Haiti Recap

Cap-Haitien airport

friend: "Welcome back! How was Haiti?"
me: "........"

i haven't yet figured out the words to describe my 5 days in haiti last week. i could be lazy and fall back on generic words like "amazing", "interesting", "beautiful", which don't really say anything, but function just fine as an answer. or i can try to use lots of words to explain an experience that i'm still processing myself. here's me interviewing myself:

everything is so green!!

where did you go? 
i flew into Cap-Haitien, a city in northern Haiti that's a 2 hr flight from Fort Lauderdale, FL. i spent most of my time in the rural communities of Milot + Lambert, about a 30-45 min. drive from "Cap" (what the locals call Cap-Haitien). homes in this area typically do not have electricity or running water (they share public water pumps); some houses i saw didn't even have doors, just openings built into the walls. some people have cell phones, and most residents travel by foot or motorbike. the Dantus family knew someone with a Jeep, but i rarely saw other cars on the roads, which were pitted with deep potholes and minor gorges carved into the dirt by the rain. there was one puddle/small lake on the way from Milot to Lambert that spanned the entire road; i couldn't see the bottom of it, and every time we drove through it, i fully expected the entire Jeep to vanish into its depths, none of us ever to be seen again.

potholed roads

who did you travel with? 
my friend, tony- a baritone singer who lives in ABQ, but performs internationally and whose personal mission statement would probably include something about helping people bridge their differences through music; 5 members of the Dantus family, who are from Milot, but now live in Wichita, KS; and 2 white people from Kansas who have been joining the Dantus family on these trips to Haiti since 1995. The Dantus family built and now maintains a school in Milot, and are currently building a community center.

transporting a speaker via motorcycle

what did you do? 
tony was invited to perform in Milot + Lambert; he asked me to come along as his piano accompanist. i also got to jam with some local musicians, which was the highlight of the trip for me. they were all self-taught and crazy talented; they learn everything by ear (no sheet music readily available) so when we rehearsed, i'd start playing a rhythmic pattern to set the groove + chord progression, and they'd just join in. during those rehearsals, there were times i forgot we spoke different languages b/c we were so attuned to each other musically. incredible. we performed 1-2 times a day, mostly in churches, because (a) those are the only indoor spaces where large groups of people can gather; and (b) churches have generators (during church events, every outlet is occupied by a charging cell phone). when i wasn't performing/rehearsing, i hung out at a local school or tagged along on trips to Cap to pick up supplies for the school.

a classroom

where did you stay? 
i stayed at the Dantus family house. compared to other homes in the area, this house felt like a resort- we had a generator that we could turn on for electricity; toilets; beds w/sheets; a fridge; and running cold water (no hot water). 

do you speak the language? 
unfortunately for me, i only know how to speak French, the language of the oppressor. educated Haitians speak French, but in rural areas, everyone speaks Creole, which, while a dialect of French, sounds different enough that I can't understand it.

i've never been to a caribbean country before, yet somehow everything felt strangely familiar: the heat, the humidity, the shouting crowds clustered against the fence outside of the one-runway airport in Cap-Haitien. the school also reminded me of my schools; there were no fancy digital boards in the classrooms and the textbooks were printed in the 1970's, but when i walked on to the playground at recess and the kids came running up to me, it felt just like home. i didn't expect Haiti to be so churchy (churches everywhere, and an airport employee led us in prayer before our flight back to the U.S.), and would have preferred to have spent less time in churches, but in these rural areas, i didn't see any other possible venue that had electricity where we could perform. the worst part for me was the heat + mosquitoes; because there's no electricity, there's no way to escape it, not even at night, when i'd lie in bed, swatting at mosquitoes, real and imagined, and feel drops of sweat rolling off my forehead. it definitely gave me a new appreciation for ABQ's crisp fall weather.