Rambling update: Beach bugs, graduation parties and swiveling hips

I'm rubbing red eyes as I type this blog, courtesy of my shower—a concoction of concrete cistern rainwater and a cap of bleach to sabotage microscopic vermin. There’s still no running water at Canaan since the second generator, the clinic's main power line, came to a sputtering halt last week. The big generator is still broken down, and all of Canaan has been operating sporadically from a small gasoline-powered generator.

Lack of running water has helped me appreciate every precious drop. Conservation is key. Thunderstorms have washed my laundry the past few nights, and that water has been preserved to flush the toilet and wash hands. There’s no such thing as single-use water, except perhaps for drinking.

The water business has hardly has put my spirits down. I feel so grateful to be in the company of my new Haitian friends. It's funny how living and eating together knits cultural gaps.

A team of 11 college-aged missionaries from Alabama arrived Saturday, two couples arrived Sunday, and three women conducting Mamba research arrived today, which has livened up Canaan with new faces.

With new arrivals, the Canaan kitchen has been running on almost constant generator power, which means meat and veggies have been added to the rice/beans/pasta repertoire. It's so nice to have refrigeration! The influx of variety has elevated my mood to an all-time high here.

What can I say; I'm a guiltless foodie.

Canaan spent all Saturday preparing for the high school graduation party of Rose May, a Canaanite who came at age 15 after living in domestic child slavery. She started her ABCs and plunged into English.

Just 7 years later at age 22, she was cheered by all of Canaan and her guests in her cap and gown, proudly clutching her high school diploma. I hope I can share more of her incredible story in a later post.

Caroline and I started off Sunday with an hour-long hike up the mountain behind Canaan. We passed a few families with babies enrolled in the malnutrition program, and women who I had talked to while taking vitals at the clinic. They called out to us like old friends.

It’s charming how the longer I’m here, the smaller this island becomes. Between the bustle of market and the serenity of the coast, there are welcoming faces and skinny limbs waving Bonjou. A walk a morning here does more for the soul than body.

Church was fun, despite the heat. One of the babies started fussing in the service, so I scooped him up and he immediately sank into sleep on my hip, drooling as his head slid onto my chest. Haitian church is vocal and active, and he miraculously dozed as my hips swiveled to hymns and the flies hummed.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that the orphanage kids love Justin Bieber with ferocity. I left my iPod unmanned on a cafeteria table, and before I could say "baby," a feisty 13-year-old Thadjina had scrolled down to the "J"s in her hunt for Justin Bieber songs.

While I don't have any Biebs in my iTunes library, I did have a song my brother Justin wrote after a rough break-up. The table filled with preteen girls who picked up the chorus of his song after a few refrains, entranced by the fact my brother was an artiste with the Biebs' namesake! The girls demanded to see photos of him, and once I showed a picture of my twin with long, side-swooped hair, they unanimously agreed he looked like Justin Bieber.

Whenever I see Thadjina, she'll sing me part of the song, "How could you be like that?" and giggle like it's our private joke. 

Hear that bro? If my iPod circulates anymore, you're on your way to becoming a new heartthrob.


We went with the Alabama team and a truckload of Canaan kids to a private beach just outside of Montrouis. The water was absolutely delicious and boyant --a summary of this past weekend at Canaan. 


However, while I sucked the salty nectar through my pores and thought how lucky I am to be in Haiti, I was stung by a tiny jellyfish-like water bug on my chest. Robin and a few of the others were stung -- apparently the beasts multiply when it rains. I still have a painful rash trailing a couple inches on my breast. 

There’s been plenty to celebrate. Tonight was Caroline’s birthday, and we had a great night at one of Montrouis’ resorts—Moulin Sur Mer. It was great to decompress after another day of thorough clinic cleaning and chipping away at the massive inventory project I started 3 weeks ago.

I feel blessed and ready to sleep. 

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.