Monday, April 12th

I wrote about the rain last night. Many times I’ve started to write but I’ve been interrupted. I haven’t been interrupted in a bad way- just something has come up which seems like a better alternative to writing. I’ve had to decide on whether to write or to experience/live something here. Last night, for example, I was so excited about writing in the house, but then two of the Spanish volunteers, Tomy and Maribel, who are among my closest friends here, came over. I decided to leave the computer in the room and go talk to them because I am in Haiti and even just talking to people is a valuable experience. I might never get to see some of these other volunteers/staff again and we have to take advantage of the fact that we have each other now. We sat outside with another friend, Sammy, a translator, and talked until around 1030pm. On Saturday night the 24 of us watched a movie in the house I am living now, we had a projector, and it was very nice. I really felt what many have said before, that these people have become like a family. Many of the people here are quiet and I don’t know very well, but the ones that I have gotten to know I’ve liked very much and they have really added to the experience of being here. Right now I am the youngest here.
Another example when I’ve had the chance to write but didn’t was yesterday during the day. As you know Sundays are our free days. I had actually decided not to go to the beach with the rest because I wanted to write and relax and I was also thinking about going to Port au Prince to photograph for some hours (at the same time, I have been struggling with this idea because of security).
As soon as everyone drove away I actually felt a peace being able to spend some time alone. I wondered how these people manage to pass the days without time like that.
The time didn’t last very long though because they had some problems with the bus and thirty minutes later they were back in the village. A little after they got a hold of another car: a very old mini-bus which belongs to some Haitian here and decided to change the destination and head to the city (I don’t think this car could make it to the beach, plus it was too late).
I decided to leave writing for later and got in the car very quickly, taking advantage that I wanted to go to the city and my options to go with a chauffer were getting a little expensive. Seeing Port au Prince sounded like a better alternative to writing (the beach didn’t).
On my way there I called Susan, a Costa Rican woman who helped me find a way to come to Haiti, someone who lives here and who I was definitely interested in seeing at some point. She was around the city so I took advantage the fact I was already there (I had considered meeting up with her with a chauffer driving me but it is really expensive) and met up with her in the city. I ate lunch with her and some others from the NGO she works with here in Haiti. We went to a restaurant in Petionville, the nice part around here. My mom and others had told me Petionville was another world, very high-class, a lot of beautiful houses... I partly agree now. I had the best meal I’ve had since I arrived (still, I can’t compare it to meals back home), but the best part was the company. Susan took me to her house and I got to see some of these mansions on the way (all on a hill, you get to see the city from here) and then we drove around Port au Prince showing some of the staff from her NGO who had just arrived. I really enjoyed meeting up with her and being with someone from my country.
Basically, I spent a lot of time looking at the city from car windows. Yesterday we went to parts which I don’t think I had been before- pretty terrible parts- you could feel the danger in the air. I observed everything and I thought about how the person sitting on the other side of the car got to look at the same city but noticed very different, interesting and horrible things. I saw people bathing right on the side walk and wondered if I could find people barefoot on the streets. Soon after I began to look at people’s feet and I confirmed my thoughts: many people walk around the city without shoes, stepping on every piece of dirt and risking getting broken pieces of glass in their skin. I saw a man and later on a woman, washing their feet with water from the drain. There were puddles of extremely dirty water (as you can see from one of the photos the water was green). Many slept besides doors, some half naked, even with the sun on their face. A lot of were sitting around waiting for customers to buy all sorts of food or clothes for them. They were watching over their little business surrounded by poverty, trash and destruction like it wasn’t a big deal. Children were collecting dirty nails and counting them (I haven’t seen many toys here, not even in the village). Some of the parts we passed yesterday, which I think were the most destroyed, gave me a feeling that once some of these buildings were very beautiful (the colors and the vintage look).
Two days ago I had also gone to Port au Prince and I hadn’t thought it was that horrible. Yesterday I did. I am still amazed at the amount of trash that is laying around or piled up on absolutely every corner that your eyes turn to. I thought about the story about God asking to count the grains of sand. If someone asked to count the pieces of trash, they would never ever stop counting.
At one point we got out of the car to look at the presidential palace, which, by the way, is getting demolished during these days. One Haitian man began to question me because I was taking a photo of a child and he was thinking it was for the news. I told him that I was here in Haiti to help. He asked me if I was giving people food and I said yes. He said no one is doing anything around the city (if he only knew how hard NGOs are working). He told me he had lived in Boston for over 20 years and that’s why he spoke English. He asked me if Haiti was ever going to rise as a country. I told him it depended on him and the Haitians. He said, “then it’s never going to”. I asked him why people were not at least piling up the trash in one spot, and cleaning up. He told me that these people were not going to pick it up unless someone paid them. I told him that he, who has seen a “better” world, should inspire people to clean and unite them in some way. He said he has given up.
That story is depressing.
This country is lacking unity and leadership, that is clear. It needs some words of inspiration, some sign of hope, it needs to focus on what has been positive (I find the work that SOS is doing positive for example).