sorry, it's a long one!!
I finally made it back to Haiti!! I left Haiti on Feb. 11, 2010, almost a month after the earthquake. Ever since that day, I was anxiously awaiting the day I would move back. Almost a year and a half later, the time came. After being in the states for so long, leaving was harder than I expected it to be. I had a home church and was just starting to get more involved. I was making new friends and meeting new people. But then it was time to pack up yet again and journey back to Haiti.
I think it's an unwritten law that traveling is to never go smoothly or as planned. Such was the case for me this time. I made it to Miami. Found my gate. But a few minutes before boarding time, an announcement was made that the flight was cancelled. Even though traveling not going as planned is usual to me, what I was not accustomed to was the airline actually giving me a voucher for a hotel and food! I headed out early the next morning to try again. This time was successful. My flight got into Haiti around 8 am. Francois meet me at the airport with a tap tap. We picked up some of my things that I had left behind here and wasted no time heading to Cayes Jacmel. Our drive was a little under 3 hours. We could have probably found a better tap tap for the journey. It didn't provide much shelter from the rain. And there were may times, weaving through the mountains, I was sure we weren't going to make it. The truck would sputter and stall and make lots of interesting noises. I keep looking behind us, expecting to see parts of the truck fall off in the road. Then, because this is haiti, our driver pulled over on the side of the road. He argued with Francois that our house was farther than he thought it would be and he would need us to pay him more money. They argued for awhile, while we just sat idling on the side of the road. The driver got back in and took off again, only to pull over and have the same argument a few minutes later. We finally made it to the house. We paid the driver the extra money he wanted.
I knew the house would be empty. I had tried to prepare myself for that. But the idea of "empty" could only fully register to me once I was at the house. I walked to my room. It was just a concrete box with a light bulb. I opened up my suitcases, but I had no where to put things. And everything seemed to smell or feel gross. Three reason for that: 1) some of this stuff has been sitting in storage at a friends' house in Haiti for over a year. 2) since I packed up and left Evansville, I've made 2 stops, having to repack several times. In the end, dirty and clean things were just thrown in together. 3) the rain soaked through my bags, getting most things inside wet. So I have no where to unpack things and most things are damp and dirty anyway. I had packed an air mattress that we were able to get blown up before the batteries in the pump died. So at least I had that. We didn't have electricity when I got to the house, but it came on at some point and was on through most of the night.
The list of things we needed was ginormous. But of course we couldn't get it all right away. Also, I had not planned very well and didn't have much cash with me. I meant to find an ATM at the airport to get some Leve Project cash out... but that didn't happen. So after some tips at the airport and paying for our ride to Cayes Jacmel, I was left with $20 cash. Though it was still raining, Francois and I hopped on motorcycles to see if we could find a place to withdraw some cash. We also had a list of some supplies to pick up. Top on the list was drinking water for the house. We stopped at one place to try and get cash, they were closed. Francois notices most places we're driving by are closed and that's when he realizes it was a haitian holiday. Everything closes on holidays. Seriously. Everything. We continued driving around to at least find some drinking water. After a couple stops, we found some and headed back to the house. Next, I wanted to get online. It kills me not to be able to just hop online when I need to. We tried the hotel across the street that advertises wi-fi. They said their internet was down. Luckily, directly next to our house is a cyber cafe (internet cafe), so I was able to set up there and pay for an hour of internet. An hour flies by. I didn't get much done. Plus, it was slow and I got kicked off several times.
Today, day 2, has been just has crazy. When I have a list of a 1,000 things to do, and things don't work out, I feel very unproductive. First on my list today was to get internet hooked up at the house. One of Francois' friends talked to someone who knew where we could go. So we got directions and headed toward Jacmel on our motos. We show up there and find out it's not actually an internet provider, it's a cable service. Not what we're looking for. The lady at the desk gives us someone's phone number. We call them. They tell us they'll meet us where we at. That seemed weird to me. But we stood in front of the cable place and waited. A guy shows up. I can only catch bits of the conversation, but I hear "2,000 dollars american" and knew it wasn't what we were wanting. I think it was some sort of satellite or dish service. Not what we're looking for. This guy points us in another direction. We take off. But after still not seeing an internet provider place, we stop and ask someone else. One guy seems to know what we're looking for. So we follow his instructions and take off again. We get to a building where they tell us it's actually across the street, the Access Haiti (internet provider) operates out of the Digicel (cellphone service) building. We go there. They tell us we are at the right place, but the guy that does Access Haiti isn't currently in. We get his phone number and give him a call. He isn't sure if Access Haiti will work at our house, but says he will come out tomorrow (or sometime soon?) to check it out. And that was the end of that. We're no where closer to having internet at the house than we were when we started out the day. While in Jacmel, we stopped at a market to pick up a few things. They didn't have much. I got some dish and laundry soap. Trash bags. Matches and candles. Bread. Maybe a couple other things. While I was at the market, Francois was checking near-by to find a trash can. He found one that was too expensive, so bought a large plastic laundry basket instead. It works just fine. I felt very Haitian riding a moto with a laundry basket in between me and the driver. You always see them carrying all kinds of interesting things. For example, me and my laundry basket passed by a guy carrying roofing tin on his head while riding a moto. There is so much stuff we need for the house, so I felt unsuccessful coming back with my small purchases. After dropping off that stuff, we went back out again, this time in the rain, to look at a refrigerator and stove Francois had seen before. They were decently priced, but they only took cash. We still hadn't been able to get much cash, Francois had come up with $100 for us, but that was it. So we left there with nothing.
I hadn't been online since my hour the day before, so I decided that would be next on my list for the day. But when we got back to the house, there was no power. Which meant the cyber cafe next door wouldn't have power. Which means no internet for me. Finally, the power comes on. I pack up my computer and we head next door. It's closed. Fail. Back to the house. Francois keeps checking next door for me and finally sees the cyber cafe open up. I spend an hour and half online, but still feel like I get nothing done. I cannot wait to get internet set up at the house. So here I am, back at the house, in my office (my cement box room, on the floor with my computer in my lap and everything spread out around me) typing this up so it'll be ready to post next time I can get online.
