Haiti: of swollen ankles and border crossings

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On Thursday March 7 I woke from a vivid malaria-meds-induceddream at 4:45am to find that I had somehow hurt my ankle and also forgotten topack undies or socks. I hobbled around throwing things in my duffel and set outto meet the rest of the class. Our flight was at 10 but Papa Gordon, as wedubbed our professor for his good natured and fatherly concern, was worriedthat we would encounter traffic or other unseen barriers like flooding,tornadoes and/or aliens between New Haven and NYC. We didn’t. We arrived brightand shiny to have about 4 hours to kill in the airport. I spent it well, havinga Skype interview with a Bolivian NGO for whom I am now working. The flight wasnormal (I was squooshed in the middle) although there was a palpable excitementamong the Haitians to be returning to their beloved country. I’ve neverencountered anything quite like it.
We were warned that the airport would be complete chaos andindeed it was. Upon landing we were shepherded to a bus packed to the gills anddriven to the terminal where we were greeted by a brass band. Despite havingmemorized the Kreyol answers to “Vacation or business? How many days? Where areyou staying” I forgot them and the customs officer just waved me through. Ithen set out to find my luggage and was somewhat nervous when I couldn’t.However, before leaving New Haven we had tied pink ribbons to all our luggageand some enterprising young Haitian had gathered it…including some suitcasesthat although adorned with ribbons were not actually from our group. In acountry with such few opportunities and high unemployment, people work howeverthey can; I’m sure we each could have had three men carry our baggage out toour waiting bus. On the bus I was super excited to see our fellow students whohad arrived earlier or traveled through the Dominican Republic especiallyNarita, my partner in crime, who had one of those border crossing stories thatbecome cocktail party favorites. If we grad students had cocktail parties shecould spin a yarn involving a stolen cement truck, a blockade, three people andluggage on a motorcycle, and arguing and bribing her way into Haiti.
The bus reminded me a bit of Harry Potter’s Knight Bus.Careening around the streets of Port au Prince, passing slower moving vehicles(or attempting to), with 23 backseat drivers the bus headed north toDeschappelles’s Kay Haiti  where we dinedupon the spiciest rice and beans known to man and free beer. Wafting throughthe air were the familiar smells of burning garbage and dust. (Dust by the wayis classified by many Peace Corps volunteers as the fifth food group and Ithink it has a very distinctive smell that I associate with dryoften-developing countries but I wonder if Arizona smells similar.)















By this point both my ankles areswollen which I attribute to serious water retention issues.