, he founded an orphanage which currently has over thirty kids, and a medical clinic adjacent to the orphanage. Though they are underfunded, they are better off than many such facilities, and through a strong relationship with GVN have activities for the kids and English classes for the nursing students.
Though I hadn’t planned on doing so when we departed Ecole Shalom, I ended up working with a fellow volunteer named Bonnie to teach English to the nurses. For about two and a half hours, we used a makeshift chalkboard set against a tree in the courtyard of the orphanage compound, working from the basics (ABCs) up to more complicated vocabulary relevant to their training (anatomy, medical terms). It was an incredible learning experience. I’ve never taught English before, and had a limited chance to expose myself to Creole before coming to Haiti. I do have a little French, but it’s very rusty (though coming back to me more quickly than I could have hoped). With that as a foundation, and building with their previous exposure to English, we managed to have a good class!
It was almost all women, except for the compound’s security guard and Dr. Roberts himself. Fortunately for Bonnie and I, both men spoke broken but totally intelligible English, and helped us to communicate at some sticky points. I think Bonnie and I made a good team, and I admire her ability to adapt and respond to the feedback from the women today. I feel like body language and big smiles and lots of laughter go a long way, and where that’s not enough, mutual patience and enthusiasm for learning does the trick.
Dr. Roberts is really just an amazing individual. It is so strengthening for me in my own work and my own vision that everywhere I go in life, I meet good people. Knowing and remembering those people even when you’re thousands of miles away brings such strength to you. The challenges of running an orphanage, a clinic and a medical school are undoubtedly immense, but I’ve rarely seen anyone so happy as he was. It’s a good lesson. Remember the goodness in this world, and the people that are working with all their hearts and minds to achieve it.
Anyway, the English class was a lot of fun. The women were quite good about guiding us and giving us feedback, and we tried hard to be adaptive and fit our (improvised) “lesson” to their needs, interest, and existing abilities. We did some basic anatomy with an outline drawing of a human figure – head, arms, legs, hands, feet. When they asked for more detail, we drew in fingers, toes, facial features. We fit the anatomy lesson to the English medical terminology we’d taught them earlier (before you help a patient, you wash your hands; when you have a fever, the thermometer goes in the mouth).
Then it got interesting when they asked us for a diagram and vocabulary for male and female reproductive systems. I swear, it was not modesty that made me hesitate; it was purely the knowledge of my complete artistic failure. Besides, with all the external anatomy, we could clarify by pointing to our own body parts. Luckily, everyone was patient and full of good humour. Bonnie aptly drew the penis and testicles, but I had a little trouble figuring out how you draw a vagina on a makeshift chalkboard, explain about ovaries and the cervix and uterus, and how sperm...well, I don’t need to explain it all to you, and I already had a hell of a time trying to do it once today. But it was a success! All things I’m sure they knew, but attaching the right English names to the parts and processes was challenging for sure. (Not least of all because of the troop of young males hanging out across the courtyard chortling at our awkward lesson!)
After we finished our English class, we rejoined the rest of the volunteers from GVN, who were inside a play area with all the young kids. I realized pretty rapidly on my first day that the little girls at Ecole Shalom were fascinated with hair, and promptly pulled off my bandana and tried to give me braids. Much to their disappointment, my hair is short and very straight, but some of the other GVN ladies had ample locks and curls to satisfy all the aspiring stylists. The little boys promptly pulled me into a soccer game, with two sticks in the ground for goalposts and a mostly-deflated soccer ball for play. When we go back next, we’ll bring them a new ball. If something that simple brings them joy, I only hope I have the sense and the capacity to provide it.
They were also very excited about my camera, so I taught them how to turn it on and off and take pictures. They merrily ran around the yard taking pictures of one another, coming back once in awhile so I could show them the photos. I also have about twenty photos of me smiling awkwardly, half in and half out of the frame, that the wee ones took turns snapping. The last rotation of volunteers had taught them “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, and they learned to play “Duck Duck Goose” today, so there was lots of play and lots of singing and lots of kids that were just happy to have contact.
Personally, I found it to be incredibly emotionally challenging when we left. In the moment, with the kids, it was easy to just take things as they came. Kids are so present and immediate, and they draw you into that mentality; it was all about piecing together our French and Creole and English and playing and laughing and dancing. But as soon as we stood up to leave (we had to be back at Ecole Shalom at a certain time) many of the kids became visibly distressed. I think it was even more difficult for the volunteers who spent the whole day with the kids; I only had about an hour with them after the English class. When I was walking toward the gate, one of the little boys – who looked like he was about eight – came up and threw his arms around me and asked me if I was going to come back and play ball with him. I told him I would come back on Friday, and he asked if, when I came, I would take him away.
I don’t know what you say. It’s already been challenging in my life working with at-risk youth and dealing with that set of needs, but this is a completely different ballpark. I know that I want kids, and I also know that having children just completely conflicts with my values. I don’t believe this earth can sustain more people the way the population is growing, and furthermore, as I watch the global situation deteriorating on so many fronts, I don’t know that I want to bring a child into the world without being able to promise them a good life. But there are a lot of beautiful children in this world who need and deserve a lot of love. They don’t have to come from my womb for that to happen.
Still, this is an utterly impractical time in my life for me to think about adoption, and it’s clearly not something I can rationally think about while I’m here, completely emotional. I don’t even know why I’m writing about all this. I guess because it’s just present in my mind. It hurts me really deep to see kids suffering, and know I can only bring them a momentary distraction at best.
I anticipate that tomorrow will be even more challenging. Tomorrow, I will be visiting the Good Samaritan orphanage, which is larger and farther away. This orphanage is apparently destitute, the children packed in tiny tents, never enough food to go around. We’re bringing a ton of multivitamins and sandwiches with us tomorrow along with toys and art supplies. Because of the distance and traveling time, we’re only able to be there for a few hours. I’ve been told to expect that I will come home emotionally drained. I’m grateful that we have such a solid group here, and that we’re able to debrief and share at the end of each day – I may need it tomorrow even more than today.
After we returned from the orphanage today, we were able to relax for a little while over lunch. Then, we launched into Women’s Day! This happens each Wednesday afternoon. Today, we tried to organize an all-female soccer game...with limited success. We had about twenty girls and women show up, most of whom were pretty hesitant about playing soccer. A few of the boys ended up hanging around to help us with goalkeeping and retrieving stray balls. We did laps and stretches, then some fun drills, then had a full game. It was impossible to keep the boys away from the public soccer field, and their obvious soccer skills (and distracting cuteness) made it hard for many of the girls to focus. But we had a lot of fun!
Today was the first day I’ve had any sort of negative interaction with anyone about my ethnicity. One of the teenage girls was, as teenage girls are wont, quite socially aggressive and wanted to show off to her friends. I have become accustomed to people referring to me as blanc, and it doesn’t bother me, but she obviously intended it to be an insult and tried to push me around a little. She was a sassy little firebrand, which was fine – she was unhappy that I knew enough French to keep up with her, and eventually left off. It’s kind of odd – I know there’s no basis, here, for anyone to differentiate, but because I don’t self-identify as Caucasian it was initially really weird to be called blanc. I know it’s more of a descriptor than an insult 99% of the time, and when I stop and rationalize, of course it makes perfect sense. But hey, I’m just a different shade of brown, man...or if I’m half red and half white, maybe I’m just pink. Who knows.
The evening has just been pretty relaxing, hanging around Ecole Shalom and catching up on journals and doing some reading. Bonnie and I are already planning out our English lesson for Friday with the nurses. Tomorrow will be a good day – a hard day, probably, but a good day. I know it.
I’m off to get a good night’s sleep. Love to everyone.
Jess
from June 15
Dear all,
Hello from my first full day in Haiti! And it was a pretty full day, though my first bit of work won’t happen until tomorrow.
Today we spent the morning in orientation, going over the code of conduct for volunteers, house rules, and a crash course in Haitian history and customs. Locals Baby and Samuel gave us our first formal Creole lesson (though the girls yesterday taught me a few key phrases like “I love you” and “shake your booty”). Then we heard in more detail about the different projects currently taking place in and around Croix des Bouquets.
What I didn’t realize is that GVN’s presence in Haiti is fairly recent. Though the other camp in Jacmel is more established, the camp here in Croix des Bouquets is very new, and the program here at Ecole Shalom is still very much in development. It’s an exciting time to be here, as new projects are being proposed over meals, after random connections made throughout the day.
After a delicious lunch (pasta in a thick, fishy broth and fresh veggies), we all hopped in a tap-tap for a bumpy drive into the center of Croix des Bouquets. There, we changed a little money and explored the marketplace. It was a bustle of constant movement and bright colours, with music blaring from passing tap-taps punctuating the commentary on the World Cup games coming from various television sets scattered throughout different buildings. After a bit of a walk, we settled into a cafe so we could email home, and ended up staying on to watch a bit of the game and have an ice-cold Prestige (a delicious lager) under the shade of a bright tarp roof.
We got back after an inevitable mechanical adventure (our tap-tap broke down in the middle of a crowded street, and I think it started up again by sheer collective will). Just in time: the first rains of our trip came shortly after we returned. It was a beautiful downpour. Upstairs in Ecole Shalom is one unfinished section, with wooden beams stretching up to the roof but no outer wall. As the water poured down from the tarp roof, we quickly discovered the pressure was more than enough to lean out over the courtyard, clutching the beams, for an impromptu shower. It was so completely spontaneous and refreshing – and guilt-free, as I’d hesitated even over my thirty-second shower last night for fear of depleting the limited resources.
After we dried ourselves up, we met on the lower level of the compound to discuss in greater depth the different projects we’ll each be assigned to tomorrow. There are several: a well-established orphanage (Dr. Robert’s Orphanage), a more needy and underdeveloped orphanage (Good Samaritan Orphanage), a housing construction projects (Homes for Haiti/Haitian Gardens), a medical clinic, a new construction project to build a disaster-proof Geodome for the collective storage of medical supplies, and various English classes.
Tomorrow, I will go with a group to Dr. Robert’s orphanage. We’ll see tomorrow what the routine is like, but veteran volunteers have told me it’s very focused on play and just positive, loving interaction with the kids. I think I can manage that! The little girls I met yesterday certainly made it very easy – they have a very sweet curiosity, a huge desire to learn and interact, and very little fear or hesitation. This was good for me, as I was quite hesitant myself, not wanting to impose myself or confront any big boundaries with no context or experience under my belt. I didn’t get a chance to pause – as soon as I stepped out the door, the darling little girls and their older sisters pulled me right into a halting but happy Creole/French/English conversation. The focus on family, on stories and on the home is a familiar enough foundation for those of us on both sides of the cultural gap.
Anyway, I won’t know what the experience will be like until tomorrow! So I will reserve my comments until then. After our meeting, we had the most utterly fucking delicious dinner I’ve ever had in my life. I don’t know how they season the salads here – they’re a sort of coleslaw, but with the perfect balance of chili and lime and something I can’t quite figure out. Spicy and divine. We also had these delicious cakey things...I don’t know what they are, but they seemed to be fried and made from a plantain paste. But the topper was chicken that was just...too delectable to accurately describe. It was rubbed with the most amazing spices and seasonings, barbecued and blackened, but still totally tender and...shit. I’m sorry, guys, you will never eat anything as delicious as what I ate tonight.
It’s been a fairly relaxed day, which is nice, but I’m looking forward to launching into something new tomorrow. On Wednesdays, Ecole Shalom hosts a women’s gathering in the afternoons. It’s a chance for women and girls to let their hair down without any gender pressure; like it or not, the male presence in mixed groups, at least at this compound, often seems to be domineering or at least distracting. Anyway, longer-term volunteers say it’s been a great space for women to chill out and relax.
Tomorrow, when I come back from a morning at the orphanage, I will help to organize a women’s soccer game! There is a large soccer field at the Ecole Shalom compound, and the men and boys are often playing, but women don’t join in their games. We’re organizing stretches, laps, drills and then a full game! It should be a blast. God knows I am not athletic in the least and I’ve got no experience playing soccer, but I’m totally game. I will update you tomorrow night with a list of my sport-related injuries (to body and pride).
It is only 8 PM, but I am totally exhausted. It’s partly mental, I think; around 7 in the evening, it gets dark very rapidly after beautiful, intense, fruit-bright sunsets. As the heat begins to slowly ease and the space is suddenly darkened, I find it very easy to fall asleep to the hum of the generator. I’ve been doing a bit of reading, in my spare moments, which partly seems to be a vestigial connection to something that’s totally not part of my life right now...and partly seems to make an odd sort of sense.
Mostly I brought poetry, things I can read and reread, but I also brought an old copy of Mandeville’s Travels. It was published in 1919 – so, ninety years ago – and though I didn’t realize it when I bought it, it’s never been read. It’s all in Middle English, which means that I am reading it slowly and savouring every sentence, but it’s also a neat and tactile interaction with my book because I’m sitting with a knife in my lap and cutting the sealed quartos of the book to turn the pages.
For those of you unfamiliar with my obsession of the last nine or ten months, Mandeville’s Travels is a thirteenth century travel narrative detailing the voyage of an English knight through the Holy Land to India and China and back to England again. Though the author adopted “Mandeville” as a pseudonym (pseudopersona?) and essentially plagiarized much of his account, it is rooted in a literary tradition spanning herbals, genuine travel accounts, encyclopedias, hagiography, and many other types of writing.
In his “travels” (or what he represents as his travels), Mandeville describes the places and people he encounters with incredible detail. What seduces me is the botanical narrative, and the rich vegetation that permeates the text. Often one reads descriptions of unusual fruits, plants, exotic animals – things modern travelers still encounter, and still struggle to describe. Now, as I am in a context where I’m doing the same thing – seeing sights I never could have imagined, and rediscovering things (like mangoes!) in their native environment only to realize how different they are...I feel even more of a kinship with Mandeville.
Initially, I found the Travels interesting because Mandeville seems in many senses to share my travel values. That is, the things I most appreciate about traveling and the things I tend to notice strike some people as unusual. I have a passing interest in monuments, historical places, beautiful architecture – but I am more allured by the idea of peoples, the rich variety of culture, and the incredible natural beauty all around me. I tend to spend most of my time examining native flora, overturning stones on the beach to pick out their different qualities, looking at how people interact with their environment in meaningful ways. The Mandevillean style of traveler, even if invented in this text, is totally sensible to me. Especially now, I enjoy vicariously experiencing the exotic, and exploring someone else’s attempt to define it and express it.
Okay, it’s twenty past eight and I am ready to curl up and fall asleep. We have an early start to the orphanage tomorrow, and I want to be well-rested. I am thinking of everyone often, though not too often – sorry guys, but Haiti is just so rich and absorbing. With the warm air in my lungs and the sharp scents in my nostrils and the dirt on my feet and the spicy food in my belly...all the energy I have left will go toward digesting my day, eyes closed, stretched out in my little tent. It’s been a good day. Love to you all.
Jess
Hello from my first full day in Haiti! And it was a pretty full day, though my first bit of work won’t happen until tomorrow.
Today we spent the morning in orientation, going over the code of conduct for volunteers, house rules, and a crash course in Haitian history and customs. Locals Baby and Samuel gave us our first formal Creole lesson (though the girls yesterday taught me a few key phrases like “I love you” and “shake your booty”). Then we heard in more detail about the different projects currently taking place in and around Croix des Bouquets.
What I didn’t realize is that GVN’s presence in Haiti is fairly recent. Though the other camp in Jacmel is more established, the camp here in Croix des Bouquets is very new, and the program here at Ecole Shalom is still very much in development. It’s an exciting time to be here, as new projects are being proposed over meals, after random connections made throughout the day.
After a delicious lunch (pasta in a thick, fishy broth and fresh veggies), we all hopped in a tap-tap for a bumpy drive into the center of Croix des Bouquets. There, we changed a little money and explored the marketplace. It was a bustle of constant movement and bright colours, with music blaring from passing tap-taps punctuating the commentary on the World Cup games coming from various television sets scattered throughout different buildings. After a bit of a walk, we settled into a cafe so we could email home, and ended up staying on to watch a bit of the game and have an ice-cold Prestige (a delicious lager) under the shade of a bright tarp roof.
We got back after an inevitable mechanical adventure (our tap-tap broke down in the middle of a crowded street, and I think it started up again by sheer collective will). Just in time: the first rains of our trip came shortly after we returned. It was a beautiful downpour. Upstairs in Ecole Shalom is one unfinished section, with wooden beams stretching up to the roof but no outer wall. As the water poured down from the tarp roof, we quickly discovered the pressure was more than enough to lean out over the courtyard, clutching the beams, for an impromptu shower. It was so completely spontaneous and refreshing – and guilt-free, as I’d hesitated even over my thirty-second shower last night for fear of depleting the limited resources.
After we dried ourselves up, we met on the lower level of the compound to discuss in greater depth the different projects we’ll each be assigned to tomorrow. There are several: a well-established orphanage (Dr. Robert’s Orphanage), a more needy and underdeveloped orphanage (Good Samaritan Orphanage), a housing construction projects (Homes for Haiti/Haitian Gardens), a medical clinic, a new construction project to build a disaster-proof Geodome for the collective storage of medical supplies, and various English classes.
Tomorrow, I will go with a group to Dr. Robert’s orphanage. We’ll see tomorrow what the routine is like, but veteran volunteers have told me it’s very focused on play and just positive, loving interaction with the kids. I think I can manage that! The little girls I met yesterday certainly made it very easy – they have a very sweet curiosity, a huge desire to learn and interact, and very little fear or hesitation. This was good for me, as I was quite hesitant myself, not wanting to impose myself or confront any big boundaries with no context or experience under my belt. I didn’t get a chance to pause – as soon as I stepped out the door, the darling little girls and their older sisters pulled me right into a halting but happy Creole/French/English conversation. The focus on family, on stories and on the home is a familiar enough foundation for those of us on both sides of the cultural gap.
Anyway, I won’t know what the experience will be like until tomorrow! So I will reserve my comments until then. After our meeting, we had the most utterly fucking delicious dinner I’ve ever had in my life. I don’t know how they season the salads here – they’re a sort of coleslaw, but with the perfect balance of chili and lime and something I can’t quite figure out. Spicy and divine. We also had these delicious cakey things...I don’t know what they are, but they seemed to be fried and made from a plantain paste. But the topper was chicken that was just...too delectable to accurately describe. It was rubbed with the most amazing spices and seasonings, barbecued and blackened, but still totally tender and...shit. I’m sorry, guys, you will never eat anything as delicious as what I ate tonight.
It’s been a fairly relaxed day, which is nice, but I’m looking forward to launching into something new tomorrow. On Wednesdays, Ecole Shalom hosts a women’s gathering in the afternoons. It’s a chance for women and girls to let their hair down without any gender pressure; like it or not, the male presence in mixed groups, at least at this compound, often seems to be domineering or at least distracting. Anyway, longer-term volunteers say it’s been a great space for women to chill out and relax.
Tomorrow, when I come back from a morning at the orphanage, I will help to organize a women’s soccer game! There is a large soccer field at the Ecole Shalom compound, and the men and boys are often playing, but women don’t join in their games. We’re organizing stretches, laps, drills and then a full game! It should be a blast. God knows I am not athletic in the least and I’ve got no experience playing soccer, but I’m totally game. I will update you tomorrow night with a list of my sport-related injuries (to body and pride).
It is only 8 PM, but I am totally exhausted. It’s partly mental, I think; around 7 in the evening, it gets dark very rapidly after beautiful, intense, fruit-bright sunsets. As the heat begins to slowly ease and the space is suddenly darkened, I find it very easy to fall asleep to the hum of the generator. I’ve been doing a bit of reading, in my spare moments, which partly seems to be a vestigial connection to something that’s totally not part of my life right now...and partly seems to make an odd sort of sense.
Mostly I brought poetry, things I can read and reread, but I also brought an old copy of Mandeville’s Travels. It was published in 1919 – so, ninety years ago – and though I didn’t realize it when I bought it, it’s never been read. It’s all in Middle English, which means that I am reading it slowly and savouring every sentence, but it’s also a neat and tactile interaction with my book because I’m sitting with a knife in my lap and cutting the sealed quartos of the book to turn the pages.
For those of you unfamiliar with my obsession of the last nine or ten months, Mandeville’s Travels is a thirteenth century travel narrative detailing the voyage of an English knight through the Holy Land to India and China and back to England again. Though the author adopted “Mandeville” as a pseudonym (pseudopersona?) and essentially plagiarized much of his account, it is rooted in a literary tradition spanning herbals, genuine travel accounts, encyclopedias, hagiography, and many other types of writing.
In his “travels” (or what he represents as his travels), Mandeville describes the places and people he encounters with incredible detail. What seduces me is the botanical narrative, and the rich vegetation that permeates the text. Often one reads descriptions of unusual fruits, plants, exotic animals – things modern travelers still encounter, and still struggle to describe. Now, as I am in a context where I’m doing the same thing – seeing sights I never could have imagined, and rediscovering things (like mangoes!) in their native environment only to realize how different they are...I feel even more of a kinship with Mandeville.
Initially, I found the Travels interesting because Mandeville seems in many senses to share my travel values. That is, the things I most appreciate about traveling and the things I tend to notice strike some people as unusual. I have a passing interest in monuments, historical places, beautiful architecture – but I am more allured by the idea of peoples, the rich variety of culture, and the incredible natural beauty all around me. I tend to spend most of my time examining native flora, overturning stones on the beach to pick out their different qualities, looking at how people interact with their environment in meaningful ways. The Mandevillean style of traveler, even if invented in this text, is totally sensible to me. Especially now, I enjoy vicariously experiencing the exotic, and exploring someone else’s attempt to define it and express it.
Okay, it’s twenty past eight and I am ready to curl up and fall asleep. We have an early start to the orphanage tomorrow, and I want to be well-rested. I am thinking of everyone often, though not too often – sorry guys, but Haiti is just so rich and absorbing. With the warm air in my lungs and the sharp scents in my nostrils and the dirt on my feet and the spicy food in my belly...all the energy I have left will go toward digesting my day, eyes closed, stretched out in my little tent. It’s been a good day. Love to you all.
Jess
from June 14
Holy shit guys, I am in Haiti. Not even just a little bit...I am totally here.
I am sitting in my tent, on the unfinished second storey of Ecole Shalom. I can hear goats and roosters over the breeze through the tarps, and the clamour of voices, and wee beautiful kids playing and singing. It is perfect and surreal – I look forward to digesting it more when I’ve had some rest.
The flight from Miami to Port au Prince was short and stunning. I sat next to a completely sweet young man who told me all about how afraid he was the first time he boarded a flight to America (he now goes to university there). He was baffled by how calm I was, since I was flying to Haiti for the first time. I was baffled too, but I think it was exhaustion rather than calm.
Immediately after deplaning I happened to meet the only other GVN volunteer on my flight. (These things happen quickly when it’s time to fill out customs cards and you’re the only one with a spare pen.) We made our way out together.
Stepping off the plane, I was hit with that beautiful, intimidating wall of tropical heat that stops you for a moment with an almost physical force. A crowded bus carried us to the section of the airport where we stepped through customs and waited, in a chaotic crush of people, for our bags to appear. I have to say, in a pinch, the airport at Port au Prince is more organized, more efficient and less stressful than flying through Heathrow – never mind the points for character!
I feel fortunate, since I was so witlessly exhausted after the flight, that everything I brought fit into my rucksack. Anyone struggling with a luggage cart was swarmed by local men eager to help out – come hell or high water – for a couple of dollars. Since I was self-sufficient, I didn’t have to be aggressive.
I and my fellow GVN volunteer were fortunate to find our organization’s reps almost immediately on exiting the airport. In the gorgeous, maddening storm of people, it was a relief to quickly find some friendly faces. We brought our gear to a waiting tap-tap (a sort of hired vehicle, in this case with a large covered truck bed and benches in the back).
While we waited for a third volunteer to arrive on a later flight, one of the GVN reps took us for a walk to buy plastic bags of cold water. You get the hang of it fast, especially when you’re thirsty – just bite a small hole in the corner of the bag and squirt the cool water into your mouth.
The tap-tap was fun. I guess I had two things to my advantage: lots of experience bouncing along logging roads, and the fact that my, uh, ample bosom requires an iron-clad brassiere at the best of times. Otherwise, the trip might have been less entertaining.
Not that it was without its initial jarring moments. Every time we stopped, little kids would crowd around, most of them barefoot and barging traffic, to call us “friend” or “sister” and blessing us and asking for money. It doesn’t matter where you go in the world, the thought of children left wanting makes me profoundly sad. Today was no exception. Still, I don’t believe that handouts are a sustainable solution to any deep-rooted problem. I hope I can find some other way to give back positively instead.
We drove past a few smaller camps on our way to Croix des Bouquets, and many damaged buildings. But the rubble had largely been removed, or become overgrown with verdant, insistent plant life. Clusters of people on the sides of the street sold fruit, water, sunglasses and other sundry bits of merchandise. Vehicles wove with a sort of mad grace in and out of streets and traffic patterns. And everything – walls, windows, buildings, cars – is filled to the point of bursting with vibrant artwork and bright graffiti.
We arrived at the compound after about a twenty minute ride. Ecole Shalom is beautiful, more luxurious than I could have dared to anticipate. The outer grounds have a large community soccer field. Inside the gates is an outdoor schoolyard, with long, low tables, tiny chairs, and cracked chalkboards. Inside the school is a communal area, where an amazing lunch was served: spicy fish stew, fresh bread, watermelon, and the best coffee I have ever tasted. It is so dark, and earthy, and flavourful – so rich I could only have a small cup, and divine even in the heat.
After lunch I set up my living area. I have a single tent, which seems like an unparalleled luxury. Upstairs, the unfinished roof is covered with taut grey tarps, the walls half-completed so that the vegetation creeps over the bricks and the breeze sneaks through in the evening. My tent is tucked with another single into a little sort of alcove. We have rudimentary flush toilets and showers which work when the generator is on in the evenings. I unpacked my bag into my tent, sorted through my little pile of belongings, and stretched out for a bit of a nap.
I woke up restless early in the afternoon, and made my way outside where some of the senior volunteers were conducting English lessons for Haitian men. The female volunteers were relaxing in the yard with a group of women and children. I didn’t make it halfway out the door before a gaggle of little kids clustered around me, tugging at my clothes and jewelry, tugging me down to sit in their tiny chairs and playing with my hair. The women were very friendly, and between their scraps of English and my scraps of French, we managed to have a pleasant introduction.
Also, N.B.: I have yet to see a Haitian woman who isn’t utterly beautiful. True story.
One woman had quite strong English, and through her the others asked me lots of questions about Canada, my family, my travels, and what I think of Haiti. It’s easy to be honest. It’s stunning here. It’s a different kind of place than I’ve ever been or imagined, but it’s breathtaking in ways I’m only beginning to understand. The mountains are so stark and stunning, and the heat intensifies all your senses so you just feel inundated, all the time, by sharp smells and bright colours and harshly musical sounds.
One of the veteran volunteers was going with the group of women and little girls to “see their houses”. They have an intense sort of domestic pride; as soon as they knew my name, they were all issuing personal invitations to visit them in their homes. I tagged along, by which I mean half a dozen little girls attached themselves to my arms and any bit of clothing they could grasp, and tugged me along behind the women. We popped in and out of houses, as they introduced me to their friends and mothers and sisters. Most everyone we passed was extremely cordial. Though it is taking me some time to get used to people’s unabashed gazes, and tactile need to reach out and touch you.
The range of domiciles I visited in my whirlwind tour varied greatly. Some were small tents bursting with an improbable number of mattresses; some were reduced almost to rubble, just barely enough still standing to remind you of a house; some were very intact, with beautiful bits of old furniture and reams of gauzy curtains everywhere. Regardless, all of the women were completely hospitable, completely humble, and full of quiet pride in their home spaces.
At the last house, the flock of little girls announced they were going to dance for us, and pulling out a radio, burst into graceful little choreographed routines in the dusty courtyard of the home. Five of them leapt and twirled and pivoted in perfect pattern and time, first to a pop song by Shakira, then to some organic, percussive, exuberant music on another radio station. The kids here are constantly moving, and they seem happiest when they’re skipping to a beat.
We returned just in time to relax quickly before dinner. I had arrived early in the day with two fellow volunteers; several more came throughout the rest of the day, and we joined the long-term placements and the previous session’s volunteers who will depart tomorrow for our evening meal. We had an amazing sort of goulash-y dish, which I understand had rabbit in it along with thick-cut vegetables, and a delicious but incredibly spicy coleslaw. I know I’ve only sampled two meals, but I can’t believe how good the food is here. Two local women cook all three daily meals for the compound, and it is delicious. I’ve never really been one for spicy food, but I think I’ve realized it’s because people at home don’t know how to cook with spices. Here, the flavour is sensational.
We have power by generator for a couple of hours each night, and I gave in to the temptation of a quick, cool shower before bed. It’s amazing to hear through the rough-cut open spaces that pass for windows the sound of distant traffic, night bugs buzzing, animals rustling in the yard and trees shifting in the breeze. The water was just cool enough to be refreshing (for the thirty seconds I stayed in!) and now I feel ready to sleep for a month.
Tomorrow we have an early start for breakfast, then our orientation. I am curled up in my tent, typing by the light of my headlamp, completely embraced by the heat of the night. It’s not oppressive – which surprised me. I’m such a west coast girl; normally I am a wilting violet in the heat. I’m having to be careful about drinking lots of water, but so far I seem to be coping well with the temperature. There’s a slight breeze rippling through my mosquito netting, and I’m going to head to bed and hope for sweet dreams of all my loved ones a trillion miles away.
Goodnight!
I am sitting in my tent, on the unfinished second storey of Ecole Shalom. I can hear goats and roosters over the breeze through the tarps, and the clamour of voices, and wee beautiful kids playing and singing. It is perfect and surreal – I look forward to digesting it more when I’ve had some rest.
The flight from Miami to Port au Prince was short and stunning. I sat next to a completely sweet young man who told me all about how afraid he was the first time he boarded a flight to America (he now goes to university there). He was baffled by how calm I was, since I was flying to Haiti for the first time. I was baffled too, but I think it was exhaustion rather than calm.
Immediately after deplaning I happened to meet the only other GVN volunteer on my flight. (These things happen quickly when it’s time to fill out customs cards and you’re the only one with a spare pen.) We made our way out together.
Stepping off the plane, I was hit with that beautiful, intimidating wall of tropical heat that stops you for a moment with an almost physical force. A crowded bus carried us to the section of the airport where we stepped through customs and waited, in a chaotic crush of people, for our bags to appear. I have to say, in a pinch, the airport at Port au Prince is more organized, more efficient and less stressful than flying through Heathrow – never mind the points for character!
I feel fortunate, since I was so witlessly exhausted after the flight, that everything I brought fit into my rucksack. Anyone struggling with a luggage cart was swarmed by local men eager to help out – come hell or high water – for a couple of dollars. Since I was self-sufficient, I didn’t have to be aggressive.
I and my fellow GVN volunteer were fortunate to find our organization’s reps almost immediately on exiting the airport. In the gorgeous, maddening storm of people, it was a relief to quickly find some friendly faces. We brought our gear to a waiting tap-tap (a sort of hired vehicle, in this case with a large covered truck bed and benches in the back).
While we waited for a third volunteer to arrive on a later flight, one of the GVN reps took us for a walk to buy plastic bags of cold water. You get the hang of it fast, especially when you’re thirsty – just bite a small hole in the corner of the bag and squirt the cool water into your mouth.
The tap-tap was fun. I guess I had two things to my advantage: lots of experience bouncing along logging roads, and the fact that my, uh, ample bosom requires an iron-clad brassiere at the best of times. Otherwise, the trip might have been less entertaining.
Not that it was without its initial jarring moments. Every time we stopped, little kids would crowd around, most of them barefoot and barging traffic, to call us “friend” or “sister” and blessing us and asking for money. It doesn’t matter where you go in the world, the thought of children left wanting makes me profoundly sad. Today was no exception. Still, I don’t believe that handouts are a sustainable solution to any deep-rooted problem. I hope I can find some other way to give back positively instead.
We drove past a few smaller camps on our way to Croix des Bouquets, and many damaged buildings. But the rubble had largely been removed, or become overgrown with verdant, insistent plant life. Clusters of people on the sides of the street sold fruit, water, sunglasses and other sundry bits of merchandise. Vehicles wove with a sort of mad grace in and out of streets and traffic patterns. And everything – walls, windows, buildings, cars – is filled to the point of bursting with vibrant artwork and bright graffiti.
We arrived at the compound after about a twenty minute ride. Ecole Shalom is beautiful, more luxurious than I could have dared to anticipate. The outer grounds have a large community soccer field. Inside the gates is an outdoor schoolyard, with long, low tables, tiny chairs, and cracked chalkboards. Inside the school is a communal area, where an amazing lunch was served: spicy fish stew, fresh bread, watermelon, and the best coffee I have ever tasted. It is so dark, and earthy, and flavourful – so rich I could only have a small cup, and divine even in the heat.
After lunch I set up my living area. I have a single tent, which seems like an unparalleled luxury. Upstairs, the unfinished roof is covered with taut grey tarps, the walls half-completed so that the vegetation creeps over the bricks and the breeze sneaks through in the evening. My tent is tucked with another single into a little sort of alcove. We have rudimentary flush toilets and showers which work when the generator is on in the evenings. I unpacked my bag into my tent, sorted through my little pile of belongings, and stretched out for a bit of a nap.
I woke up restless early in the afternoon, and made my way outside where some of the senior volunteers were conducting English lessons for Haitian men. The female volunteers were relaxing in the yard with a group of women and children. I didn’t make it halfway out the door before a gaggle of little kids clustered around me, tugging at my clothes and jewelry, tugging me down to sit in their tiny chairs and playing with my hair. The women were very friendly, and between their scraps of English and my scraps of French, we managed to have a pleasant introduction.
Also, N.B.: I have yet to see a Haitian woman who isn’t utterly beautiful. True story.
One woman had quite strong English, and through her the others asked me lots of questions about Canada, my family, my travels, and what I think of Haiti. It’s easy to be honest. It’s stunning here. It’s a different kind of place than I’ve ever been or imagined, but it’s breathtaking in ways I’m only beginning to understand. The mountains are so stark and stunning, and the heat intensifies all your senses so you just feel inundated, all the time, by sharp smells and bright colours and harshly musical sounds.
One of the veteran volunteers was going with the group of women and little girls to “see their houses”. They have an intense sort of domestic pride; as soon as they knew my name, they were all issuing personal invitations to visit them in their homes. I tagged along, by which I mean half a dozen little girls attached themselves to my arms and any bit of clothing they could grasp, and tugged me along behind the women. We popped in and out of houses, as they introduced me to their friends and mothers and sisters. Most everyone we passed was extremely cordial. Though it is taking me some time to get used to people’s unabashed gazes, and tactile need to reach out and touch you.
The range of domiciles I visited in my whirlwind tour varied greatly. Some were small tents bursting with an improbable number of mattresses; some were reduced almost to rubble, just barely enough still standing to remind you of a house; some were very intact, with beautiful bits of old furniture and reams of gauzy curtains everywhere. Regardless, all of the women were completely hospitable, completely humble, and full of quiet pride in their home spaces.
At the last house, the flock of little girls announced they were going to dance for us, and pulling out a radio, burst into graceful little choreographed routines in the dusty courtyard of the home. Five of them leapt and twirled and pivoted in perfect pattern and time, first to a pop song by Shakira, then to some organic, percussive, exuberant music on another radio station. The kids here are constantly moving, and they seem happiest when they’re skipping to a beat.
We returned just in time to relax quickly before dinner. I had arrived early in the day with two fellow volunteers; several more came throughout the rest of the day, and we joined the long-term placements and the previous session’s volunteers who will depart tomorrow for our evening meal. We had an amazing sort of goulash-y dish, which I understand had rabbit in it along with thick-cut vegetables, and a delicious but incredibly spicy coleslaw. I know I’ve only sampled two meals, but I can’t believe how good the food is here. Two local women cook all three daily meals for the compound, and it is delicious. I’ve never really been one for spicy food, but I think I’ve realized it’s because people at home don’t know how to cook with spices. Here, the flavour is sensational.
We have power by generator for a couple of hours each night, and I gave in to the temptation of a quick, cool shower before bed. It’s amazing to hear through the rough-cut open spaces that pass for windows the sound of distant traffic, night bugs buzzing, animals rustling in the yard and trees shifting in the breeze. The water was just cool enough to be refreshing (for the thirty seconds I stayed in!) and now I feel ready to sleep for a month.
Tomorrow we have an early start for breakfast, then our orientation. I am curled up in my tent, typing by the light of my headlamp, completely embraced by the heat of the night. It’s not oppressive – which surprised me. I’m such a west coast girl; normally I am a wilting violet in the heat. I’m having to be careful about drinking lots of water, but so far I seem to be coping well with the temperature. There’s a slight breeze rippling through my mosquito netting, and I’m going to head to bed and hope for sweet dreams of all my loved ones a trillion miles away.
Goodnight!
Thursday, June 17, 2010
hi guys
dear all,
hi again from haiti. i don't know how i'm going to get on the plane to come home when it's time for my flight.
i can't even think of how to succinctly describe my experiences so far. it has been very positive, if emotionally challenging.
please just know that i am happy, and well, and thinking of you all, spending most of my time at orphanages with beautiful children and teaching english to nursing students. a good test of my ability to do anatomical drawings on makeshift chalkboards!
i am keeping a proper journal that i will add in when i can. until then, so much love.
jess
hi again from haiti. i don't know how i'm going to get on the plane to come home when it's time for my flight.
i can't even think of how to succinctly describe my experiences so far. it has been very positive, if emotionally challenging.
please just know that i am happy, and well, and thinking of you all, spending most of my time at orphanages with beautiful children and teaching english to nursing students. a good test of my ability to do anatomical drawings on makeshift chalkboards!
i am keeping a proper journal that i will add in when i can. until then, so much love.
jess
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
hi all,
i am writing from a cafe in croix des bouquets where locals are watching an intense world cup match! will not be able to update regularly of course, but keeping a detailed journal to update later.
suffice to say everything is beautiful in a way i have never experienced before. i am completely in love. and i will write when i can.
i am very happy with my organization, love our accommodations, feel totally spoiled by the local cooking, and the kids are completely heart-melting and sweet. the sense of family and of stories and of dignity and history is amazing...will make sense to anyone with strong heiltsuk roots for sure.
thinking of you all frequently and with love,
jess
i am writing from a cafe in croix des bouquets where locals are watching an intense world cup match! will not be able to update regularly of course, but keeping a detailed journal to update later.
suffice to say everything is beautiful in a way i have never experienced before. i am completely in love. and i will write when i can.
i am very happy with my organization, love our accommodations, feel totally spoiled by the local cooking, and the kids are completely heart-melting and sweet. the sense of family and of stories and of dignity and history is amazing...will make sense to anyone with strong heiltsuk roots for sure.
thinking of you all frequently and with love,
jess
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Twelve
Okay,
This is the last time I will definitely be updating. No promises once I leave. If I don't get online, by choice or by circumstance, I'll update on my return based on my handwritten journal.
Love to you all!
Edited at 2:30 AM Bella Bella-time to say that sleeping on the floor at the airport sucks. I am still in Miami for another hour or so. I have been here so long I'm beginning to think I dreamed my entire personal history. Was I actually born here, in the dust and debris around the water fountain? Was I raised by that vaguely female voice from above gently reminding me that I cannot travel with liquids in my bag? I don't know anymore. I am losing my identity to the constantly-blaring CNN and the smell of burnt, cheap coffee and the repeating pattern on the dirty carpet...
So: yes, excited to leave, or I would be if I weren't so concerned about the kink in my...well, my entire body. Good riddance, Miami airport. I hope we never do this again. Oh, wait...I have a ten hour layover on the way back, too. Huh.
This is the last time I will definitely be updating. No promises once I leave. If I don't get online, by choice or by circumstance, I'll update on my return based on my handwritten journal.
Love to you all!
Edited at 2:30 AM Bella Bella-time to say that sleeping on the floor at the airport sucks. I am still in Miami for another hour or so. I have been here so long I'm beginning to think I dreamed my entire personal history. Was I actually born here, in the dust and debris around the water fountain? Was I raised by that vaguely female voice from above gently reminding me that I cannot travel with liquids in my bag? I don't know anymore. I am losing my identity to the constantly-blaring CNN and the smell of burnt, cheap coffee and the repeating pattern on the dirty carpet...
So: yes, excited to leave, or I would be if I weren't so concerned about the kink in my...well, my entire body. Good riddance, Miami airport. I hope we never do this again. Oh, wait...I have a ten hour layover on the way back, too. Huh.
Eleven
So,
Gmail's suggestive advertising is mocking me:
"How to fall asleep - Restalex.com - Let Restalex get you to sleep now and tomorrow. Guaranteed to work."
YEAH, THANKS, JERK. Seven more hours in this airport and the floor is cold, man.
Gmail's suggestive advertising is mocking me:
"How to fall asleep - Restalex.com - Let Restalex get you to sleep now and tomorrow. Guaranteed to work."
YEAH, THANKS, JERK. Seven more hours in this airport and the floor is cold, man.
Ten? I think this is ten.
Guys,
It is so cold in the Miami airport. I'm not even joking with you. PLEASE TURN OFF THE AIR CONDITIONING.
Well, yes, I am in Miami. I've been here for awhile. I don't know what time it really is, because my laptop, my watch and my mobile all have different times on them now. I think it's going on to 8 PM at home. You've all just settled in for your Sunday evening after a nice dinner, tucked in your warm houses, all that jazz.
I am sitting in this frigid and neglected wing of the airport, which is so quiet and completely abandoned that I can make out the distinct audio feeds from at least six televisions scattered across the waiting areas in this part of the building. Every time someone does walk by, the muffled thud of footsteps is so quiet it doesn't even pretend to echo.
I kind of like airports at night, though. You get to see their skeletons, and imagine what they look like in the bustle of the day without actually having to combat the crush of people and the wall of noise. I remember flying into Lihue last December, and stepping into the open-air airport, and just feeling the wave of sultry nighttime heat. I remember everyone huddled in hushed excitement as we stepped off our long flight, shook out our tension, stretched into helpless yawns and tried like little kids at Christmastime to keep our eyes open against the night while we waited for our bags.
I mean, my bag never came, unluckily for me, but that actually didn't bother me too much. I was pretty content to just stretch across our duffel bag of camping gear and smile to myself in the dim airport with the night bugs buzzing just outside the ring of light, while Ian had a helpless conversation with the lone airline agent in the airport about where my belongings might be. I don't think the stupid smile ever left my face. When we went back the next day to look for my bag, it was a completely different place: hectic, rushed, cacophonous. All the things I'd rather imagine than experience. But at night, it was lazy and beautiful.
This is a totally different species of airport, of course. Lihue was intimate, well-loved, a little derelict. This place is sprawling. At least it seems so now, when whole stretches of it are empty. And it's cold in here. But there's still something appealing about being here on my own, stretching out my aching muscles, imagining how the face of this place changes in the morning, in the afternoon. What it will look like when I'm gone. I own it alone right now, and that's kind of cool, don't you think?
Okay, I'm going to go for a walk to warm up. We'll see how self-conscious I feel when I get my blood pumping a little faster -- it would be nice to stretch out and do some yoga to undo the last bits of tension from the flight.
I'll probably write again later. I can't seem to stop. Love to you all!
Jess
It is so cold in the Miami airport. I'm not even joking with you. PLEASE TURN OFF THE AIR CONDITIONING.
Well, yes, I am in Miami. I've been here for awhile. I don't know what time it really is, because my laptop, my watch and my mobile all have different times on them now. I think it's going on to 8 PM at home. You've all just settled in for your Sunday evening after a nice dinner, tucked in your warm houses, all that jazz.
I am sitting in this frigid and neglected wing of the airport, which is so quiet and completely abandoned that I can make out the distinct audio feeds from at least six televisions scattered across the waiting areas in this part of the building. Every time someone does walk by, the muffled thud of footsteps is so quiet it doesn't even pretend to echo.
I kind of like airports at night, though. You get to see their skeletons, and imagine what they look like in the bustle of the day without actually having to combat the crush of people and the wall of noise. I remember flying into Lihue last December, and stepping into the open-air airport, and just feeling the wave of sultry nighttime heat. I remember everyone huddled in hushed excitement as we stepped off our long flight, shook out our tension, stretched into helpless yawns and tried like little kids at Christmastime to keep our eyes open against the night while we waited for our bags.
I mean, my bag never came, unluckily for me, but that actually didn't bother me too much. I was pretty content to just stretch across our duffel bag of camping gear and smile to myself in the dim airport with the night bugs buzzing just outside the ring of light, while Ian had a helpless conversation with the lone airline agent in the airport about where my belongings might be. I don't think the stupid smile ever left my face. When we went back the next day to look for my bag, it was a completely different place: hectic, rushed, cacophonous. All the things I'd rather imagine than experience. But at night, it was lazy and beautiful.
This is a totally different species of airport, of course. Lihue was intimate, well-loved, a little derelict. This place is sprawling. At least it seems so now, when whole stretches of it are empty. And it's cold in here. But there's still something appealing about being here on my own, stretching out my aching muscles, imagining how the face of this place changes in the morning, in the afternoon. What it will look like when I'm gone. I own it alone right now, and that's kind of cool, don't you think?
Okay, I'm going to go for a walk to warm up. We'll see how self-conscious I feel when I get my blood pumping a little faster -- it would be nice to stretch out and do some yoga to undo the last bits of tension from the flight.
I'll probably write again later. I can't seem to stop. Love to you all!
Jess
Nine / Quick note
Hey guys,
With an embarrassing level of difficulty due to technological ineptitude, I have finally figured out how to allow anonymous comments on my posts.
You shouldn't need an account to leave feedback anymore, but if you're commenting without an account, do me a favour and sign your name in the comment?
Jess
With an embarrassing level of difficulty due to technological ineptitude, I have finally figured out how to allow anonymous comments on my posts.
You shouldn't need an account to leave feedback anymore, but if you're commenting without an account, do me a favour and sign your name in the comment?
Jess
Eight
Dear sirs and madams,
Hi from the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport, where I found a giant store full of items that say "Don't Mess With Texas". You'd think a small selection would be enough, but apparently not! Ah, well, variety is the spice of life, after all.
The first part of today's travel went fairly smoothly. Airplanes are much less fun when you don't have someone to lean on and mould into a personal pillow. Well, I could have, but I don't think the elderly lady beside me would have appreciated it.
I am thinking about my wee sugarbeet Landon George today, sitting by an airport window looking at all the huge, bright airplanes running on the tarmac. I'm missing my little "matala enthusiast" a whole ton. Someone at home give him a squeeze for me today, and tell him his auntie loves him.
Okay, it is about quarter to one at home and in my brain, and I haven't eaten anything all day. I am so tired -- seriously, I think that halting, neck-achy sleep you get on airplanes is actually worse for you than just staying awake. But things are just fine, here.
Ahaha, shit, moment of realization: I've been wondering why everyone who walks by me looks so totally baffled. I guess it'd be the glaring bumper sticker on my computer that reads, "CHARTER FISHING IS AN ORGANIZED CRIME". A little out of place in Texas, maybe.
I am off to find some food, then to apply myself to some work that I have certainly left to the eleventh hour.
Thinking of everyone, and will probably write again from my disastrously long layover in Miami.
Jess
Hi from the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport, where I found a giant store full of items that say "Don't Mess With Texas". You'd think a small selection would be enough, but apparently not! Ah, well, variety is the spice of life, after all.
The first part of today's travel went fairly smoothly. Airplanes are much less fun when you don't have someone to lean on and mould into a personal pillow. Well, I could have, but I don't think the elderly lady beside me would have appreciated it.
I am thinking about my wee sugarbeet Landon George today, sitting by an airport window looking at all the huge, bright airplanes running on the tarmac. I'm missing my little "matala enthusiast" a whole ton. Someone at home give him a squeeze for me today, and tell him his auntie loves him.
Okay, it is about quarter to one at home and in my brain, and I haven't eaten anything all day. I am so tired -- seriously, I think that halting, neck-achy sleep you get on airplanes is actually worse for you than just staying awake. But things are just fine, here.
Ahaha, shit, moment of realization: I've been wondering why everyone who walks by me looks so totally baffled. I guess it'd be the glaring bumper sticker on my computer that reads, "CHARTER FISHING IS AN ORGANIZED CRIME". A little out of place in Texas, maybe.
I am off to find some food, then to apply myself to some work that I have certainly left to the eleventh hour.
Thinking of everyone, and will probably write again from my disastrously long layover in Miami.
Jess
Seven
Hi, imaginary friends!
Okay, so I am all checked in at YVR. I am so grateful to Kathy and Hamar and their beautiful daughters for taking care of me in Victoria, and to my cuzzies Gary and Melissa for feeding me and giving me a place to nap last night. It does wonders to reduce stress when you don't have to worry about all the little things at the start of your trip. Thanks, guys, and much love.
So, my first flight is from Vancouver to Dallas, which I vaguely remember as being a pretty nice airport? I have about three hours there, then I fly to Miami, which I know nothing about. Once I get to Miami (at 9:35 PM), I get to sit in the goddamn airport until 6:55 AM. This doesn't reflect too well on my ability to book flights, but I assure you, it was unavoidable.
Does anyone know why on earth there are birds in the Vancouver airport? Are they tame? Are they pets? Are they wild? What species are they? Why the hell are they whizzing around by the US departure gates?
So, everything has gone smoothly so far this morning. I caught the Canada Line out to YVR, which was fast and smooth and cheap and awesome. It baffles me how many cities lack convenient public transportation to their airports. Congratulations, Vancouver, this almost sort of does something to mitigate the fact that I secretly hate you.
I am flying with American Airlines, which I've never done before, so I'm reserving judgment until later. I tend to have mixed luck with airlines. Either they are amazing, or they are abhorrent, or somehow both at once. What ever happened to mediocrity? I think Air Canada ranks the lowest (surprise, surprise). Terrible customer service, expensive food, uncomfortable planes, no interest in their customers. I liked Alaska Airlines when we flew to Kauai, but I think I just secretly like red eye flights. My bags did disappear both ways, but I don't think that was their fault. Plus, hey, free mai tais.
But guys? If you ever go to New Zealand for any reason? Fly Air New Zealand, because it was ridiculously good. Everyone was so competent and friendly, and the food was better than I've had in most restaurants (lamb on an airplane, what the hell). Free booze, an amazing selection of artsy movies and great music, everything was just perfect.
I don't have much to say right now, given that I am half asleep and nothing has really happened yet. So I am going to tell you a cute airplane story.
A couple of winters ago, Ian and I decided we would go to New Zealand for a couple of months in the spring. He planned our trip while I was in the midst of final exams and wrapping up my undergraduate degree. Neither of us is particularly romantic, so when Ian found a flight that essentially eliminated Valentine's Day, we decided to go for it! We flew out of Vancouver on February 13, and with the flight time and the time change, we arrived on February 15 in Auckland.
We were quite smug about outmaneuvering the gods of commercialized love, and by the time our flight date rolled around, I'd really forgotten all about the significance of the day. But Ian is a clever creature. He calculated with as much precision as was possible on an international flight the moment when we'd be in a timezone, in the air, where it was technically February 14.
He woke me up out of my awkward, contortionist airplane sleep-mode to tell me he loved me, and the sly thing somehow produced a box of chocolates in mid-air...much to the utter delight of the stewardesses and all the lady passengers sitting around us. (Aww...he loves me!)
Okay, now I realize that my chocolate prospects on this Dallas flight are rather low. Especially because my sweetheart is...where are you today? Still in Haida Gwaii? And I don't think romance is part of American Airlines' service package. But you never know!
My departure is looming. Of course I am nervous. I'll be the first to admit it: when I hauled myself into the skytrain at half past five and pulled away from the last familiar face I'll see for a few weeks, I surveyed my situation - an empty, rattling car filled with weak morning light, and me sleep-deprived and suddenly alone. And I definitely got choked up. (Sorry, mom, I know you don't like to read that.)
There's so much about this trip I can't rationalize. People keep telling me they're proud of me and that I'm brave and good, and I love them for it, but I don't feel worthy of the accolades. I can't really explain how or why I decided to go, because I don't know. It seems like yesterday that I was holed up in my room, curled up in front of my desk, avoiding my Chaucer research and thinking to myself suddenly, "What if I..."
The intervening weeks have flown by, and I'm kind of relieved that I've been too busy to think hard about any of this. I've come to accept that I don't make decisions with my brain. Depending on the situation, I make them with my hands, with my heart, with parts of me I don't even recognize or understand. We'll see if that fact leads me astray here - it never has before. I don't know what the coming days will bring, but I trust that they will challenge me, and I will find goodness in them.
Thanks for everything you've done to help me prepare for this moment, in the small ways I can. I'm going to sign off, call my sweet mama, and get ready to board my flight. I love you guys.
And I secretly love the airport birds, too.
Jess
Okay, so I am all checked in at YVR. I am so grateful to Kathy and Hamar and their beautiful daughters for taking care of me in Victoria, and to my cuzzies Gary and Melissa for feeding me and giving me a place to nap last night. It does wonders to reduce stress when you don't have to worry about all the little things at the start of your trip. Thanks, guys, and much love.
So, my first flight is from Vancouver to Dallas, which I vaguely remember as being a pretty nice airport? I have about three hours there, then I fly to Miami, which I know nothing about. Once I get to Miami (at 9:35 PM), I get to sit in the goddamn airport until 6:55 AM. This doesn't reflect too well on my ability to book flights, but I assure you, it was unavoidable.
Does anyone know why on earth there are birds in the Vancouver airport? Are they tame? Are they pets? Are they wild? What species are they? Why the hell are they whizzing around by the US departure gates?
So, everything has gone smoothly so far this morning. I caught the Canada Line out to YVR, which was fast and smooth and cheap and awesome. It baffles me how many cities lack convenient public transportation to their airports. Congratulations, Vancouver, this almost sort of does something to mitigate the fact that I secretly hate you.
I am flying with American Airlines, which I've never done before, so I'm reserving judgment until later. I tend to have mixed luck with airlines. Either they are amazing, or they are abhorrent, or somehow both at once. What ever happened to mediocrity? I think Air Canada ranks the lowest (surprise, surprise). Terrible customer service, expensive food, uncomfortable planes, no interest in their customers. I liked Alaska Airlines when we flew to Kauai, but I think I just secretly like red eye flights. My bags did disappear both ways, but I don't think that was their fault. Plus, hey, free mai tais.
But guys? If you ever go to New Zealand for any reason? Fly Air New Zealand, because it was ridiculously good. Everyone was so competent and friendly, and the food was better than I've had in most restaurants (lamb on an airplane, what the hell). Free booze, an amazing selection of artsy movies and great music, everything was just perfect.
I don't have much to say right now, given that I am half asleep and nothing has really happened yet. So I am going to tell you a cute airplane story.
A couple of winters ago, Ian and I decided we would go to New Zealand for a couple of months in the spring. He planned our trip while I was in the midst of final exams and wrapping up my undergraduate degree. Neither of us is particularly romantic, so when Ian found a flight that essentially eliminated Valentine's Day, we decided to go for it! We flew out of Vancouver on February 13, and with the flight time and the time change, we arrived on February 15 in Auckland.
We were quite smug about outmaneuvering the gods of commercialized love, and by the time our flight date rolled around, I'd really forgotten all about the significance of the day. But Ian is a clever creature. He calculated with as much precision as was possible on an international flight the moment when we'd be in a timezone, in the air, where it was technically February 14.
He woke me up out of my awkward, contortionist airplane sleep-mode to tell me he loved me, and the sly thing somehow produced a box of chocolates in mid-air...much to the utter delight of the stewardesses and all the lady passengers sitting around us. (Aww...he loves me!)
Okay, now I realize that my chocolate prospects on this Dallas flight are rather low. Especially because my sweetheart is...where are you today? Still in Haida Gwaii? And I don't think romance is part of American Airlines' service package. But you never know!
My departure is looming. Of course I am nervous. I'll be the first to admit it: when I hauled myself into the skytrain at half past five and pulled away from the last familiar face I'll see for a few weeks, I surveyed my situation - an empty, rattling car filled with weak morning light, and me sleep-deprived and suddenly alone. And I definitely got choked up. (Sorry, mom, I know you don't like to read that.)
There's so much about this trip I can't rationalize. People keep telling me they're proud of me and that I'm brave and good, and I love them for it, but I don't feel worthy of the accolades. I can't really explain how or why I decided to go, because I don't know. It seems like yesterday that I was holed up in my room, curled up in front of my desk, avoiding my Chaucer research and thinking to myself suddenly, "What if I..."
The intervening weeks have flown by, and I'm kind of relieved that I've been too busy to think hard about any of this. I've come to accept that I don't make decisions with my brain. Depending on the situation, I make them with my hands, with my heart, with parts of me I don't even recognize or understand. We'll see if that fact leads me astray here - it never has before. I don't know what the coming days will bring, but I trust that they will challenge me, and I will find goodness in them.
Thanks for everything you've done to help me prepare for this moment, in the small ways I can. I'm going to sign off, call my sweet mama, and get ready to board my flight. I love you guys.
And I secretly love the airport birds, too.
Jess
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Six
Guys,
Traveling alone can be super challenging. I need to start being sharper and bolder than I usually am. When I’m traveling with Ian, for example, I know that when I falter, he will pick up the slack. I know that in moments of doubt, when I’m second guessing myself, he’s there to reassure me and help me make decisions. The companionship is a comfort and a safeguard.
I sense that there’s something special about traveling alone, though. For one, you learn to rely on yourself more, to be completely independent when the situation calls for that. For another, you teach yourself to reach out and network and seek support from strangers and unfamiliar resources when you find you can’t do it all alone. It’s humbling. I am humbled by the knowledge of my own limitations, just as I am empowered by the knowledge of my own capacity. Does that make sense?
I think it does. I can do a lot on my own. I can be resourceful. I tend to be calm in moments of crisis. I slip up sometimes, and it’s been awhile since I was responsible to myself in this way. Hell, I think that, never mind sharing the responsibility with a partner, it’s also significantly easier to be in charge of others in situations like this. When you know that other people are relying on you, you approach things with a different awareness and a different attitude. When you’re alone, when you’re the only one who suffers from wrong decisions and when the rewards you find are all your own as well, sometimes it’s harder to habitually be really honest with yourself about what you lack and how you’re going to find fulfillment.
I want to learn to rely on myself more. I also want to learn to be more forgiving of myself when I make mistakes.
I’m writing this from the ferry, bound for Tsawwassen, with the sky clear as a blank page and the cacophonous solitude of being alone in a crowd punctuated often by my insistent friend, the BC Ferries rep on the PA system. I’m signing off at 7:30 PM, and will post this when I can.
Jess
Traveling alone can be super challenging. I need to start being sharper and bolder than I usually am. When I’m traveling with Ian, for example, I know that when I falter, he will pick up the slack. I know that in moments of doubt, when I’m second guessing myself, he’s there to reassure me and help me make decisions. The companionship is a comfort and a safeguard.
I sense that there’s something special about traveling alone, though. For one, you learn to rely on yourself more, to be completely independent when the situation calls for that. For another, you teach yourself to reach out and network and seek support from strangers and unfamiliar resources when you find you can’t do it all alone. It’s humbling. I am humbled by the knowledge of my own limitations, just as I am empowered by the knowledge of my own capacity. Does that make sense?
I think it does. I can do a lot on my own. I can be resourceful. I tend to be calm in moments of crisis. I slip up sometimes, and it’s been awhile since I was responsible to myself in this way. Hell, I think that, never mind sharing the responsibility with a partner, it’s also significantly easier to be in charge of others in situations like this. When you know that other people are relying on you, you approach things with a different awareness and a different attitude. When you’re alone, when you’re the only one who suffers from wrong decisions and when the rewards you find are all your own as well, sometimes it’s harder to habitually be really honest with yourself about what you lack and how you’re going to find fulfillment.
I want to learn to rely on myself more. I also want to learn to be more forgiving of myself when I make mistakes.
I’m writing this from the ferry, bound for Tsawwassen, with the sky clear as a blank page and the cacophonous solitude of being alone in a crowd punctuated often by my insistent friend, the BC Ferries rep on the PA system. I’m signing off at 7:30 PM, and will post this when I can.
Jess
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