Saturday in Haiti...

[From Saturday, May 22, 2010]
Saturday dawned bright and early. We woke up around 5 am, found out it was really only 4 o’clock Haiti-time, tried to sleep a bit longer, but couldn’t, so after “putting on the armor” I got up and used the facilities. A sign on the wall in the bathroom said this: “In the islands of the sun, We don’t flush for Number One.“ Another note said, “If it’s yellow, let it mellow; If it's brown, flush it down.“ So, for “number one” we don’t flush. For “number two,“ we “flush” by taking the five gallon bucket and pouring a gallon or two of water into the toilet until everything goes down.

Next, I took a shower. Well…sort of, anyway. I got the 5 gallon bucket out of the bathroom, went around the back of the house, and filled the bucket with cool water from the cistern and brought it back inside. I found another small container and poured the water from the bucket over me to get all wet, then soaped up, then, gasping from the cold, poured another container of water over me to rinse it all off. 

Now it was time to do my hair. That meant combing it and putting a hair band on. No fuss. We were on a generator or batteries much of the time there, so we do as little as possible electronics-wise in order to conserve.

This was the day we did the medical clinic. Well, most of us did. John Wesley and some of the other men worked on painting the school benches and desks. We loaded up into the tap-tap and rode up the mountain about 45 minutes or so to the town of Boucan, which is where Hope in the Light is building the orphanage and school. The orphanage building is nearly complete and the school already has over 150 students, but no building yet.

We got our first taste of living on “Haitian time” on this morning. The driver who brought the tap-tap was about an hour later than we expected. No biggie, you just go when you go. That turned out to be okay, because the doctor still got there later than we did!!!

One hundred and thirty five precious, beautiful, Haitian people showed up to be seen by the doctor and our team this day. As we served these people, I was struck by their quiet, dignified demeanor. There were 135 people in a space about the size my house. It was not noisy. Children were all over the place, but they were well-behaved and quiet. They sat beside their mothers, the littlest ones on laps or at their mother’s breast. Some played outside with their friends, but there was no foolishness and no rowdiness. They all waited so patiently for their turn to see the doctor. No one complained. No one grumbled. No one insisted that they needed to be seen right away because they’d been sitting there “so long.” No one complained that they had had to walk, some for a LONG time, and then had to sit for a LONG time waiting.

The Haitian people seem to accept their lot in life, whether good or bad, with a quiet grace and dignity that is hard for me, as a “spoiled blanc (white person)” to grasp. The people we met are so hard-working, many walking for over an hour or more to reach the place they will work for the day, often carrying heavy loads--on their head. The women do their laundry in basins by hand, then lay their clothes in a sunny spot to dry. I imagine myself doing that for my family of 10 and cringe. The mothers carry their babies, and in the clinic, as they waited, they held them in their arms--no baby carriers, no strollers, only their momma’s strong, loving arms. I think maybe our American babies would like that, too.

We were in Haiti during the rainy season, so it rained everyday while we were there, this day was no exception. Off and on throughout the day, there were little cloudbursts and we were at such a high elevation, the clouds would just roll literally into the building and the fog was so thick you couldn’t see anything outside past the doors. Then things would clear a bit for awhile. Toward the end of the afternoon, we began getting more and more frequent rains and it was time for the first load of us to go back to the house.

To meet the tap-tap, we had to walk about ¼-½ a mile up the steep hill, already muddy, made even more-so by the heavy rains. OH.MY.GOODNESS. I was slipping all over the place, getting soaking wet, completely out of breath trying to get up the hill. I couldn’t believe how dead I was. I knew I was a wimp, but had no clue how much so!!! The Haitians were walking, too, and they would pass us up and giggle at us. One of the Haitian men who was with us was being so sweet, he would stop and rest with us even though he wasn’t the least bit tired. We all laughed about how us old white ladies were so out of shape. He told us the mountains made the Haitians skinny. It must be so! My goodness.

We finally got up the hill (some of us had a more difficult time than others--count me in that group) and boarded the tap-tap as it poured the rain. It continued to pour the whole 45 minutes we rode down the hill. The water was pouring down our faces, soaking our clothes all the way down to underwear and socks. The little girls that had ridden up to the clinic with us from Lance & Mona’s neighborhood were riding home with us as well. As the rain poured down, the little girl on my lap would bury her face in my neck and hug me tight. I won’t lie, I was so thankful to have her to hold on to. Not only that, but as I prayed for this little girl, my worries and fears about the treacherous, slippery ride were somewhat eased. I looked over at one point in the trip and John Wesley had his arm around one of the little ones, trying to keep her warm. Yes, it was actually a bit chilly. I was pleasantly surprised at how mild the weather was during our trip, especially during our days up on the mountain--I had really expected it to be much hotter.  Indeed it was much hotter down in the city on the days we were down there.  Elevation is a GOOD thing!