haiti
I’m typing out some thoughts so I can remember parts of my experience here. I’m currently on my iPhone, lying on my cot, in the cocoon of my pink mosquito net. It’s sticky hot, and thankfully there’s a fan rotating in our tent pushing some of the warm breeze around.
Day zero
I guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised, but it took a whole day to get here. There are 400 volunteers that were shuttled from a hotel in Atlanta to the airport, flown on two planes for three hours, then driven on busses for two hours from Port au Prince to Leogane. It’s a logistical nightmare, and H4H did an amazing job.
On the plane ride over, I sat next to an elderly lady who is by far the most optimistic person I’ve ever met. It’s just a given that everyone on these builds are friendly, gracious, and optimistic, but this woman totally put me in my place mentally. When we got our lunch on the Delta flight, she thought it was “cute” that her salad dressing was half frozen and she was downright giddy that her meal came with packaged breadsticks. This was while I was glaring at my tray, wondering accusingly about where the chicken must have come from.
They had prepped us a bit the night before about what we would see once we got to Haiti (they actually showed us slides with the words “shocked” and “saddened” on them), but it was unbelievable what we saw when we were on busses from the airport to our camp site. Here are a few things I was thinking…
- The living situations reminded me of the shanty towns we saw in South Africa, but they were just everywhere with so many more people on the streets.
- I kept thinking that it looked post apocalyptic like in the movies, and I can’t believe this is everyday life for most people here.
- I couldn’t tell if the Haitians were happy or angry that we were there. The kids were waving, but we got some middle fingers from adults. It’s hard to understand the history of what’s brought these people to this point — are they just jaded from all the “help” that has come here over the past few years?
- My very first thought was that we are SO very much not the 99%. No where near.
- There is trash everywhere. Every. Where. Some of it was on fire.
- There were people bathing in the streets, just in water in puddles that had pooled in the muddy streets.
- All of the “businesses” looked exactly the same on the outside. Whether it was a bank, barber shop, or grocery store, they were small shacks with the same brightly colored painted names.
When we got to our camp, we saw very quickly that we had better accommodations this week than most of the Haitians have right now. Tents with cots, showers, and a steady supply of water. I was most surprised by the fact that we have wifi for some reason, and actual toilets (quite thankful for the latter).
Day one
One thing that is really great about this year’s Carter project is that it feels more intimate. There are 400 of us (there were about 1K in the Thailand build I think), so we’re already getting to know everyone’s faces.
We woke up at 5am to get ready, ate breakfast, and got on busses to our build site. This first day of building was much harder than I had anticipated. Hot, humid, lots of lifting.
Now that we’re back at our campsite after the build today, I’m thinking about how thankful l am to be safe, fed, hydrated, and relatively clean. Safety is something I’ve always taken for granted. Even in Berkeley, as long as you were smart about it and walked around in groups, you were fine. This is the first time I feel that safety is completely out of our control. The houses we got assigned to are on the very edges of the build site, next to the barbed wire fences and right across the street from locals. There are security men walking around in bulletproof vests with AK47s and shotguns — it took me most of the morning to just put that out of my mind. The constant unease is new.
Food! Not amazing, but I have been scarfing down anything they give us. After the build today, we found out they had Pringles, and it was the best news we’d heard all day. Sour cream and onion, so good. I’m not sure what exactly it was that made it so amazing - the fact that it was packaged so we didn’t have to worry about it, the fact that it was familiar, or maybe all of the above?
I felt like I was drinking water all day. When I’d finish a bottle, someone would hand me another one. But by mid afternoon, I had a headache that wouldn’t go away. Not complaining so much as noting that it was just scary. People were dropping like flies even in our build group due to the heat. When we got back to the campsite, I was so out of it when I was walking around that I was dizzy and didn’t see our friend waving me down. Thankfully he immediately gave me some Advil. Crazy.
During the day, a lot of locals would come up to the fence to ask for things. It was tough not being able to hand them water. There were a few kids that came by who asked us to take their photos. They insisted that we show them the photos right after, and they seemed so tickled :) It was so cute.
One thing that is kind of funny that I’ve noticed is how important yet unconscious it’s been to get a routine down, even in just two days. We have a core group of friends that we eat meals with, we wash up then head to the bench area to have a beer and wind down, all of my stuff has its own place in my tent including the towels I hang up with rope that someone gave me, I listen to Jack’s Mannequin on my iPhone to sleep and drown out the hum of the generators, and I tuck myself in with mosquito netting in my cot.
The best part was seeing how much we’ve done collectively in one day. I looked out the window while we drove home today, and I was so proud to see that we’ve gotten the framing up for 100 houses (even though I’m only working with my group directly on two of them). It’s a community we’re building, and it’s coming together. :)
Okay, getting sleepy. What a long two days so far. But I am so thankful that I have the chance to be here.
