Visual Aids

Here are some pictures to help you better visualize the stories you read here.  Enjoy!

The outside of the house I'm living in. 

Met Amos and Ma Amos, respectively.  (Met is an educational title... Amos is the principal at a local elementary school)

From left to right: Clarin (28), Ma Amos and Snyda (21).  Haitians don't like to smile in pictures.  Maybe they want to look like Jason Bourne/Adam Sawyer.  

From the boat ride to Anse a Foleur.

From left to right: Budry, Abbie, me.  I'm not sure if you can recognize me behind all that beard.

From one of my beach trips with Budry.  Haiti really is a beautiful country.

To the Northwest!

First of all, my apologies in regards to the length of time between the previous post and this one.  I realize it has been a while, though in my defense, I haven't had a whole lot to write about until recently.

This past Friday morning, Budry and I packed our things and headed west.  My good friend from Wheaton and fellow Haiti-Wheaton Partnership team member, Abbie Goodman, was currently in the middle of five weeks of a medical internship at Northwest Haiti Christian Mission in Saint Louis du Nord, so we made plans for Budry and I to visit for the weekend.

The first challenge was getting there.  Traveling in Haiti can be complicated, and planning our route proved  to be no exception.  There is a road going northwest from Limbé and what appears to be that same road going southeast from St. Louis, but the maps that I have consulted tend to differ as to whether this road continues uninterrupted between Au Borgne and Anse a Foleur, two cities on the northern coast.  After further investigation, I determined that a road did in fact exist... and was passable on mountain bike and foot.  What also existed though, was a better option: a boat leaving from Au Borgne, headed to Anse a Foleur, which is the option Budry and I finally chose.  Our alternative was a bus ride south to Goniaves and then back north to Port de Paix, about an 8 hour trip one way.  We both agreed that motorcycle taxis and a boat (about 3 hours of actual travel time) were the better path, though certainly the less travelled.  And I will tell you... it made all the difference.

The boat ride was really great.  It was a small passenger ferry boat, about 15 feet long and 7 feet wide.  According to those steering it, the boat could fit up to 50 people, so that's how many they decided to cram on it.  I got a prime seat on top of the boat with a beautiful view of the northern Haitian coastline for the full hour's ride.  I forgot to put the pictures on my computer, but they are coming.

After landing in Anse a Foleur, Budry hailed a moto-taxi and I assumed that we were done with any more water travel.  I was wrong.  Before this weekend I have forded streams on foot, in cars, on boats and even virtually on the Oregon Trail computer game, but never on a motorcycle.  It gave me quite a start to realize that the road I'm on leads directly into that rushing water in front of me and there's no bridge in sight.  I was even foolish enough to ask the driver as he's trying to navigate the current and the rocky bottom, "Have you ever fallen in before?" to which he replied, "Oh yeah, people fall in all the time."  It made me feel a lot better the next 6 times we had to cross, but in the end, all parties made it mostly dry.  And no oxen died in the effort.

Finally arriving at the mission, it was great to see Abbie.  We had a relaxing afternoon getting reacquainted with the facilities (the mission was one of the locations I visited this past spring break) and catching up on the events of the past few weeks.  On Saturday, Budry, Abbie and I joined a group from the mission going to Anse a Foleur for a VBS lesson, a visit to a Voodoo monument and some relaxing time at the beach.  All in all, a good day of hanging out and rest.  Sunday morning, the three of us attended the deaf service at the mission and I got a chance to talk to Fedner, the teacher at the mission's school for the deaf.  After church, we hopped on a taptap to Port de Paix so Budry could check off another department capital on his list (he's only missing one now).  Sunday evening was again filled with down time.  Overall, my time at the mission was very refreshing.  On Monday morning, Budry and I packed up and headed "home."  I did actually feel like coming back to Haut-Limbé was like coming home.  My host family was happy to see me again, alive and no worse for wear.

Additional reflections on the weekend:
1. I know that HNGR discourages comparisons, but it was nice to be able to speak better Creole than someone.  Most people at the mission while we were there were Americans coming for short term mission trips who knew very little of the local language.  After being the uncontested winner of the "Worst Creole of Anyone I Know" award for the majority of my time in Haiti, I enjoyed finally being able to help other Americans communicate.  Plus, the Haitians living and working around the mission are unused to encountering white people who speak their language, so they were all very flattering whenever they heard me speak.
2. I really enjoyed the whole experience of the trip to and from St. Louis.  I kept imagining myself as some great explorer, charting the course for future Wheaton students to come.  Like most great explorers, I wasn't really finding anything new... just documenting what all the natives already knew.  Still, it was an exhilarating experience to travel a course that most people I talked to didn't know very well (most people in Limbé recommended the Goniaves route, though my final plan was approved by the university staff as feasible before I left).
3.  It was a huge blessing to be able to talk and process some of my recent thoughts with a good friend from Wheaton.  As much as I have appreciated being able to communicate regularly with friends and family via email, there's just something different about face-to-face conversation.  I was additionally lucky in that Abbie was able to relate to many of my experiences, living in Haiti herself for some period of time.

Additional updates not from this weekend:
I'm still doing very little in terms of any structured internship.  I'm teaching class three times a week for an hour each and editing letters to American/international organizations as they come.  My HNGR work has continued to keep me busy, though I'm also finding time to read for fun.  Within the past few weeks, I've started playing dominoes with some of the younger men and women in the neighborhood.  It's been a good way for me to get to know people better and practice Creole with a more scrutinizing audience.

In terms of my internship, I probably won't get anything more structured until school starts on September 5.  Which feels like a long time to wait.  The good news is that it should give me a good amount of time to start my independent study project.  I'm still determining what that will be, but Laurie has asked that I begin to investigate the ways that the university could contribute to public mental health in the community.  One of the first tasks in that will likely be understanding what forms of therapies would Haitians best respond to.  But my independent study is still very much in the ideas stage... nothing much at all on paper yet.

Thank you all for sticking with my blog, despite my erratic postings.  I would appreciate prayer these next few weeks in determining the next steps for my independent study as well as my internship.  Also, for patience in language frustrations and relationship building, as well as humility in understanding my role here.

Posting Up

So I know it's been a while since my last post... my apologies.  I could use several excuses, but really I've just been lazy.  So here goes... the past two and a half weeks of my life included:

-My first full week of teaching.  My second week here, I taught a class of about 15 students a four day intensive English course with an exam on the fifth day.  The class was for intro English students who had failed last semester and were looking for a way to get their grades up in order to avoid repeating the class next semester.  I had a lot more fun teaching than I thought I would, though I have a new empathy for teachers with unresponsive classes.  It was like pulling teeth to get students to volunteer answers.  I was desperate for any sort of acknowledgement, a smile, a nod, eye contact, anything.  It seemed to get better as the week went along, though.  Sadly, the results of the test were not quite what I had hoped, and I feel bad that the students' outcomes were so dependent on so new of a teacher.

-Teaching a more long term class in Limbé on Mondays and Fridays.  Limbé is the nearby city (pretty big... about 100,000 according to Laurie).  There, I teach a class normally taught by Bob or Duky (the head of the UCNH English dept), though as far as I can tell, the school in Limbé isn't connected with the university.  It's been nice having a more consistent crowd there; I can actually learn and remember names.  I feel like I have a good relationship with my students there as we've been getting to know each other better.  One student told me he preferred my teaching style, so that was a nice little ego boost.  It is strange though to be teaching people mostly older than me.  I would say the average student, both in Limbé and at the university is around 23.  Some of my students are even in their 30's and 40's.  They are all very respectful of me, though, and seem to appreciate what I have to say.

-Lots of diarrhea.  And I mean lots.  I'm still recovering from what was either a really bad case of traveller's diarrhea or a mild case of cholera.  I keep thinking it's gone but then it comes back.  A few weeks ago I spent the hours between 12:30-3 a.m. moving between my bed and the bathroom, and one final hour between 3 and 4 exclusively on the toilet.  I've had plenty of medication and am keeping myself well hydrated, so the whole experience has simply been inconvenient rather than potentially dangerous.  To those HWP members who were lucky enough to hear Dr. Vendeland describe the effects of cholera, I now know exactly how that feels.

-Soccer.  Haut-Limbé is currently caught up in the Copa America (the Women's World Cup seems not to matter here) and everyone's always talking about the latest match.  Budry and I went to the "cine" last week to watch the Argentina/Bolivia game.  The cine was a classroom with a 30" TV at one end and about 75 people packed in facing it.  The transmission was extremely blurry and it was hard to distinguish Argentina's white and blue from Bolivia's green.  We had a good time though.  There's also been a 5 v. 5 tournament going on this week that Budry has been officiating.  It's a lot of fun to go to the games and just hang out with people from the community.  My Creole is improving to the point where I can have basic conversations with people I meet and generally follow conversations if I'm trying very hard.

-Church.  Unfortunately, my church experience has been a little disappointing, though it's not really anyone's fault.  The church here is just so big, it's hard to meet people or feel connected; there are probably around 500 people at the service I go to.  The way that it's structured also makes it hard to chat either before or after.  In addition, the services have been around 2 1/2-3 hours long and entirely in Creole.  Right now, it just takes too much effort on my part to try and follow, and I typically end up drifting off into my own thoughts.  Hopefully as my language develops, I'll be able to connect better with  my fellow worshippers.  We did have communion this past week, which I appreciated a lot.  I miss celebrating the eucharist every week, not to mention the several other comfortable and accessible rituals of Rez.

-Improved communication.  Like I said, I feel like I've gotten right to the beginning of the conversational level of Creole.  My host mom and I are communicating much better; last week she asked me which foods of hers I liked and I was thankful for the opportunity to express my gratitude.  I'm really embarrassed by how easily I forget peoples' names here, but I'm slowly starting to remember more and more.  Please pray that these relationships will develop and grow in good time, and that I will not get impatient with myself or others.

Well this seems to be a good overview.  Again, these past few weeks have been up and down, but I feel myself fitting in more and more.  My schedule is pretty set through Friday, but I have no idea what I'll be doing next week.  I'm trying to be flexible, but prayers for patience and humility are always appreciated. Please keep commenting and sending emails... it's always good to hear from people back in the States.  Also, let me know how I can be praying for you too... it's something that I'm trying to work on to get me out of my self-centeredness.  Thanks for your love, prayers and support.

The Citadel

This is Citadelle Laferrière.  If you type that name into Wikipedia, you're sure to come up with all the interesting historical facts that I can't remember about it right now.  Essentially, it's a very big, old fort built when Haiti was divided into a kingdom in the north (where I am) and a republic in the south.  The king built this as a defense from both the south and from the Dominican Republic to the east.  I went with Budry (my Creole tutor), some Belgian girl scouts who were staying next door to my house and some of their Haitian friends.  There were 10 of us packed into the back of a Nissan short bed truck for the 4 hour, very bumpy roundtrip.  All in all, we had a very good time hiking up to and seeing the Citadel.  If I had access to Facebook (which I don't by the way, so if you've posted something for me there and I haven't responded... that's why) I would post more pictures, but these few will have to do.

Budry and me on the hike up.

The view from the top of the Citadel.

Budry and I in prison.  

Oh and one comment about my Argentina jersey.  This spring, on my last visit to Haiti, I noticed several people wearing Argentina soccer jerseys.  So, as I'm packing I think, "Hey, I'll wear this and fit right in... well as much as possible anyways."  Au contraire.  Apparently, all of Haut-Limbé supports Brazil, who just so happens to be Argentina's bitter rival.   I have found a grand total of two other "Argentin" supporters in my town.  My loyalty is unwavering though and it makes for some good natured (though less than productive) bantering on the quality of the two teams.

It's been one week...

My first week here at UCNH has officially drawn to a close, only to open up to 24 more.  Which is a big number.  I have to admit, the first two or three days, getting up was hard.  It was always just before 5:30 to my host dad, Amos, calling "Chris!" (which he pronounces "Christ").  It was especially disorienting the first morning when I didn't know that family prayer started at 5:30 and I wake up to, "Chris, Chris!  You pray yourself?"  I'm pretty sure he meant, "did you pray by yourself since you so obviously did not pray with us?" and not, "Chris, did you pray to yourself?"  But it's hard to tell.

The first few days were challenging.  I had some pretty unproductive and discouraging meetings with Caso (the popular name for Dr. Casseus, the UCNH president) and Bobanoit (Bob, one of the English professors here and my supervisor).  There were just a lot of unanswered questions that I thought would have been figured out by the time I got here.  Plus as I already mentioned, I was sitting on the front end of six months, a length of time that I had given surprisingly little thought before my arrival.  Let me just say... right now it feels like a very, very long time.

Things have started to fall more into a routine here, which has been a great help to me feeling more at ease.  On Thursday, I met with Laurie, Caso's wife, who was able to answer most of my remaining questions.  I'm still not entirely sure what my internship will be, especially now that most students are gone for vacation, but I'm just taking assignments week by week or day by day as they come.  Yesterday I taught the first session of a week long review class for students who didn't pass their exams the first time.  Though my experience has been limited, it's really nice teaching something that comes so easily to me.  I feel like for the first time in my life, I'm an expert in what I'm talking about.

Life outside of UCNH has been good.  My host family lives less than five minutes away from UCNH, which has been so nice.  I love the small community atmosphere of walking to work everyday, seeing and greeting the same people, familiarizing myself with my surroundings.  So far, my favorite part of the community has been the kids that live nearby.  I haven't been able to figure out who is related to who yet, but it's a group of about 7-12 brothers, sisters, cousins and neighbors, ranging in ages from probably around 5-10 years old.  For the first few days, they just yelled "blan" (white person) and "how are you?" at me from a distance, but a few days ago, I went over to introduce myself.  Since then, we've had a good time playing Haitian games, the objectives of which I only vaguely understand.  Yesterday they asked me to sing, so I gave them a quick a cappella rendition of Wagon Wheel, which they seemed to appreciate.  They even joined in clapping about halfway through.  It really makes my day to see them running up to me every afternoon.

Overall, living with Amos and Madame Amos (the name by which Amos instructed me to call his wife) has been good.  One aspect of living there that I found startling was that they don't eat together as a family.  Madame Amos makes very good food then just sets it on the table for anyone to eat at any time. Apparently in Haiti, meals are much more focused on eating and less focused on fellowship.  That's okay though because we have plenty of time for the latter.  Most afternoons and evenings are spent hanging out on the porch or the roof, just sitting and talking.  Amos speaks a little English, but his wife, none at all, so that's been some motivation to work hard at my studies.  Amos likes to improve his English by stealing my Creole/English dictionary and reading out loud all the words in order.  "Witness.  Wizard. Woman.  Wonder.  Wood.  Wool.  Word.  Word.  Word.  Chris!  How you say "word"?"  It isn't the most conducive environment for studying.

Speaking of speaking Creole, I have a language tutor named Budry (pronounced Bee-dree).  He's a 31 year-old agricultural student at UCNH who lives nearby with his wife and two kids.  He's pretty good at English and we get along really well.  He likes to get out and do stuff, so some of our "classes" have been walking around town, visiting the Citadel and going clubbing.  I feel like I'm improving in Creole most days, and Budry has been a great friend to have.  He knows pretty much everyone in Haut-Limbé (the town I live in) and is probably related to about half of them.  We have a good time together.

Well, if you made it this far, good job.  I appreciate your perseverance.  Sorry there's so much text and not so many pictures.  I'll work on getting the pictures from my trip to the Citadel up soon-ish and I still need to take pictures of my house, family, etc.  I don't anticipate that future posts will be this long... this was just to set the scene.  Thank you all for your comments, emails, thoughts and prayers.

Ici

I'm here!  And by here I mean Haiti, more specifically UCNH.  I actually did get picked up from the airport this morning and all my luggage made it... eventually.  Took an extra hour for one bag, but that just gave me time to run to the bank.

I've only been at the university for about 2 hours, just kind of settling in and meeting people.  I met my host family and dropped off my stuff.  My host dad, Amos, speaks a little bit of English... I don't think his wife speaks any.  And if I understood what he said correctly, I have two host sisters, ages 27 and 21.  I'm not entirely sure if I've met them or not.  Communicating is a bit of a struggle.  But helpfully, I have also met my Creole tutor!  We had our first lesson walking from my house to the Casseuses' for lunch.  I learned, "how are  you", "I'm fine", "what is your name", and "my name is."  Dinner tonight with the family should be interesting.

Lunch with Dr. Casseus (UCNH president) was a little awkward, but encouraging in some ways too.  He's just not a man of many words.  It seems his wife does a lot more coordination with visitors, so I'm looking forward to figuring out more of what I'm doing when she gets here.  But who knows when that will be.

Anyways, so far a good first 2 hours and I'll keep you updated!  Just not this frequently.

And thank you to everyone who prayed for my safe trip!

The Cusp

So, here I am.  In the Miami Airport Red Roof Inn.  About 4 hours away from getting back to the Miami Airport, 6 hours from getting on a plane and 8 hours from being in Haiti.  On the cusp.  The past few days I haven't been sleeping very well.  I tend to sleep poorly on cusps.  I think about this thing that I absolutely need to remember to do in the morning, but will I forget? I better do it now... and then there's that other thing... and then it's 4 in the morning.  That is to say, I should probably be trying to sleep now, but that would be fruitless and hopefully blogging won't be.
Basically, there's too much to say so I'll only say a little.  I'm anxious, but part of that is excitement.  I'm worried about my host family, that my internship will be helpful, connecting with students, being able to communicate with anyone, that someone will pick me up from the airport tomorrow.  Overall, I just want them to like me.  I'm not scared of looking foolish or out of place nearly as much as I am that the people at UCNH will just think I'm a waste of time.  I know all of this is premature and irrational (and if you want to post affirming comments, that's fine), but it doesn't stop it from being what I'm thinking.  So, if you pray for me, pray that people will like me.