It is such a big city, it’s really not our favorite place. But, now that we have other LWI staff members living there, and they are always so sweet and welcoming, it’s not too bad to go for a visit. We all met together to do some training-our bosses were in town from the States. We had a great week together! It was so nice to get to know each other, brainstorm about some strategies and ideas about how to move forward, and we all had  some training to do. Jennifer and I trained on learning health and hygiene, and Brandon did some more training on the drill rig. I am a bit overwhelmed by how much information is out there on the topic of hygiene, but it was good to learn some ideas on how to implement such practices in communities. Just as much as people need clean water for good health, they need to be learning (if they don’t already know) and practicing good hygiene habits too. A lot of people get sick and even die from not just drinking dirty water-but also from not so stellar hygiene habits. I’ve got a lot to learn before I can train national staff, and we can go out into communities, but it was great to start taking some steps in the right direction! The ladies took a break from training one day to go and check on the boys. It was the first time I had ever seen a drill rig in action, and it was pretty cool! Here are some photos and I’ll do my best to explain what is going on…

 

 

Jessica always gives me a hard time about not blogging. When went traveling four years ago, I was blogging just about as much as she was. Now it seems I just maintain the blog and let her post away. I’m not sure why this is, but here are some recent thoughts of mine.

I’ve recently been reading Haitian proverbs. Haitian culture is full of proverbs. As I continue to learn Creole I am finding that often times when you ask a question you don’t get a factual ‘American’ answer. What you get is a proverb. For example when we first arrived in Haiti a little over a year ago, while meeting with earthquake survivors who had fled Port au Prince and moved to Port-de-Paix we posed the question to our translator, “How do these people survive?” He replied, “For the donkeys that don’t have tails, God shoos away the flies.” In other words he was saying, I don’t know, it must be an act of God.

So when people ask me how things are going in Haiti with the work that we are doing I find it fitting that I too should answer with a proverb; Beyond the Mountains there are more Mountains(dèyè mòn gen mòn). This proverb is particularly insightful to me for after spending much of my adolescence backpacking in the Sierra Nevada Mountains with my Dad. The Sierra Nevada Mountains hold the highest point, Mt. Whitney, in the continental United States and are particularly striking when looked and hiked form the East side where 14,000 plus peaks loom over the desert floor. What you can’t see as you drive highway 395 through the desert with the Sierra Nevadas to the west is that the first set of peaks that you see are just the beginning of a 55 mile wide (East to west) 300 mile long mountain range. All the trails from the east side of the mountains are steep and dry. It is not uncommon to gain 4,000 vertical feet in less than 5 miles as you make your way into the back country. As you crest the first pass, be it Bishop Pass, New Ary Pass or dozens of others you are greeted by a vista of seemly endless mountains. These peaks signal to let you know that you are not at the end of your journey but merely getting started. More than once we have passed inexperienced hikers and backpackers that are completely exhausted frustrated and unprepared for the subsequent hiking after summiting the first pass. Dad and I always give them a bit of a hard time, something to the effect of, ”what did you expect?” If it was easy then the beauty, grander and solitude would be lost to the masses.

I feel like that disillusioned weary hiker. I knew Haiti would be hard, but I though that after we made it over that first pass that things would get easer. Instead we are met by more mountains. We are at the first summit, catching our breath, drinking some water and looking at the task ahead of us. The mountains are large and storms are looming in the distance.  But, thankfully, I am starting to make out the trail as it skirts the side of a mountain and works its way up to the top. That is not to say I know where it leads but only that I can make out a small line, a long ways off, and am going to continue hiking along.

We’ve been trying to get a dog here in Haiti ever since we moved here. Well, more like ever since we had to leave our sweet Zoe when we moved here. Since it was pretty traumatizing for all involved, we needed some time before we got another dog.

It’s been hard to find dogs here-well, scratch that-to find good dogs here. Street dogs are about as common as a hot day, and so are their sad little puppies. We’d take one of those little guys, except they grow up to be pretty small. We want a big and feroscious looking dog. Our main reason you may ask? Security. We only have a cactus fence here so all you need to get through is a machette, which 90% of people walk around with one-including many women.

After months of no luck in Haiti, we were tried Florida. It was going to be too pricey and we didn’t like not seeing the dog before we bought it. Ah. So finally we decided we’d look in the Dominican while we were there. The first few days we had a few leads, but they fizzeled out to nothing. When we went back through the large city of Santo Domingo on our anniversary trip, and we tried one last time… and found a sweet little Rottwieler.  And that is when the journey home began.

We weren’t ten minutes at the bus station before some cranky old man came up to us and told us no dogs were allowed on the bus. He was causing a scene, talking loudly through his three good teeth. He didn’t even work for the bus company! So we took the dog out of the waiting area, and sat in the diesel fumes of the buses, way in the corner of the station,  to avoid any problems. We anxiously waited two hours for our bus. We kept debating if we should keep him in the carrier, or fold it down and sneak him in a bag. We were both stressing out big time, knowing if we couldn’t get him on the bus we either had to ditch him or take a very, very expensive taxi ride to Haiti. Meanwhile, the poor dog had yacked twice already. We thought we lost the old man, but soon found him talking to a bus driver. Turns out he was our driver and he was ratting us out! Oh if my Spanish was better he would have had a mouthful from me! Brandon approached the driver and learned it was company policy to have no pets on the bus. Brandon joked with him and reminded him how he has seen and heard plenty of chickens on the buses before. The driver laughed, and said as long as he didn’t see the dog, we’d be fine. He was actually a really nice guy, and he pulled the bus to the far corner where we were, let us board and slide the crate and dog under the very back seat.  He then drove to the front and let the rest of the passengers on. Whew! Thankfully, some yahoo young kid sat right in front of us with a cell phone on speaker phone blaring rap music for almost three hours-no one could hear the dog whine or yack three more times. It was a long ride. We then stopped in another big city, and had two more hours to go. We just might make it. We got to the border town of Dajabon about an hour before sunset. As we made the three block walk from the bus station to the border we noticed it looked pretty quiet. Unusually quiet. We were so distracted and worried about getting the puppy on the bus, in the bus, and across the border that we forgot to check what time it closed-and they close early on Sundays!!! We missed it by two hours. We stood there, shocked and dejected.  We were stuck in Dajabon, with a dog. I guess I should have seen this coming when our last night in the hotel I lamented to Brandon how I wasn’t ready to go back to Haiti- I guess I should have been more specific! Well, a nice border policeman told us there were a few hotels nearby and even offered to drive us to one. Exhausted, we took him up on it. He pulled up to a small establishment, that looked pretty well kept. But let’s just say I would not have stayed there if it were not the fact that we were in an unknown town, at dusk, with a dog, any no other options. We made our way up the stairs to our room. It was about the size of a king bed, with a full bed stuffed in it. It was clean though, and had a large bathroom we could put the puppy. Brandon washed the vomit off the dog and we left him in the bathroom while we went to find the only food we’d eaten all day. Turns out the hotel made great fajitas, and we quickly ate them and returned to our room. The dog had gone all over the bathroom. Poor thing. No one slept good that night, and we set off as soon as we could for the border.

The tricky part now was going to be getting the dog across. Since there are really very limited rules in Haiti, and all rules are subject to change at any time for any reason, we didn’t know what to expect. Dogs are allowed, but we’ve heard some people paying a lot to get them in. We’ve heard others having to wait weeks for ‘correct paper work’ and others who’ve had no problems at all. Brandon and I usually go with the ‘act like you know what your doing’ bit and it works most days. But, after seeing the attention the crate got right away, we knew we needed a plan B. There are guys at the border who will take your stuff across in a wheel barrow so we flagged one down. We put the crate on the bottom and all our three bags on top. You couldn’t even see him! He didn’t make a noise, but it didn’t really matter since Mondays are open border days and it’s like the wild wild west out there. You have to push and shove your way across, holding all your belongings close, as you inch your way to the other side. We took a deep breath and just marched right across, paid our fees, got our stamps, and took him straight to the truck. Another two hour ride, one more yack, and we were all home safely. WHEW.