Haiti Reflections: Day 7 - March 21

The day started very early.  At 12:05 a.m., Pierre Francois came into the Barracks to wake us for the trip back to PAP.  It was now Monday and the travel restriction had been lifted.

Our luggage, now lightened significantly by the off-loading of all the supplies we brought, was loaded into the back of Father Yves’ Hilux.  I went from the Hilux back to the Barracks for one last check to be sure what I was leaving behind (sheets, scrubs, assorted t-shirts, empty duffel bag) was what I intended to leave behind.  As I was headed back, two things happened.

First, I passed a hen who was sheltering two small chicks under her.  This is her earlier in the week:

She started as I passed, and I said to her, “HA!  Doesn’t feel so great when somebody wakes YOU in the middle of your sleep cycle, does it?”  Never mind that hens don’t crow...she was barnyard fowl and fair game.

Just a few steps beyond the hen, just as I passed the women’s dorm, a colossal group-shriek came from the dorm’s open windows.  I knew instinctively that Derek’s eight-legged friend had reappeared, even before the first “SPIDER!!!  KILL IT!  KILL IT!! KILL IT!!!” was howled.  And that was howled many times over the next couple of minutes.  There was screaming, wailing and the thudding of things being thrown.  Then there was a CRACK followed by sudden silence.  Somebody had found a broom or mop and used the handle to end the excitement.  Too bad, too.  The spider wasn’t out to hurt anyone, and the noise was keeping the roosters awake.

We said adieu to the nuns who were so very good to us during our stay, climbed aboard the bus and rolled out of Chantal.  I strained to see everything of it that I could through the windows in the dark of night.  I wanted to miss nothing.

As we rolled through the darkness, most of us tried to get some extra sleep.  It wasn’t easy.  The roads wind through hills and mountains, making positioning for sleep difficult.  And when the bus had to climb a very steep hill, the driver had to turn off the air conditioner for the extra horsepower.  It didn’t get overly hot, but the sudden increase in temperature and humidity will cause you to stir from a mild slumber.

Somewhere during the trip there was a very loud bang.  We had blown one of the rear tires and the cabin began to fill with the smell of burning rubber.  We pulled over at the entrance to a heavily fortified UN compound.  The driveway was flat and well lit.  The driver got out to check the tire and many of us got out to stretch our legs.  The compound walls were formidable, clearly purpose built for defense, and topped with dense coils of razor wire.  Two guard towers were strategically positioned to cover the entry gate.

The bus had dual rear wheels and it was the inside tire that had blown.  Replacing it would take hours, which was time we didn’t have to spare for those with early flights.

Suddenly, Father Yves came flying back up the road in the Hilux.  He was in the lead when the blowout happened and, on the winding roads, it took him a couple of minutes to figure out we had been separated.  He was very agitated that we needed to get back on the bus and get out of there.  We were to just drive on the remaining five wheels.  Go!  Go!  Get back on the bus now!  We must leave!

It took a while to figure out this emphatic behavior.  When you have mechanical problems with your car in a bad neighborhood, pulling in to the parking lot of a police precinct is generally the wise thing to do.  But these aren’t law enforcement officers in a police precinct, they’re soldiers in a forward-deployed base.  They see things very differently from cops.  Our presence in their entryway could easily have been a decoy or the opening gambit of an attack.  What were in reality bleary Americans taking snapshots could have been construed as people performing reconnaissance.  It’s how soldiers think – it’s how they must think – in order to stay alive.

So on we drove for another two hours, bathed in the perfume of burning flat tire.  Even with the brief stop for the flat, the trip took 5 ½ hours.

We arrived back in PAP and went straight to the airport.  About half the team was headed out now.  There were many hugs, tears and well wishes.  As our friends disappeared into the terminal, we got on the bus and went to the Francois residence.

The home of Father Yves’ parents was really big and well appointed.  Father Yves’ father (his Dad, not another priest) was apparently a career soldier and was able to make a comfortable upper-middle class life for his family.

Front Courtyard

Living Room

Dining Room

Kitchen

Those of us staying overnight for a flight out tomorrow morning brought in our bags.  We were fed the standard Haitian breakfast, this one without PBJs.  Afterwards, we sat back and relaxed and caught up on some sleep.

Bill, Alex, Juliet and Woody demonstrating the concept of "a good kind of tired."

After our naps, we had lunch then took half of the remaining team to the airport.  Before we got there, we stopped at a local supermarket.  This is where I got my Rebo coffee.  Sadly, I didn’t get nearly enough.

Universel [sic] Super Market, a very nice grocery.

There were more tears and hugs as we said good-bye to more friends at the airport.

Father Yves took the rest of us on a wide-ranging tour of PAP so that we could visit several of the local art markets.  I bought a wooden vase at the first one, while Elena and Connie went nuts at all three of our stops.  Clearly, they both wanted to maximize all the room now available in their baggage allowance for the flight home.

At the first art market, seen below, I had an interesting encounter with the large gentleman in the blue shirt in the center of the picture.

 After I took this picture of the market, I chose to cross the street pretty much right across from him.  I noticed that he was sort of eyeing me as I crossed.  His arms were folded, as they are here, and his posture tense.  Just before I stepped onto the curb, I looked right at him, smiled, and said, “Bon jour.”  He immediately relaxed, smiled back and returned the greeting.  I got the feeling that an international incident was avoided by simply speaking half my French vocabulary.

We got to see a lot of PAP.  Here are slums being overlooked by massive walled compounds on top of the hill. 

Garbage lined the streets everywhere, a result of the debris removal policies of the government I mentioned on the first day.

After hitting the third and final art market, Father Yves took us back home.  But it took forever.  Rush hour had set in and it was a long way.  Those of us in the bed of the pickup – Juliet, Bill, Woody, Elena and I – were treated to a ride we won’t soon forget.  The potholes are bad, but there was a lot of noise and dust and exhaust from thousands of vehicles on the roads.  And the garbage...ugh!  A lot of it was being burned right at the side of the road, sometimes in barrels or dumpsters, sometimes just open in the gutter.  The smells varied from fire to fire but were uniformly repugnant.  At one point, traffic lurched to a stop and left us in a cloud of trash smoke for a minute that seemed like an eternity.  I don’t even want to begin to contemplate what we were inhaling.  The hell of it is that we were all having a great time!  We laughed and joked the whole time.

Some collapsed buildings were still there.

When we got back, I took a shower before I went to sleep.  I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I report that the soap lather in my hair was charcoal gray.