My Adventure

Alright so the following post is a summary of the trip I took to Jacmel for the satellite teaching project. Some of this I wrote during the trip and some after so the tense changes a lot and whatnot. It’s a pretty long post but I suppose a lot can happen in a few days.

Day I: Today, Thursday, has been a pretty wild day. It started off with my waking up at 4:45 a.m. I finished packing for the Jacmel trip and had some breakfast. We left base around 6:30. The tap-taps are not comfortable to begin with but taking long trips on them pretty much sucks. But aside from the discomfort, the ride was really nice – we rode up and through the mountains. We got to the place we’re staying at within a couple hours. Unfortunately we were meant to be at the school (our first teaching site) by 8:30. So anyways we arrive at the base here in Jacmel. We set our stuff down and left for our first work site in a town called Etain (sp?), a supposed 30 minute drive away. The first bit of the drive was fine – semi-paved roads, nothing crazy. It was when we got to the first river that the problems started. Just for a little background – the tap-tap we were in was a piece of shit to begin with. An old, rusting pickup with some elevated bench seating in the back and a metal piece covering the top. Ok so we get to this river and we just go at it, full on. Drove right into it. It wasn’t a huge, deep river (at least at the part we were crossing) but it was still several feet deep and totally rocky on the bottom. Half way across the car stalls. This is an occurrence that subsequently happened about 200 more times throughout the day. So after a couple minutes the boyfriend of one of our translators (who is tagging on long on this trip for some unknown reason) hopped out of the tap-tap and, with some assistance from the locals, got the truck going again. We get across the river and drive on some road that was getting progressively worse. Then we hit another river. We got through it, barely. Then came the mountain. Now perhaps it should have been a sign to us not to proceed seeing as how there were only a couple motorcycles going up – maybe our vehicle would be unable to handle the terrain. But we went for it, of course. The next hour was some of the scariest minutes I’ve had in a while. Basically think – extreme inclines and declines, no real road to speak of, a very narrow and rocky path, and being inches away from a cliff steep enough to base jump off – this was non-stop the whole way up. There were several occasions we had to jump off the back of the tap-tap due to close calls. We’d walk while the driver negotiated the particularly nasty bits of mountain. But somehow we got up! We were two hours late but glad to be alive. The teaching sessions went smoothly in the morning for the most part. The teachers were asking lots of questions and we didn’t have much time since we were so late but we managed to finish. We had some lunch of – you guessed it – rice and beans (and some fish and really awesome lime juice)! Afternoon session went by alright even though we were on an even tighter schedule. My portion which deals with floods/hurricanes and fire/fire safety went well although the teachers had more interest and questions about earthquakes, which is fair enough and doesn’t surprise me. Regardless I still feel like my section includes some pretty important information. So we finished up and got back in the tap-tap. Now at this point I had developed a bad headache. Let me say that the being in the back of a tap-tap, careening down a mountain isn’t the most comfortable position to be in, especially when you have a headache. As we were leaving the school everyone on the team was talking about their imminent deaths. Going down the mountain really, legitimately was scary. Even worse than on the way up. So going down was easier in that we didn’t have to jump out but, again, was way scarier. We made it down and through the river (although the engine died again in the middle). After nearly an eternity in the back of the death-mobile we got back to the house where the truck pretty much died in front of the gate. Needless to say I was happy to hear we’d be using a new truck Friday. Upon getting back we set up a big ol’ tent in the front yard of this Haitian NGO’s compound we were staying at. The group got together to go for dinner in downtown Jacmel but I was feeling pretty crap so I stayed at the compound all by myself. It sucked feeling so bad but quite nice having free range of the house – this included a real toilet, a proper shower, and cold drinking water. After less than three weeks in Haiti these things seemed like luxuries. So I had a shower (still had a cold one), got myself some water, threw on my headphones, and started writing this entry. I then took a little nap and woke up when the others came back with a box of food for me. I got a delicious piece of chicken, fried plantains, and the infamous spicy, Haitian coleslaw. I ate quickly and went back to bed. I decided pretty quickly that sleeping on a sleeping pad is not enough comfort for me but putting a pillow under my back and using clothes as a pillow made me marginally more comfortable. But I slept.

Day II: I woke up at a quarter ‘till six, had breakfast, and the team was off for the day. Being that our “30 minute ride” Thursday took a good two hours, I had some real trepidation getting onto our new, smaller tap-tap to embark on an hour and half journey through even more mountains in a town called Brettan (again, sp?). The ride was horribly uncomfortable but, again, there was a stunningly beautiful view for most of the ride. Also, when we were a few minutes into the ride we stopped and two older Haitian women got in the tap-tap with us (along with huge sacks full of something heavy). For a little while I thought they were teachers, hitching a ride to the seminar with us but when we dropped them off an hour and some later I realized they weren’t. This same kind of thing happened several more times through the rest of the trip. It only took two, two and a half hours. And there were only a handful of times when I feared for my life. It’s amazing how many more stares and looks of sheer bewilderment you get the further outside of major cities you get. And instead of the “hey you’s” I’m used to getting in Leogane, the kids mostly just shout “blanc” (white) over and over at us. Getting to the town today I was still feeling pretty sick and really tired. I barely made it through the morning session. While we were taking a break and waiting for lunch our team leader, Chris, suggested we make a quick run to the beach before eating. We made the short walk to the water – we walked through a graveyard, which had a path that ran through the gravestones (all above ground, as Haitian culture dictates people not be buried in the ground) and came right out onto the beach. The water was a beautiful, light shade of blue and there wasn’t any sand but instead there were stones. The stones were all very smooth so walking barefoot wasn’t a problem. We all basically got down to our underwear and went swimming. The water was really warm and we mostly had the beach to ourselves – there were a few young Haitian kids swimming. We only had a few minutes in the water but it was extremely refreshing and I did feel a lot less sick. We finished the afternoon and headed back to Jacmel. I know I’ve complained a lot about the tap-tap rides but this ride was no different than the rest – long, uncomfortable. But this time we even got some rain. We were lucky that the driver had a tarp, which we all huddled under. It felt like the days of making forts (kind of). We had street food for dinner (old oily chicken that didn’t agree with a lot of the group the next day). Because our last teaching site was in Jacmel itself, we were going to have to leave until 8 the next morning. That meant sleeping in!

Day III: I slept later Saturday morning than maybe any day so far – 7 a.m.! When we went to load the tap-tap there were some mechanics outside who had fixed the problem on our initial tap-tap but weren’t happy with the amount our driver was trying to give them. They were demanding twice the cost of what the work should have reasonably cost (so I was told). The mechanic even threatened to put the engine back the way it was if he didn’t get paid. One of our translator’s boyfriend, Gito, a big guy, put half the money being demanded into the mechanics pocket and hustled him away. The session was only 15 minutes away from the house and the whole day went really quickly. Before I knew it, we were packing up our giant tent and packing up the tap-tap. The ride back wasn’t too bad and I was actually happy to be back! People here are really great. Coming back in, lots of people ask how everything went and welcomed me back “home”. Seriously, the people here are so wonderful.

One thing I find very entertaining about doing the teaching sessions is the questions we get. A lot of the questions are reasonable but every session we typically get a couple ridiculous ones. I just want to share a couple of the better questions we got just so you have an idea of what I mean (I’m paraphrasing but the questions remain essentially the same):
-I heard there is a car that can create an earthquake, true?
-I heard that on December 21, 2012 the US is going to set off lots of bombs and missiles and if you want to survive you have to go underground, true?

Sometimes I seem to get so wrapped up in everything going on with HODR I forget to really look at and enjoy the country I’m in. Getting out to do this satellite project was great in that I was able to see more of the country and think more about all the cultural differences. I also got to spend time with a small group of really great people. One of the guys on the trip, Steve, did some calculation on the way back. He figured out that during the trip we had spent more time on a tap-tap then we had sleeping. Anyways, I’m really glad I went.