As we’re coming up on the end of February, I’m realizing how little time I have left. My desire to remember the little details of living in Haiti, combined with my need to practice writing for my upcoming GRE test, means that I’m going to try documenting the smaller details of life here. I really think that I could spend an hour talking about every five minutes of living here, so I’ll try to expand on my experiences instead of reporting what I’ve done this week. I’ll start with what I do every day: leave the gates of the hospital.
By the time I get out of the house, fill up my water bottle and say hi to the staff and volunteers out at the tents—let’s be honest—I’m at least ten minutes late. I hurriedly pass my bosses window, skip over the puddle left by last night’s three minute rainstorm and try to ignore the mud that creeps up into my flip-flop between my toes. I glance up at the window of the abandoned baby’s room. On a good day there is no crying and I imagine Marco, a wobble two and a half year old who is getting on my nerves with all his terrible two’s behavior is running around and playing with some toys on the floor. Other days one of the kids is crying and I can immediately tell who it is. I hope that they just got put back in their crib and are crying for normal baby reasons, not because they’ve been sitting in their unchanged diaper or because they didn’t get enough for breakfast.
As I move into the front driveway of the hospital, I look to my far right at the entrance of the pediatric hospital to see if there are any people standing out front. Sometimes there will be a group of foreigners who work for another NGO who want to get one of the children they care for admitted to our hospital. Sometimes the group is our short-term volunteer doctors who are congregating before heading over to St. Luke Hospital to volunteer for the day. If that’s the case, I’ll go introduce myself and offer to walk them the two blocks to St. Luke because it gives us a good chance to talk about the supplies that they undoubtedly brought down that will come to the depot. I pass by a few mothers and children heading to triage and unconsciously glance right again to look at the elephant figurine in the grass. It’s about three feet tall and made out of old steel oil drums, hammered , welded and painted into a kid’s caricature of an elephant. It makes me smile and I look about twenty feet beyond to where a group of our drivers and staff are hanging around, joking and waiting to find out where they will be needed today. Depending on how late I’m running, I’ll walk over and say hi, secretly hoping for a moto ride to work at Fransis Vil. Usually everyone is preoccupied and after a few jokes I keep on my way.
Now, I look toward the front gate of the hospital that leads to the dirt road outside. I pass a portable hand-washing station on my left and the security office where mothers are turning in their backpacks on the right. One security guard, a familiar face although we’ve never exchanged more than a polite hello, sits in his grey uniform behind the wall next to the gate. He usually wears some variation of aviator sunglasses and holds onto his enormous gun, the barrel reaching all the way to the ground. The other security guard is standing at the gate, same uniform, same big gun but his rests over his shoulder. He opens and closes the gate, deciding who gets admission into the hospital. I barely notice that the gate is mangled anymore, clearly hit by a car trying to get into the hospital but refused by security. I thank the guard for letting me out and step onto the street.
I’ve never taken the time to count, but there are at least ten motorcycle drivers sitting on their parked bikes flanking the entrance to the hospital. They ask me, sometimes in Creole, sometimes in English, if I need a ride. I politely say, “no thank you” and they move on to asking the next person leaving the hospital if they need a ride. I walk over the rocky terrain and am so thankful for last night’s brief rain. It means that I won’t be sneezing and have irritated eyes from the huge dust clouds that fly up each time a car drives by. The stench of sewage and rotting that the rain stirs up is well worth the relief from the dust. I look up to all the men, women and children who have setup shop in front of our hospital, selling food, drinks and little necessities like toilet paper and phone cards to our patients, staff and volunteers. There are about six distinct booths set up across the first thirty feet to the left outside St. Damien, and then you have marchanns (vendors) in front of them, forming a line of coolers and tables that extends about ten feet. I look back to the booths and see some of the men reconstructing posts made from long branches that have been whittled down to the bare wood. They will hang tarps and sheets from this wooden frame to block their booths from the burning sun. I’m so happy to see them rebuilding as I think back to the sight of all of their stands burning in an enormous bonfire in the middle of our street. The UN, who resides across the street from us, was building a new wall that extended to the end of their property and therefore wrote a letter to the Mayor of Tabarre, asking for the marchanns to be moved. The people who sell on the streets all over Port-au-Prince do so illegally. The process of applying to become an official business is long and then you are assigned a place to sell, so the majority of people never begin the process. As Haiti is unable to enforce the majority of its laws, this leads to periodic raids by the mayors to clean up the streets by confiscating the wares and burning the booths of the marchanns. By the time I was walking home on the day the mayor of Tabarre came by, all the people had already fled with what they could carry and there was a huge bonfire, about ten feet tall and taking up the majority of the road. I took the back gate to enter the hospital that afternoon and was surprised by Father Rick’s comments that he doesn’t like the marchanns selling outside because it brings congregations of people which can be dangerous. Thoughts of this commentary bring a flicker of annoyance as I see the familiar faces and think about how these people are trying to make it in this difficult country. They are busy all day, clearly meeting a big demand, and I sure don’t mind the ease of grabbing a cold beer after a hard day of work.
After passing the vendors, I continue looking to my right, this time my eyes trained on the ground, or more specifically into the pit of sewage that sits in front of the UN camp. I don’t know if it’s the Jordanian UN that occupies the land across from us, the marchanns or a combination of both that fill the trench with their sewage but it is absolutely disgusting. It is a murky green with swirls of a foamy sledge and intermittently broken up by old Styrofoam containers. The smell of sewage undoubtedly comes from this trench and the fact that everyone is a-okay with this being across the street from a pediatric hospital—where mothers and their sick children are walking every day—makes it even more despicable. There is a little five-foot concrete bridge that connects the dirt road to the rust red gate of the UN base, straddling the sewage. There are a few older Haitian men sitting outside the gate now, waiting for a soldier to pass by on the inside of the compound, when they can ask him for food or money. I think about the young boys who will be waiting out there on my walk back for lunch. They’ve started calling me “quatre-vingt douze” because of my old Abercrombie bag I walk with everyday that has a big 92 on the front. It’s a significant improvement from the standard “blanc” that they call all non-Haitians and I’m not sure that I want them all to know my name, so I’m pretty happy with quatre-vingt douze. I think about how a few days ago I saw a few soldiers passing food under the gate to the kids and I try, for the millionth time, to sort out all the conflicting opinions I have of the UN. Every Haitian person who I’ve talked with about the UN in vehemently opposed to their presence in the country. The majority of foreigners who work in our organization are sympathetic to the Haitian viewpoint and have their own reasons for disliking them, a major point being the sewage dump outside our hospital. Not to mention the well known fact that it was improper disposal of waste at the Nepalese UN camp that brought cholera to Haiti and has since killed thousands, many of whom died at our hospital. But my only personal interaction with them is at a distance. I see them riding around in enormous white tanks, with big guns and baby-blue helmets, never knowing if they’re out to do good or bad, or just purely bored of sitting inside their camps all day.
While contemplating the differences and trying to choke down any similarities between the organization I work for and the UN, a few cows or pigs may pass by, sometimes accompanied by “the machete man.” Somebody told me his name at one point, but “machete man” is just such a more accurate description, that the name didn’t stick. He’s Haitian and short at maybe 5’8” although he has permanently affixed a well-worn, tan, leather, cowboy hat to his head. His hair is long, but matted and dreaded under his hat. He has almost no teeth, but walks down the street grinning. He has the crazy demeanor you would associate with some homeless people in the US and wears ragged clothes. But it’s the huge machete he carries in his right hand that really makes you take notice of him. Although I was terrified when I first saw him, he quickly became one of my favorite characters here. He always returns my greeting, calling me cherie (my dear) with his big, toothless smile. He herds the cows back and forth from the field between Fransis Vil and FWAL and I have only once seen him use the machete, taping the flat part of the blade against the haunches of a cow, turning to hurry her along the road.
I approach the intersection and depending on where I’m heading first that day, go straight for the hospital or take a left to the depot. I’m both comforted by the familiarity of the walk I just completed and astounded that something so dramatically different from what I’ve known for my entire life can feel normal. But I encounter friendly faces and although the language may be different, saying good morning and asking how the other person is doing is just the same as any other place I’ve lived. But this time, it’s February and I’m still in my flip-flops.
