Only three weeks until I go!
I'm still reading "Best Nightmare on Earth" and still finding awesome quotes. I love the way the author writes. He's honest, insightful and funny. Here, he's talking about Port-au-Prince and describing the overpopulation:
"In town, the smoky air becomes greasy with sweat and flesh, a pungency beyond the mere pellmell shedding of flower scents, charcoal burning, rot and composting, sun on flesh, fiber, goods. Armpits are a metaphor elsewhere. Here in Population Explosion City, everything seems to be God's Grease, fried vapor."
His imagery makes you feel like you can imagine standing in the city, but I'm convinced that experiencing it first hand will be unlike anything else. I realize that being excited to visit a place like this may not be a common sentiment, but the author also describes the cool mountains of Kenscoff (where NPFS is located) and the beautiful trails, waterfalls and views from up in the hills. To be honest, the only part that scares is his armpit comment. To think that the smell of armpit, in August on the metro in Paris, is nothing but a metaphor compared to Haiti is unfathomable. I spent an entire month breathing through my mouth every time I stepped into that metro car and walking off covered in grease and grime. I'm not going to test the fates by saying that I don't believe it could be worse, I just can't imagine it.
I had a conference call last week with a previous volunteer and two other volunteers who will be in Haiti while I am there. I got a lot of great information, it gave me a lot to think about before I go and most of all made me incredibly excited to get to Haiti! Both times when I've been out of the country for an extended period of time, I had a great knowledge and liaison to the culture I was being immersed into. So many people who visit France think that waiters and store employees are rude. It gave me such a better experience to have a native Parisian to explain etiquette in France and the best, and sometimes only, way of getting what you want. I think that I was unconsciously trying to do the same by reading these books and following a Haitian newspaper in preparation for my trip. Haitian culture is so different from anywhere else in the world that I feel like I still have so much to learn. I've barely begun to understand the paradoxical dual belief in Christianity and voodooism. I'm still shaky on Haiti's recent political history because I always run in to, "well then there were bunch of Presidents and overthrows" but very little commentary on it. Writers always say there was instability, but never go into detail about what that means. Isn't Haiti still unstable? The government just had its first election where the previous President attended and participated in the inauguration of the next. I have yet to learn customs or traditions of Haiti, much less daily etiquette or the best ways to get what you want from people. Although I hear that finagling for permission or supplies is somewhat of an art in Haiti. Like everywhere else, I guess I'll be doing a lot of learning in the moment. Taking in new experiences, screwing up and doing better next time. That's the point of starting a new adventure right?
