Brush with Haiti (23 page)

In asking the questions, I did not expect to get any specific responses. There were clearly no right or wrong answers. I looked forward to reading what they had to say.

Arriving in Miami
and waiting for my flight to Port-au-Prince, I imagined moving backwards in time. Leaving O'Hare had been uneventful but as I sat at Miami International thoughts of pre-earthquake hours returned. I remembered reminiscing about the morning sunlight shining on the children going to school and the sense of hope that seemed to permeate the country. I remembered my unexpected and intense thoughts of an estranged friend who I hoped would someday contact me and who did send an e-mail immediately following the earthquake. I remembered eating
arroz imperial
at the Cuban cafe near my gate. I fantasized about turning back the clock so that once I left Miami and my flight landed in Port-au-Prince everything would be as it was the last time I saw it.

But it was not. The huge crack in the wall of the airport terminal was the first sign. A driver picked me up and took me to an apartment which belonged to UNOGA's rector. I rode in silence. This was some ten months later and still rubble stood all around. The roads had been cleared but debris was piled nearby. People went on with their lives. In that respect Port-au-Prince seemed the same. Life had been hard before the earthquake, yet people went on with their lives. But my last memories included faces marked with hope, and those were missing. Perseverance was there, and fortitude, but so was a measure of gravity.

The apartment was substantial - large rooms tiled in marble, a wonderful shower, and an offer of dinner. Still, I felt very alone. There is less warmth and a certain degree of detachment in any major city, but as night began to fall, uneasiness permeated the neighborhood. I heard a gunshot in the distance - likely, I was later told, an indication of political violence surrounding the upcoming election. I had noticed the campaign posters throughout the city but was unable to gain much of anything from them except who seemed to have more publicity resources. I looked forward to the rural setting of UNOGA.

On my flight into Jeremie I met some nuns from Ohio, just outside Toledo. I like sisters. I told them I attended Catholic school for eight years and later a Catholic college, not to score points but to let them know in some way that I got it. I'm not sure what non-Catholics think when they see nuns -probably all kinds of things. Though becoming much less of a practicing Catholic, I still admired what they did. They are the backbone of the Church. First, they get things done, as in any patriarchal organization where the dominating males believe their positions, titles, and sitting around the table having meeting after meeting are what matters. If it were not for the women of the operation, not everything would get done and that is true for the Catholic Church, as well.

And I like talking to sisters. They're interesting and often funnier than one might imagine. They tend to do noble things and are pretty fearless. I once visited an incredibly beautiful convent in Antigua, Guatemala, where the nuns lived in absolute simplicity and took vows of silence. Each had a room of her own with a small bed and desk. The gardens there were among the most perfect I had ever seen, and I wanted to live there, too. There is nothing like being on one's hands and knees, digging in the dirt, in order to help something miraculous and magnificent grow. Spending the rest of my days protected from the noise of the outside world seemed very appealing at the time. I still had kids at home and averaged a hundred students each semester, which undoubtedly added to the attraction of this alternative lifestyle. It was so peaceful. My Spanish was fine, especially my reading. My conversation skills were weaker, but the vow of silence would make things all the easier.

Not many nuns live like that. Most are out in the world doing good work and sometimes, as in the case of these sisters, that takes them to places like Haiti. I liked hearing about their travel. I also liked that they had brought along a young female college student. I looked at her, trying to figure out if perhaps she was considering the sisterhood, or that she was just very Catholic. There is something calming about being around people who are called to that life. And perhaps because I had been raised Catholic, it did not seem so strange to me at all.

After a conversation that took up most of the hour-long flight, we arrived in Jeremie, stepped off the plane, and waited for our bags. After many minutes of growing confusion, it became clear that most of our bags had not made it onto the plane. There was a good deal more supplies - medicine and such - that making their way into post-earthquake Haiti and on small planes the weight limits prohibited transport of everything we would like to bring directly with us. It was unclear who decided what made it or not or how that decision was made. With some extra attention, pleading and/or clout, all of one's packages might make it. Evidently neither the sisters nor I had done what we might have, and our belongings were left in Port-au-Prince, at least until the next day's flight.

It was an inconvenience for me, but it was only Saturday and my class did not begin until Monday. I was a bit upset with myself for having become lax with my things. After having my bag lost in Port-au-Prince in January, I was careful to divide my clothing and teaching materials between two suitcases, having enough in my carry-on to get by. But once in Port-au-Prince, I felt relieved, and assumed I could check both of them with confidence. I was wrong. Huge cardboard boxes holding some sort of provisions seemed to take precedence, and both my bags were left behind. It might take an extra trip to the Tortug'Air office in the morning to retrieve them, and I was promised they would arrive the next day. I would survive. However, I knew it would be an inconvenience for my hosts.

I'm not sure what the sisters had been transporting, but one of them did not take the news of the delay lightly. She found the baggage handlers and really let them have it. It reminded me of the experiences of grade school with the stricter nuns and was a sight to behold.

As for my things, I was right and there were no worries.

The house designated
for teachers in the UNOGA program was inviting. The property drive was enveloped in trees and I did not seem to mind that much of the vegetation could use a good pruning. I'm not sure what it is about the need for pruning that catches my attention. I tend not to notice people's dust, piles of papers, or even dirty dishes. But I notice when a lilac bush could use a good lopping. Perhaps it is related to the fact that I get little satisfaction from housework but the unspoken rewards of yard work seem endless to me. I can do it for hours on end. That and ironing. I make no judgment about the need for someone's clothing to be ironed; in fact, I prefer the freedom of wearing wrinkled cottons and linens myself. However, the act of ironing brings me tremendous gratification. Not so much in the vision of a neatly hanging wardrobe at its conclusion, but in the very action of pressing out imperfections with a bit of heat and steam. I imagine pressing out the imperfections of life with each glide. It helps to watch classic romantic comedies while I do it. The characters always find ways to work their ways through the stickiest of situations. Imperfections seem to be ironed out in those scripts.

It was not my place to spend any time pruning while in Haiti. After all, I had students to meet, readings to outline, and lectures to prepare. But I did fantasize making a return trip one day to neaten up the yard. I also wanted to see the house painted, but was in no way interested in doing that myself. The structure was wooden and painted many times over, a light gray-blue with bright aqua-green trim. It had been owned by the mother of the university's director, I understand, and must have been a century or more old. Its porch swept the entire back and side of the house - a veranda framing glorious living quarters of days gone by. It reminded me of my grandmother's porch, far simpler but with trim painted Kelly green many times over, a cultural curiosity brought from Ireland by my grandfather I was told. More so, the rocker invoked childhood memories of creaking wood runners pressing against the slats beneath me. Back and forth, back and forth, arm rests so wide the span of my hand could not yet air reach. During late afternoons following classes I found the rocker soothing -with my head resting back, warm, aromatic air filled my senses. On the first day the fragrance struck me as unfamiliar - not the hydrangeas or lilies of the valley I knew so well. But I kept my eyes closed, half dreaming and half knowing I was in Jeremie and not northwest Indiana. My hands reached the width of the arm rest, and then some. For just a moment I wanted to be a child again, and not a grown woman in a foreign culture with work to do.

The hours spent on the porch deep in thought allowed for more time to consider the seriousness of deforestation in other parts of the country. Around me dangled fruit and flowers, making it difficult to remember the erosion-marked hillsides I had crossed near Fort Liberte several years before. I empathized with the women who opted to use charcoal for fuel and wondered why the impact had not been so great here. Burning cut trees into charcoal to in turn burn for cooking has been criticized as a short-sighted use of natural resources and the behavior characterized Haitians as desperate and ignorant. But like every other human being on earth, Haitians need to eat. And unless they are willing to eat only raw food, they need fuel for cooking. Neither the cities nor the rural areas are equipped to supply sufficient electricity or natural gas - the energy much of the developed world depends upon for use by the general population. At least not yet.

Many non-Haitians have recommended solar ovens, and producers have actively marketed there. Some have solicited donations from very well-intentioned in order to increase the supply there. But there are two major drawbacks to solar ovens in Haiti. First, using them requires a change in custom, a change in habit. Yes, that may seem like a minor drawback, but the thought of even switching from gas to electric cooking, or vice versa, makes many of us cringe. I have known people who cooked for years on electric stoves and would not dream of cooking with gas. When I switched from gas to electric, I did so with trepidation and only because I got married and moved into my husband's apartment. It had an intimidating, though very cool late-70s/early 80s harvest gold, electric stove. My mother had cooked with gas, and her mother. I burned endless dinners - and breakfasts and lunches - because I could not turn the heat down fast enough.

From there we bought our first house, with a gas stove. From there a bigger house, with a top of the line electric, which I ultimately had replaced with gas when we remodeled the kitchen. Cooking with gas was just plain easier for me. Easy on, easy off. Quick high heat, quick low heat. Such is the life of the American woman. We have options, and we generally base our choices not on what is best for the environment or the general economy, or the long-term development of the country. So expecting Haitian women to do so under much more dire circumstances is something we should more carefully assess. Plus, cooking over charcoal versus cooking with the sun is far more different than switching from gas to electric.

Second, as sunny as Haiti can be it is not always that way. In fact, it can rain for days on end. To depend on the sun for the family's daily nourishment on a consistent basis, is unrealistic. In addition, even on sunny days, the people of Port-au-Prince would not necessarily have access to the sun. Housed very closely together, they would be stepping over each other's solar ovens placed in any sun visible between concrete block structures for even part of the day. A few might be placed on rooftops, but that is not practical either. Perhaps a few toward the street, but they lie close to the ground, and placing them anywhere near walkways or roads puts the food too close to standing water and sewage. For now, at least, cooking over charcoal is the answer for most.

Sitting on the porch of the teachers' house, I realized that if this were all I had seen of Haiti, I might never have taken the concerns of deforestation seriously. There appeared to be more than enough food-bearing plants to sustain the population. Local leaders affiliated with the Ministry of Agriculture acknowledged the abundance with respect and noted its vulnerability. There were no substantive laws protecting the trees and Haitians could not be blamed for cutting them for fuel out of tradition and desperation. The impact of such practices might not be readily apparent, but it was there. And once the road to Port-au-Prince was completed, the effects might be drastic. Planners had hoped trucking produce to the capital would be more economically sound than losing investments through shipping that resulted in significant spoilage. Conservationists argued that no such promises should be made. Trucking, too, would result in spoilage, resulting in no greater profits. In addition, and more critically, the road could more easily allow for mass transport of cut trees for use in the most densely populated part of the country. For now, they promoted keeping them in place by teaching the value of what they produced while alive, primarily fruit.

After a breakfast of seemingly endless provisions of oranges, mango, pineapple, bananas, and some bread with butter and cheese, it felt a privilege to sit on the porch and wait for my ride to school. The porch was a perfect place to sit quietly in the morning as I waited for my ride to school. I had become very accustomed to driving myself everywhere back home -American suburban mom to the max. Being chauffeured made me feel at first a little uneasy but increasingly special. Each day, I eagerly took to the high-backed rocking chair, keeping one eye opened so as not to miss the driver's arrival.

The ride to UNOGA was just a few miles and 40 minutes long, with stops at various points in town and a winding drive along the dirt road to the school's entrance. I sat in the passenger's seat and conversed little with the driver, in part due to language difficulties but also because I wanted to capture every visual aspect and commit them to memory. Women trekked from the hills to market balancing large baskets of fruit on their heads. Children played in groups with whatever makeshift toys they could find. Men went about their business - repairing, washing, and producing whatever they could. Buildings needed paint and potholes needed fill. Animals walked the streets causing motor vehicles to veer. Shops welcomed visitors, their signs often untranslatable to me. I imagined what daily life was like for the hundreds of Haitians I saw each morning. Along the way we picked up students who eagerly jumped in the back of the truck.