Brush with Haiti (21 page)

As we spoke of
feng shui
and the positive, healthy flow of energy on a day trip to the harbor, he pointed to a new high rise apartment structure built on the side of a steep hill.

"Can you see how it is designed?" he asked us. There was a separation between the towers.

"Was it done that way for a reason?" another professor asked.

"According to the legend, the mountain is home to a dragon, which would be very angry if his view of the harbor were obstructed in some way. The architect was instructed to leave a space for the dragon."

The co-existence of modern and traditional beliefs in Asian society was intriguing and attractive to me. After learning more about
feng shui,
I placed a couple of red items strategically in my office for luck and gathered all of the foreign currency I had collected over the years, put it in an elaborate pencil holder I received as a gift in Shanghai. I then set them on the window ledge, in my prosperity corner. I cannot say that it worked; in fact, I might argue based on actual life circumstances that it did not. At least not the prosperity bit. But how is prosperity measured anyway?

When I ran into George just a couple days after the earthquake, he quickly reached out to grab my arm.

"I am so happy to see you!" I could do nothing but grin, as tears began to well up in my eyes.

"You are so lucky!"

I nodded.

"No, really. In Chinese custom we acknowledge something like this as being very lucky. You escaped an earthquake. It is a sign that you are a lucky person." He held my arm tighter. "A very lucky person."

"Why do you say that?" I did feel fortunate, but he introduced a whole new dimension to my understanding of luck.

"You should buy a lottery ticket!" I laughed.

"No, it's true. This is a lucky time for you, a lucky person. Do it today."

"Okay, okay." I thought about it, but did not do it.

The next day, in the same spot, I passed another Chinese professor. Chen had headed up two of our engineering departments, and was equally energetic and engaging.

"Kathy! You are here!"

I nodded.

"I heard you were in Haiti but missed the earthquake. You are very lucky. A very lucky person."

"I guess so. I'm just happy to be back."

"You should buy a lottery ticket. This is a lucky time for you"

That evening on my way home, I needed to stop for gas. While I could have paid at the pump and been on my way, I decided to run in for a bottle of water. Above the cashier dangled dozens of rolled strips of lottery tickets.

"You want one?" he asked, perhaps concerned I might be holding up the line.

"What's a good one?"

"If I knew that, I'd be rich."

"How can I win the most money?"

"Powerball." I wasn't sure how that worked, but understood the drawing would not take place until the weekend. My lucky time might be running out.

"Nah. I should do something instant. Give me two of that kind." One on George's advice, I thought, and one on Chen's. I chose the prettiest ones displayed. He rolled his eyes, tore two tickets from above him, and handed them to me.

"This and the water? Six dollars and sixty-two cents."

I took my purchases, and stood aside while he waited on the others. I wanted to choose a space rather sacred, or in some way memorable, where scratching two tickets would change my life forever. There was a half-empty shelf next to some dusty STP. I took a nickel from my jacket pocket and did what I had to do. And there it was. I won two dollars and two free lottery tickets.

Communication with Haiti was chillingly limited but I learned a few days later that Hospice St. Joseph had collapsed.

The idea of starting classes
was terrifying. I had been teaching for more than 20 years, but this time I did not know how I could possibly get up in front of a room full of students and go on with my lectures as usual.

In the days before students were to arrive I visited each of my rooms, practicing walking in and going through the motions required of the first few minutes of the first day. I placed my books in front of me - books I had used before -opened them, and touched the pages. They may as well have been blank. I looked up at the empty seats and opened my mouth and uttered a few sounds, as if to make sure my voice would work.

Before returning to my office, I visited the campus Counseling Center. The student manning the front desk watched me intently as I tried to make sense of what was wrong.

"I was in Haiti on the day of the earthquake and I don't seem to be coping with it very well. Not as well as I should be."

"Would you like to make an appointment to see someone on Monday?" he asked.

"No, classes are starting. That's ok. It's just that right now I can't imagine getting in front of my students without crying. Maybe I'll feel better in a couple days. That's ok," I said as I turned to go.

"Wait a minute," he said and disappeared into a back office.

My eyes were filled with tears. This trip was supposed to make me feel better about my job - about life - and it had done the opposite. He returned quickly.

"Maybe I will make an appointment," I told him.

"I can see you now," he replied.

He seemed to be a graduate student in the counseling program, or maybe he just looked young. It didn't matter. I just needed someone to talk to and he listened.

When I finally did teach, the presence of Haiti and all of its problems hovering over the classroom was not a problem. Rather, the fact that so many of my students seemed oblivious to it was what bothered me. When students repeatedly missed class, came in late, or failed to do the readings or turn in assignments I wanted so much to remind them that this would not happen in Haiti. There students walked miles to school and saw education as a privilege they would never dream of denying themselves. But I could not do that to them. They were raised in a society where education a given, and it was understandable that they took it for granted. I needed to recognize that their attitudes had not changed since before my trip. Mine had.

In early February, students from the honor societies in both history and political science asked if I would make a campus presentation about my trip there and what I had hoped for Haiti's future. I agreed and was stunned that the group in attendance filled the large lecture hall. I did my best to incorporate what I had learned about education with what the country's needs were following the earthquake. School development kept coming to mind so it played a significant role in what I said. It also helped me to reconcile Haiti's past with its future because education is a constant that links generations. One our best students approached me after the talk.

"Professor Tobin, you spoke a lot about developing education there but don't you think they have more immediate needs?" he asked.

"Yes," I replied. They did. But we were both right. Urgent relief efforts were still underway, but to think again of Haiti only in the short term would ignore its potential for years to come.

Water is life.
In the Great Lakes region we have a unique understanding of this. We know it to be true, but we take water for granted. When stopping for a moment to think about it -really think about it - we realize that water come to us with abundance, even majesty, to immerse ourselves in it, to bathe and shower, and splash in it. We water our lawns, irrigate our crops, and wash our cars with it. We watch our children run through it, dancing in the sprinkler spray, reaching for rainbows created by the sun's rays, wishing our adult maturity did not prevent us from doing it, too.

These images, these tactile sensations, these experiences exist wherever there is water. What makes it different for Great Lakers is that our water is fresh. Our water is drinkable. Our water can sustain human life at its very core. And our water seems unbounded in volume. In many other parts of the world water is comparatively scarce.

When visiting Haiti, at least beyond the hotels and restaurants where gracious hosts emphasize guest comfort, the dearness of water becomes more immediately evident. Ingrained with the warning, 'Don't drink the water,' visitors to the developing world are confronted with just what that means upon being shown their living quarters. Having spent a good part of the day getting to one's destination, thirst becomes inevitable. The more savvy traveler may have packed bottled water for the day, or remembered to ask the flight attendant not for soft drinks or coffee but for two cups of water at each opportunity. The more well-off traveler may have thought to purchase some four-, five-, or six-dollar bottle of water at the airport. But for many, getting the key to the room means dropping luggage, testing the bed, checking the view, and heading to the bathroom to freshen up. The dustiness of air and environment, or the exhaust and indescribable organisms that hang in the humid air of the topics compel the average U.S. traveler to wash.

The sensitive take notice of the very basic faucets and the trickle of water that flows from them, perhaps missing the water at home. A wash of the hands lathered with Dial - or whatever has been provided - and a splash of the face are in order. Just a splash. But fears creep in. What if some tap water were to accidently enter the mouth? What amount is needed to cause illness? A teaspoon? A few drops? And what illness? One that causes uncontrolled purging and certain death? What if it weren't swallowed? What if it were just a splash on the lips? All of this worry over something that should give life. Over something that is needed to sustain life.

In successfully brushing one's teeth, an American traveler crosses a threshold to survival. Removing the toothbrush from the perfectly zipped plastic bag, wondering if one can work quickly enough to prevent any airborne such and such from landing on the bristles. Uncapping a bottle of water destined to last through the remainder of the day. Pouring ever so little on the bristles just to moisten them, and then perhaps just a little more. Carefully set the bottle on the ledge of the small sink, circa 1945 to 1955, or perhaps for the more daring on the toilet tank, no on the rim of the shower stall. Then dotting the bristles with toothpaste thoughtfully selected from one hundred or more options at one's neighborhood mega-drugstore back home just yesterday. Then dotting it once more and wondering if one more splash of water might be in order. But more toothpaste would mean more rinsing, both of the mouth and the brush. Less toothpaste, less water. Brushing itself becomes a more heightened experience without the water running and morning news radio prepping one for the day. Perhaps there are street noises, perhaps there are country noises, but in either case, they are foreign. And the bristles wipe the teeth and the tongue, and there is just enough water to rinse the brush, the lips and the fingers that must gently reseal things away from anything airborne and keep thirst quenched for the remainder of the day.

In taking note of accommodations and surroundings, it is likely one will notice a pitcher of purified water and drinking glass on the dresser. Haitian hospitality and thoughtfulness provide an endless supply. Having watched women and children carry supplies of water, I became much more aware of my consumption. Judging the level of water remaining in the pitcher during the mid-afternoon measured against my thirst level or potential for thirst became nearly obsessive. And still, the supply was limitless.

On my last full day in Port-au-Prince, I took my empty pitcher to the second floor kitchen area, where a five-gallon container balanced in its frame, ready to be tilted for replenishment. But the jug was nearly empty. I tipped it carefully; its lightness making it more difficult to maneuver did not quite fill my pitcher halfway. I chose to leave some behind. While it teetered in my hand, I wondered why I hesitated - I, the Great Laker who seemed to waste water with abandon. But in Haiti, it becomes customary to take only what one needs. And for me, it became customary to consciously measure my thirst.

In trying to keep up just enough on the tragic news developments following the earthquake, I read the story of a woman and her daughter who were trapped on top of one another under the rubble of their home. The daughter, a 20-year-old who I pictured not unlike my own daughter, had all but given up hope. Her mother encouraged her to hold on, promising that they would be rescued. As the days wore on, she remained painfully aware of her daughter's incapacitating thirst, and maneuvered carefully to urinate into her hand and offer it to her so that she might survive. Though the act kept her alive for some time the daughter eventually died. The mother was rescued on the fifth day.

Her story touched me on so many levels. The desperation of trying to keep one's child alive under those circumstances was unimaginable to me. The idea of trying to survive that kind of thirst was... well, I just could not fathom that kind of thirst. The picture ofboth ofthem trapped was painted so vividly that images of others so trapped came into sharper focus. Trapped. I called Katie to tell her the story. I wanted to think I could do the same for her, and I prayed never to be in a position to do so. But how could I talk to my daughter about something like that? If there were some way to shelter her from any such ideas, I would. God, I missed her. When she answered, I spoke of mundane things, and eventually brought up the story of the woman and her daughter. And then I cried. She cried, too.

After my return,
months went by before Christine and I could pin down a presentation date. We emailed briefly early on, acknowledging the earthquake. The substance of my talk would shift dramatically and we both wanted some time to pass in order to let things settle into more familiar rhythms, if that were possible. The entire country had become so intent on raising money for relief that it would be difficult to contextualize school and education matters in a way that transcended or disregarded the topic of money. I had promised this would be for information only.