On Thursday March 7 I woke from a vivid malaria-meds-induced
dream at 4:45am to find that I had somehow hurt my ankle and also forgotten to
pack undies or socks. I hobbled around throwing things in my duffel and set out
to meet the rest of the class. Our flight was at 10 but Papa Gordon, as we
dubbed our professor for his good natured and fatherly concern, was worried
that we would encounter traffic or other unseen barriers like flooding,
tornadoes and/or aliens between New Haven and NYC. We didn’t. We arrived bright
and shiny to have about 4 hours to kill in the airport. I spent it well, having
a Skype interview with a Bolivian NGO for whom I am now working. The flight was
normal (I was squooshed in the middle) although there was a palpable excitement
among the Haitians to be returning to their beloved country. I’ve never
encountered anything quite like it.
We were warned that the airport would be complete chaos and
indeed it was. Upon landing we were shepherded to a bus packed to the gills and
driven to the terminal where we were greeted by a brass band. Despite having
memorized the Kreyol answers to “Vacation or business? How many days? Where are
you staying” I forgot them and the customs officer just waved me through. I
then set out to find my luggage and was somewhat nervous when I couldn’t.
However, before leaving New Haven we had tied pink ribbons to all our luggage
and some enterprising young Haitian had gathered it…including some suitcases
that although adorned with ribbons were not actually from our group. In a
country with such few opportunities and high unemployment, people work however
they can; I’m sure we each could have had three men carry our baggage out to
our waiting bus. On the bus I was super excited to see our fellow students who
had arrived earlier or traveled through the Dominican Republic especially
Narita, my partner in crime, who had one of those border crossing stories that
become cocktail party favorites. If we grad students had cocktail parties she
could spin a yarn involving a stolen cement truck, a blockade, three people and
luggage on a motorcycle, and arguing and bribing her way into Haiti.
The bus reminded me a bit of Harry Potter’s Knight Bus.
Careening around the streets of Port au Prince, passing slower moving vehicles
(or attempting to), with 23 backseat drivers the bus headed north to
Deschappelles’s Kay Haiti where we dined
upon the spiciest rice and beans known to man and free beer. Wafting through
the air were the familiar smells of burning garbage and dust. (Dust by the way
is classified by many Peace Corps volunteers as the fifth food group and I
think it has a very distinctive smell that I associate with dry
often-developing countries but I wonder if Arizona smells similar.)
By this point both my ankles are
swollen which I attribute to serious water retention issues.
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