Another day, dear readers, in this land so vitally foreign to my home sweet home, the the slushy wonder that is Seattle.
I extricate myself yearly because of the dark and rain, to escape Christmas, and because I have this wandering foot, that’s afflicted me all my life. I have families–several now–and a partner from whom I stubbornly extricate myself.
I’m not rich, but I can go to countries like Mexico or Haiti where a buck is still a buck. I’ve always figgered I can stop wandering off, when that foot or some other vital part falls off, and I’m forced to my recliner and daytime teevee.
This is growing less acceptable to my loved ones every year, but here I sit, another December in the sun.
I chose Haiti last year because its history and singularity fascinated me. And, of course, again, it’s cheap, and I’m cheap.
I’ve traveled in the Haitians’ ‘old country,’ in the Bight of Benin, West Africa in an epic trip in my youth. 
Coming here was like going back there, or maybe I’m reliving my youth if you’re gonna get all psychology on me.
I don’t like places where tourists are. I’m comfortable here. A desperation, true; here’s the most extreme poverty in the Western Hemisphere, etc., etc., but there’s everything on this island in terms of love and community, etc., etc., that I have in my “hot” neighborhood (a realtors’ term) back home…except few has money.
Last year, for better or worse, I fell in love with Haitians. Yes, yes, that love extended into the biblical, and that’s what this story is all about.
So let’s get back to it.
I failed you again; another goose chase for the doctor yesterday found he’d gone across the water to Aux Cayes for the weekend. Catching him Monday is the next order of business. But I found myself in the village at 9 in the morning, with nothing to do, so I started walking.
I sauntered along the shoreline, noting how much boatbuilding is going on. Boat after boat, keels laid, hull planks set and being smoothed with hand tools. New boats built after Hurricane Matthew either destroyed the old ones or blew them to Jamaica, which I can see, btw, from my backyard.
I took a right and wound around in the noisy village on paths lined with fences of thorny epiphyllum hung with bright laundry. Along the way, I picked up a couple sidemen, (actually they picked me up) Robert, and Gilberte, ages 8 and 10.
They were delightful as kids are in those ages, unaware of themselves, and curious and funny. Everyone wants to be my wingman around here, and since these guys didn’t ask me for money, we got along fine. (Of course, I gave them some gourdes, later, along with some nice over the-counter analgesics for their mamas).
We skirted the hill thro the village and walked a few miles to Abaka Bay. This is the beautiful empty beach where I swam daily last year. This place is marked by two momentous helipads built in wild anticipation the boutique hotel on one end the beach would soon become filled with the rich and famous.
I’ve seen at least one of Bill Gates’ helipads, and it was half the size of these! There was a famous backlash here to the govt’s taking, without process or recompense, some farmers’ land for this speculation. The locals stopped the development, and the helipads to nowhere, as I like to call them remained, largely places for kids to kick soccer balls.
That is, until the hurricane: they’re now part of the beachy coastline, buried under fine sand.
Then we went up the long, long hill, to the highest point on the island, marked by two cell towers owned by the two equally useless internet and television providers, Digitel and NatCom.
I made it 85% of the way up this hill I climbed every day last year. The young boys scampered and pranced around me in circles as we climbed. We shared the hill with a bull looking mean and I was glad he was tied to a tree manging on the green grass there. Also about 10 goats, each with its own lead, and a shepherd boy keeping them from tangling. He was not much older than R & G, and looked bored, but grateful to see this lumbering blan come puffing up the hill to provide some distraction.
We finally made it to the top. Last year there were two houses on this end of the hilltop. One, a standalone that had children and their mama with whom I talked every day. The house is missing–only the foundation is left.
Scattered down the lee side of the hill were mortar and cement blocks, twisted, galvanized sheets of roof, a few ruined human belongings like a busted bedstead. The family was OK, I was told, but were on the mainland. There’s no way they could replace that which was blown away. Grim
The other house was badly damaged, but partially rebuilt. This belongs to an old man, and his family, a farmer with whom I spoke many times. He’d lost all his crop, and his livestock. I’d watched him over the months turn over the dry, hard scrabble, top of the hill dirt with a swing-over-your-head hand tool. He’d aged noticeably since I saw him
Last. He looked a little dazed. I gave him a couple hundred gourde and felt for a moment, as helpless as he. I wisht I could give him back last year, but I could only give him enough food for a few days.
A twisted, blackened pile of junk in front of the NatCom tower had been someone’s home and a kerosene tank had spilled or some propane had got loose and lit or something. It had burned, the people were gone.
What was worse than these tiny lives destroyed was that there was no internet or fones on the island for two months, I’m told.
Mon dieu! that’s devastation!!
From there it was a destruction tour as we wound down over and through old palms downed and crisscrossed over the path. Some had struck houses.
On the brighter side, there were rebuilts and many new roofs. I had reunion with a farmer, my last year’s next door neighbor, whose son, Senel and I had kept up over the year on the net.
Senel is in school in Aux Cayes, and I believe had missed the storm. His parents’ farm, house and yard, so in order before, was now in disarray. The house had been compromised, and was not safe, the fence in front had blown away, the crop and some pigs and goats were blow into the Caribbean.
They’re living outdoors, cooking on an open fire like old times. They are nice Christian people, who are rebuilding; they’ll be fine. They seemed not to have lost faith after The Lord had delivered this gigantic turd into the punchbowl of their previous hard work and good fortune. They blessed me and, as always, invited me to the prayer meeting they have every Wednesday. I demurred politely.
With all the downed wood, the charcoal business has gone to hell, prices at rock bottom; many families are making their own make their own, on their own land. See the foto of what appears to be a smoking mound of dirt, actually a pile of wood smouldering slowly.
The village is cleaned up, but this uphillarea of scant population is much in the condition left right after the storm last month.
The boys and I ended up back on the point to my comfortable digs in the guesthouse the locals call Kai Elie after the genteel Haitian-
American proprietor.
I paid off the kids and we parted company, bffs for sure.
I sat down famished and tucked into a dish they call, Secris (that’s a phonetic spelling- imagine an accent acute over the e). It’s small crabs, cleaned but otherwise whole in a stew with beef on the bone (!) spinach, aubergine, and a few carrots. The flavor was intense, incredible, the meal balanced on the lower end of the flavor profile with the inevitable fried plantain, rice and pwa, and a pasta salad with fresh tomatoes an avocados.
The condiment, charmingly called piklies is on every plate in Haiti. It’s grated or thin sliced cabbage with a little vinegar, grated carrots, and shreds of green habenero peppers. They’re the only pepper here, and usually eaten green, and sliced thin. They’re supposedly 300 times hotter than jalepenos, but I’ve found them not the super scary pepper of legend when used with intention and restraint. Get by the hotness, and there’s a distinct flavor that to me is the Carib.
Also sauce pwa, which I eat like soup, much to the amusement of the Haitians who flood their plates with it and use it as a sauce with their rice. Pwa is the kreyole word for the French pois–peas–and are what we would call undried, fresh beans (or shell beans). They’re on every plate in one form or another and I celebrate that by stuffing my face with them daily.
It’s Sunday today, and a day of rest for those lucky enough to have work. I’m best to shit, now after the heavy lifting–pushing actually–these keys all morning. Pleas pardon this uncopy-edited mess.
Think I’ll post some pictures from yesterday and toddle off.