Memories of Dirt
Have had my first real sickness, a nasty diarrhea that lasted about 36 hours. Blech, what a nasty feeling. Went to an MSF hospital and talked to a doc there, she gave me some lovely pills that prevented me from vomiting. Then I decided it was time to take the Cipro, et voila, everything is well again. Cipro is an amazing thing! But it seems to be American; no one from outside of the States has heard of it here.
Two weeks now in Haiti. I’m starting to get a grasp on what our programs are and how to do media around it. Yesterday, when I was home recovering from my sickness, I wrote the media strategy… at last, a quiet place to sit down and write, and write I did. We’ll see what happens to it when others mark it up.
Today was a national holiday and we went into the mountains above Port-au-Prince. I was technically “on call” so I tapped away on my Blackberry from time to time. My thumbs are getting scarily agile. It’s about an hour or hour-and-a-half drive. It’s absolutely beautiful. What a relief to get out of the overly crowded city! The mountains are green and stunning and very steep, with red earth and verdant grasses and tropical flowers. My Malian housemate says it reminds him of Rwanda. (Actually, tonight’s dinner conversation centered on the Rwandan genocide, because two of my colleagues worked in Goma in 94-95 and I’ve worked with refugees from that war.)
So we climb and climb the rock-studded dirt road to old Fort Jacques, a French-built fort from the 1800s (I think. Our self-appointed guide proclaimed to speak French and English but I didn’t really understand a word he said in either language). The people are desperately poor in these mountains, but it seems no more so than their compatriots in Port-au-Prince, and their living conditions are better. Clean air, not too hot, little trash (in comparison with PaP), lots of locally grown food on small farms. Not to say it’s an easy life. Today at the Fort an old man kept talking to us, asking us for money for food. I have never seen such work-worn feet in my life, not ever. They were hardly feet anymore, but more like flattened, thickened planks with small knobs for toes. Most of these people are sustenance farmers, although they look far less sad and pinched than the sustenance farmers on the road to Jacmel in the south.
The fort affords an incredible view over the jutting mountains down the turmeric-colored terraced hillsides to the concrete and blue plastic tarp sea that is PaP and finally out to the sea, which goes from muddy blue (pollution) at the shore to a lovely Caribbean sea foam green farther out. Best of all, when you’re in these mountains, you feel like a whole person again, because you’re not pressed up against the flesh and stink of well over a million other people. You can breathe again.
We climbed yet farther to a high-up mountain hotel and restaurant, run by what seemed to be a permanently drunk Belgian, serving strictly NGO expatriates and MINUSTAH personnel. It’s a beautiful, peaceful site. I would love to return many times again except the service on the lunch was so incredibly slow I don’t think we can ever return for a meal – just a drink, perhaps. Of course as soon as we arrived my colleague recognized formers colleagues of his and then everything shied away when MINUSTAH police arrived bearing weapons. NGO-UN peacekeeper divides remain even when there are cigars and wine handy. For myself, I stuck to walking around the grounds, taking close-up pictures of calla lilies, and eating salt-encrusted fish.
When we returned to the car, there was a horde of young boys selling fresh-picked mint, with the dirt still on the roots and smelling exotic. Dirt, I find, is one of the strongest memory-makers around. The dirt from my home smells different from the dirt at my parent’s current house which smells different from the dirt in Spiez which smells different from the dirt at the ruins in Rome (although the dirt at the ruins in Rome smells nearly the same as the dirt at my home in Poway, California!). And here, the dirt smells like red, mineral-rich clay. It smells like waxy enormous flowers and heavy humid air and cassava skin.
This evening I got a workout on my French. First explaining my entire Celiac experience to a very interested colleague. Trying to say “gastroenterologist” in English is a trial, and in French it just adds to the fun. Then at dinner talking about the Rwandan genocide, then talking about a poorly run food distribution I saw last week. I find the more I speak at length in French, the more I speed up, and then I really get too much spit in my mouth and gargle all my words! But in our house we are now four native francophones and two adept French speakers and one who only speaks English. French rules the day! But, I like it and they’re pretty forgiving. I’m finding I’m making progress with my use of prepositions inserted before the verb (“y” and “en”, especially “en” when it replaces a “de” after a word like “plusieurs” or “besoin”), but I’m increasingly getting tongue-tied trying to conjugate multi-syllabic verbs! Again, speaking too quickly. Being surrounded by francophones and dinner conversation gets me all excited and I speed up too fast.
