the making or breaking of a city-slicker

Life on a farm – at times picturesque, tranquil even idyllic. The ick fator, however, is real, present and occasionally a danger.
The following is dedicated to my older brother, urbanite and faithful author of sometimes political, sometimes personal blog, SPACETROPIC.
A Sunday stroll: A mare munched lazily on grass near her sleeping new born. Kids (the baby goat not the baby human) literally bounced gaily two and fro – as one might imagine they would do on a fair springtime day. One older female goat attempted to climb a tree and got stuck on the first knot near the bottom. She looked left, right and baffled – then, vexed, she bleated at her predicament. I rounded a corner and saw two piglets, covered in mystery slime, happily nosing the ground, looking for grub. They looked perturbed by my presence and would have inched closer for inspection if I hadn’t scooted away. In the not too far distance, a cow mooed – alerting me to her presence and her present activity, which… smelled. I plodded on to my destination, a natural well, overgrown with bird-filled bamboo groves and thick vegetation, perfect for snacks.
The wild kingdom doesn’t really acknowledge the imaginary boundary created by some brick, mortar, and few screens. My apartment, in the second story of a community-style house, allows me to be very close with nature on a 24-7 basis.

There is a small army of piss-ants in my clothes bureau. A little parade of the same march down the clay-brick wall next to my bed – a straggler or two ending up on my bathrobe and pillow. While in town yesterday afternoon, a stow-away crawled out from my shirt and explored my neck before I noticed it tickling... and squished it.

On Saturday, a devilish looking spider – not the large scary kind that hang out on ceilings, eat lots of mosquitoes and look as though they could be caged for pets but the small, fat, short-legged kind that look as though one tinsy bite might kill you – sat amicably on the lip of my bed spread where it jumped from its roosting perch on the window sill. Sadly, the grey thing died a swift death under the sole of my leather flip-flop.

At night – every night, dumb brown beetles careen from out of nowhere into my big head of hair, as I sit reading under a light. Their sticky legs cause them to catch in the curls. Only later, when rearranging the ‘do or throwing a massive tangle into a ponytail, do I feel something creep between my fingers. I have learned that a calm and gentle grasp is required to extract them without damage (and in order to not further gross myself out).

Several other members of the beetle family crowd the corners of my room. During daylight hours, they fight for attention with loud and lazy bumble bees and sharp, evil looking hornets that somehow appear and get lost chez-Portia only to foolishly attempt to exit through barricaded windows.

Really, I must not forget the physiological genius of the insect family: The cockroach. Word on the street is that the kinds in Madagascar and Micronesia are the size of my foot and can hiss… but I think I will settle for that boring old Haitian three-incher. Living up to their reputation for survival, the suckers survive full minutes after a blast of lethal insecticide and spastically flop around into faces, laps and lunches.

Creepy crawly fun doesn’t end there.

During a weekend farewell dinner for one of our departing volunteers, Templeton the Rat’s cute, white-bellied cousin decided to scamper over and join the festivities. He slithered out of the restaurant’s thatched roofing and onto the rafters of the metal overhang. After a brief but noted appearance, he was gone – sadly depriving us of his prolonged presence at the impromptu party.

I share these happy thoughts with you for several reasons. One: witness the metamorphosis. Before my move to Haiti, I would holler at a house-mate to come kill an intruding silver fish (which we have lots of here too) let alone to attack a terrifying, cob-web-making arachnid. Two: a retaliation. My older brother recently blogged about his undeniable inner-urban core and his distaste for ticks and hybrid wolf-dogs etc. I had promised to rebutt with some of realities of my life here, showing how my undeniable inner-urban core is slowly being tortured to death.

Pass me the corncob pipe, grandpa!

(Faint sounds of banjos playing)

Fresh rabbit stew for dinner!

hope and beauty in Haiti

Imagine a little boy with HIV. Imagine he lives in a country where no clinic will treat him without extensive tests. He has no family and no means to pay for treatment. He is loveable, sweet – with an adoring smile and laughing eyes, easy to love. He helps when asked and enjoys a place of relative favoritism with those who care for him. He is sick and, yet, he is loved. Because love means trying despite everything and sometimes when all that remains is hope. Haiti is a devastatingly beautiful country, especially the southern regions. Camp Perrin is in the mountains just north of Les Cayes. Drive out of Les Cayes and into the hills. Tobacco farms and pastures line the bumpy dirt road and mountains rise in the close distance. Children wander about, curling their fingers at passers-by. A woman ambles amongst the cows and sheep in a field; old men guide goats and donkeys along the roadside.A right turn toward Camp Perrin and the path grows steeper. Country gives way to town and houses spring up one after the other, some with tin roofs and others thatched. The truck turns onto a narrow path, strewn with rocks and emerges onto a riverbed, dry until the rainy season. Across the white-hot river lie a series of houses, tucked away and clinging to the mountainside. The inhabitants are mirthful, surprisingly so, and proud of their tiny corners.Back in the town of Camp Perrin, a market bustles with vendors selling seasonable vegetables and fruits, dried herring and trinkets. One woman slices into fresh ginger bread from which roots peek out and steam rises. Higher in the hills, the noises of town fade and give way to a wealthier area; the roads are paved. An Oblate school and mission covers a good amount of acreage where coffee plants, orchids, hibiscus and poinsettias flourish. To the back of the property reside pigs, chickens and rabbits.Camp Perrin is also home to the first Ecole Espwa. An old warehouse turned schoolhouse struggles to stave off rain. But children still come to learn and from this land originate many of the first kids taken in by Fr. Marc and Pwoje Espwa. Many of these now live, study, and work down in the coastal planes of Castel Pere at the Pwoje Espwa farm.

To the east of Castel Pere, down a long paved road built by the Haitian government in conjunction with the Taiwanese government, sits Port Salut. This paradise, unimaginable until witnessed, lies at the bottom of a winding mountain road, lined with colonial ruins and breathtaking views of tropical valleys and seascapes. The sandy beaches stretch along an aqua blue coastline where cars and people congregate to enjoy the day. Men sit weaving fishing nets while others slowly paddle the length of the shore.To know Haiti is to love it. No amount of writing or photographs can portray this. The Haitians say “Haiti Cherie” and are fiercely and justly proud of this land. But the people are so poor and the poverty so devastating. A Haitian man who taught a friend of ours stopped to talk to us on the way to market one day. He wanted to know how we, as Americans, could find his country beautiful. We tried to explain that between the natural beauty and the beauty of the people, it was impossible not to love Haiti. He replied, “ah, yes, the beauty of the people…”

The kids at Pwoje Espwa are, like the country in which they were born, impossible not to love. Their carefree laughter in the face of situations American children could rarely fathom, their smiles, love, intelligence, talent, dancing, patience and, above all, their hope make them endearing.

We learned, last night, of an expression often employed by Haitian children when faced with a departing friend or caretaker: “do not forget me.” They expect abandonment. The response is easy, “pa capab” (not possible) or simply “you are in my heart.”