Haitian Tourism: Egg Sandwiches and Club Indigo

Haiti is beautiful. This is a view from the beach of Montrouis at Club Indigo where I swam and walked all day.
The water feels delectable -- and so shockingly clear. 

Have you ever heard a pigs scream? It’s a pretty horrifying thing to wake up to, like vultures screeching. Katie told me later that she passed by a group of men standing by the pen, possibly preparing to harvest some meat. Amy said she thought it was a wild female pig, seducing Canaan’s male-only pigs, which made us all laugh.  

At least I’ll know where the bacon is coming from.

I slept in until 8 this morning and listened to Florence and the Machine on my bunk. It feels like camping out – the couch cushions and draped sheets of childhood sleepovers – with the mosquito net draped over me. No air conditioning, but my body is rapidly adjusting. I enjoy the heat.

The clinic, as well as the rest of Canaan, is closed on weekends. Most of the staff has families that live in St. Marque, Montrouis, and Port-au-Prince, among others, so the weekend is their opportunity to go home.  They stay in the dorm adjacent to the nursery during the week—free room and board, if they can rest with the screaming babies.

My delicious egg sandwich from the Haitian street vendor.

We also gave the kitchen staff off so we could sleep in and eat egg sandwiches from the vendor on National Route 1, which leads from Port to Montrouis. The egg sandwiches are the size of hamburgers, with thick po-boy style buns, ketchup, mayonnaise, hot sauce, straggly lettuce and “picklies” – a spicy salad of raw onions, jalapenos, pepper and vinegar. The woman who made our sandwiches came out and danced for us while Haitian radio blared, her arms outstretched wide as the horizon, her black body swaying as the food warmed on the press.

I’m rosy cheeked and raw after spending all day outside, near the beach. We drove the Mamba truck to Club Indigo, where Elsie is living with her (almost) adopted son. It’s one of the nicest resorts for miles. Before a hurricane hit Montrouis years ago, it was known as Club Mead and one of the largest gay beaches in Haiti. The beach was a hot spot for sex tourism, and HIV spread rapidly. Today Montrouis has a high concentration of SIDA, according to some clinic staff.

This is definitely one of Montrouis' tourist areas. Local men sold coconuts on the beach, and I caught snatches of
English from white vacationers (or possibly relief workers?) lounging with import beers.

Most of the Haitian vacationers here spoke French rather than Creole -- a symbol of status, education
and power in Haiti.

The sand on the beach was burning my feet, so I walked to the pool to cool off. As you can see, life here is
constantly enveloped in rich mountains. It started raining shortly after I took this photo.

Club Indigo was packed. I drank a frothy cappuccino and reapplied sunscreen almost religiously. It was wonderful and peaceful, and I was able to swim out in the crystal blue to a raft bobbing about 100m from the beach. I heard more French spoken than Creole, and even some English, as French is a sign of status and education in Haiti. It is a shocking transition from the slums of Sous-Bogne to Club Indigo.

I was able to treat my caffeine fix to a cappuccino at Club
Indigo, one of Montrouis' resorts. 

We ate dinner at the snack bar, which served greasy American foods like hamburgers and Cokes, and watched a movie at Elsie’s house. I snuck outside to watch the sunset on the ocean.

Breathtaking? Heck yes.

A boat was tied up just a short walk behind Elsie's home at Club Indigo.

The waters look so much more mellow at night than under the blazing equatorial sun.

The sunset was vibrant and so quick. The sun goes down here around 7, much
earlier than I'm used to since Haiti is so much closer to the equator than Louisiana.

The past couple evening the other three staff women from the U.S. have watched Friends episodes and painted their nails. A paraffin wax machine was, quite randomly, donated to the clinic from Christian Aid Ministries, so they’re planning on using it to sooth their calluses tonight.

The kids like Rihanna as much as Justin Bieber, and I’ve heard  “Oh nah nah, what’s my name…” sung from the cafeteria to the stoops of the water pump where the young men hang out and kick a semi-deflated soccer ball. Only snippets of the songs, never full verses.

A Haitian couple watched the sunset from the little raft off shore from Club Indigo's main beach.

I haven’t heard any American pop on the Haitian radio stations at Canaan, just Christian music in Creole, so I suppose they’ve heard the songs from the iPods and CDs of missionaries passing through. Katie said some Haitian radio stations play only American pop and rock, and many of the older Canaanites receive allowances for chores and good behavior to purchase their own laptops and iPods from the states. The DJ at Club Indigo today blasted techno versions of everything from Ke$ha to the Black Eyed Peas.

I’m in need of some silence right now. I am missing home a little bit. Making friends here is difficult because so many people pass through—and many goodbyes.

I’m praying for friendships and peace with my own transience.

At sunset, small motor boats hung their lanterns and bobbed between the mountains surrounding Club Indigo.