Haiti Summarized
This is not a real travelogue (and I really do plan to get caught up on those) but here are a few notes.
First, I have photos in a public album on facebook. (You will never, of course, see the vast majority of my photos. I have a reputation to preserve.)
I read an article recently by Eric Weiner in which he talks about "thin" places, i.e. places where heaven and earth feel closer. I think that's the same thing I've talked about when I've referred to my disappointment that it is so much harder for me to feel a sense of awe in my day to day life than it is for me to at various times when traveling. But awe comes in two forms - the awesome and the awful. (Yes, I know the words used to mean the same thing. However, only poets use them that way now.)
Haiti was full of both. The rubble and rubbish of downtown Port au Prince made for the awful, as did the sheer magnitude of the tent cities. But the smiles of children and the general atmosphere of hopefulness made for the awesome.
In terms of what we did:
I'm still not caught up at home, so I will leave it at this for now.
First, I have photos in a public album on facebook. (You will never, of course, see the vast majority of my photos. I have a reputation to preserve.)
I read an article recently by Eric Weiner in which he talks about "thin" places, i.e. places where heaven and earth feel closer. I think that's the same thing I've talked about when I've referred to my disappointment that it is so much harder for me to feel a sense of awe in my day to day life than it is for me to at various times when traveling. But awe comes in two forms - the awesome and the awful. (Yes, I know the words used to mean the same thing. However, only poets use them that way now.)
Haiti was full of both. The rubble and rubbish of downtown Port au Prince made for the awful, as did the sheer magnitude of the tent cities. But the smiles of children and the general atmosphere of hopefulness made for the awesome.
In terms of what we did:
- The first morning, we went to an overlook to see the vista of the urban sprawl of Port au Prince. Then (after picking up another person at the airport), we toured Croix de Bouquet, an area where artisans do beautiful metalwork. That was followed by lunch and our first service project, painting containers for a community garden in Cite Soleil, one of the most notorious slums in the world. A tree grows in Haiti.
- The next day, we visited a large tent city. We were supposed to install solar lights but there was a mix-up so we didn't connect with the technicians until just before we had to leave. In the afternoon, we had lunch at Kofaviv and heard about their work combating gender based violence.
- On Tuesday, we headed to Fondwa, a rural area. We visited the university, which was leveled in the earthquake and is being rebuilt using shipping containers as offices, classrooms, and dorms. After lunch, we went to an orphanage and played with children. Then we drove to Jacmel, on the south coast.
- In Jacmel, we worked with the Art Creation Foundation for Children on mosaics. Some of the work involved plastering a wall to extend a mosaic mural near the beach. The rest of us worked on mosaics in the courtyard of their complex. We also had some beach time. (There was a trip to Bassin Bleu, but I don't do excursions that require rappelling down cliff sides.)
- We returned to Port au Prince (via Fondwa, where a heavy rain made the path to the orphanage too treacherous for most of us). We saw the rubble and rubbish of downtown up close. It must have been a lovely city at one time.
- Since someone will inevitably ask, food was fairly good. There was pretty much always rice and beans and fried plantains, plus a choice of fish, conch, goat, pork or chicken (or some subset thereof). Breakfast had fresh fruit and excellent pastries, except for the morning when it was spaghetti and hot dogs. I never got sick from any of it.
- Hotels had fans (no air conditioning) and lukewarm water (warmer in Jacmel than in Port au Prince). They also came equipped with the 2 o'clock rooster, the 3 o'clock rooster and every other variant of cock that crows while I am still trying to sleep, damn it.
I'm still not caught up at home, so I will leave it at this for now.