Day 3
We wake and have breakfast then head back to Shada for the first weekly health clinic at the Children's Community Center. Two Haitian doctors have offered their services for free. Sasha tells us that rare is the Haitian doctor who will even step foot in Shada. The clinic will be open each Wednesday from 8am until 1pm. Madame Bwa will chose 40 people, based on the severity of the medical need, to be seen each week. This is amazing for Shada; there are many, many sick and malnourished children in Shada. There have been free health clinics before in Shada but none ongoing and with Haitian doctors. This means that in a matter of months, all the sick children in Shada will receive the medical attention they so desperately need.
We arrive late in the morning and the small room (which still smells of paint, the sunny golden yellow put on the concrete walls by the children only the day before) is full of people. The doctor is surrounded by mothers and fathers, many of them talking, even shouting, at once. Madame Bwa had to leave briefly and the crowd had taken over. Sasha gets between the crowd the doctor and somehow he is perfectly calm. He is dressed in a shirt and tie and doctor's coat and the room is at least 90'f. He smiles at us and says hello. Madame Bwa returns and she and Sasha manage the patients and I hold a sweet little baby girl only about 4 months old.
After the doctor sees all the patients for the day, there is a meeting to discuss the day's work. How can next week be more efficient? more controlled? The meeting is about an hour and in Kreyol. It is certainly more important to straighten out the details than translate everything for us; so most of the meeting passes me by. Madame Bwa is happy to see us again. Everyone here kisses hello and I love this. When Sasha asks the doctor who will come next week, him or the other doctor, he answers, "I hope it's me."
Next we visit one of three dry composting toilets in Shada. It is built with two waste receptacles and the first is now full. We move the "toilet" (a concrete cast in the shape of a toilet but not plumbed) from the full side, to the empty. It will take about a year to fill at which time the second hole will be fully composted, emptied and ready for use! The design is wonderful and indefinitely sustainable. And the maintenance is surprisingly low.
We get a tag-along on the way home, Woodlyn. He is developmentally disabled and maybe about 18 years old. We have seen him each day since we arrived. He is very sweet. As the four of us are getting on our motos to return home, Woodlyn hops on the back with Allison and I. We are four on a scooter! Not unusual in Cap. Woodlyn lives in Shada but spends a lot of time hanging around the SOIL house and a street children's program run by two Americans (more about that later perhaps). Sasha tells him no, no. But he is stubborn. I am behind the driver, Allison behind me and I am sure though that Woodlyn is hanging off the moto, so I grab his thigh and hold on to him with all of my strength as we ride through the anarchy called traffic in Cap. We all make it home unharmed.
Woodlyn picks up a book written in English and leads me to the patio. He is pointing at the book and saying something in Kreyol that I cannot quite decifer but I have this feeling he wants to learn some English. To me, it is more beautiful than anything I can think of, that this young man sits with a book written in English when I have no doubt that he cannot read in any language at all. He wants to do the things that the people he loves do, the people who treat him kindly- because many people do not, do. He wants to read. I grab my Kreyol dictionary and we repeat the English and Kreyol words for the things we can see. Balkon, balcony. Fanm, woman. Nonm, man.
Sasha told me earlier that Woodlyn is often mistreated. People shout at him, call him "trash" because he is disabled. People on the street ask 'why do you walk with him? he is worthless.' This hurts me to my core. He is hungry, he is dressed in rags, and he is as full of love as he is loneliness.
Woodlyn tells me he is hungry and a moment later, lunch is served. SOIL is in the difficult position of trying to reach out to the community, to help the children in any and every way but it is not possible to feed every child that drops in- there are simply too many and not enough food or money. Without fail, about once an hour, you'll hear a child scream from the street, "Sa-cha!" (Sometimes Cha-cha, which is so funny and cute). They want in, they want food, they want a place to be inside. But Woodlyn eats with us. He eats two huge plates of food and this makes me so happy. Then I go downstairs to my bunk and cry and cry and try to catch my breath and keep my heart inside my chest. It is breaking. Everyday that I am here, it breaks a little more, but not enough to kill me. Just enough to scar my little pump forever. I love Woodlyn. I love him for everything that he is and everything that is not.
We have an afternoon discussion- Haiti 101 and much of it is about Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The evening was mellow. We were scheduled to watch a documentary about the beloved ex-president but the DVD cannot be found. Sasha jokes that her friend Stef stole it and burned it. He is of French descent, born and raised in Haiti. He is white, wealthy (by Haitian standards anyway), part of the elite. He is wonderful, really; we have spent some evenings with him and while he may not share Sasha's politics (and I guarantee she'll keep working on him), the joke about him stealing the video is exactly that, but perhaps it provides a bit of insight into the class system here.
So far, I am 3 for 3 as far as tears shed each day I am here. I fall asleep easily and, though I miss Michael almost desperately, I do not miss my organic cotton sheets, my window screens, my piles of clothes, my nice car, and on and on and on...
Day 4
Day 4 was butt-kicking but I did not cry! Hooray! We wake early and travel again to Milot. This time to the Citadel. A fort built by slaves, construction began in 1804 and was completed in 1820. The walk is 7 kilometers (help me out here...?) and entirely up hill. It is a monstrous climb but somehow I am bursting with energy and Tony and I beat everyone to the top by about 15 minutes. The hike takes about 2 hours.
It is Sasha's birthday so after some rest and some food we all head to the Mon Jolie hotel up on a hill in Cap. It is the opposite of Shada. Nearly all of the young people I have met here are present: Wisnel, Rosemond, Stef, Steve, Gary, Allison, Gillian, Leah, Nick, Jessica and, of course, Sasha. We drink Prestige, the Haitian beer- is it an odd name? I think so. We munch on fried salty plantains and enjoy conversation and music. There is a live band below us (at the bar) next to the pool and the main dining area. One man plays a banjo, which Rosemond has heard but never had the chance to play. He goes and talks to the band, who surely know of him- he really is a celebrity (which has it's downfalls I am learning). He plays the banjo for a while and when he returns he tells us it's hard. I tell Rose that the banjo is very popular in the US, which he knows; Sasha took him to what sound like an old-timey bluegrass show in San Francisco last year. But he doesn't know that the instrument is African and was brought to the States by slaves. He is pleased.
I was told before coming to Haiti that it is full of constant drama. "Island fever," Allison calls it. She is one of the U of Miami students here and is from St. Maarten, east of Puerto Rico and only slightly larger, geographically, than San Francisco. On the morning of Day 5, I tend to agree. I don't mind at all. Sometimes it's tense, sometimes sad, bizarre, passionate... but drama is indeed all around.
Mwen renmen ou! (I love you!) Thanks for reading.
Peace.
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