Stories From Travel

Although Wednesday and Thursday feel like forever and a day ago, I am now going to try to account some of the stories from my travels. Because there are a great many. My flight to New York was smooth and fast. The only slightly uncomfortable part of it was that I was sitting next to an utterly massive man who took up at least a quarter of my seat. Wednesday night with my Auntie Lulu and Uncle Frank was quite lovely. I watched the Republican National Convention with them, ate a bunch of food, and then went to bed.

Thursday started with my Auntie Lulu coming into my room at 5:29 AM to wake me up. I slept in a beautiful room that Wednesday night. Very comfortable. Very air conditioned. With a mattress like heaven and pillows of sheer plush. I actually do not recall a time when I have slept on pillows that were quite so plushy. Very clean. Very bug free. Very warm and homey and lovely.

Auntie Lulu and Uncle Frank drove me to the airport, and when I got there and it all started to become surreal. There were many Haitians checking in. All converging in one place, all preparing to go to the same place. It was so surreal to hear the bouncy intonation of creole resonate all around. It got even more so when I got past security (With only a minor glitch...the guy had to hand search my backpack. Hope he enjoyed going through all of my books...) and arrived at Gate 12. So. Many. Haitians. All Haitians, to be precise. I saw maybe two other white people on the plane. Maybe three.

Everything went smoothly. I got on the plane with basically no trouble. Made my way to seat 26J. Sat down. The only real issue was that true to the culture of my family, Auntie Lulu had provided me with a whole big bag of food, and it didn't really fit anywhere and I wasn't anything even close to hungry because of the egg sandwich she fed me that morning. This bag of food is important to note, because it comes in later in the story!

Every which way I turned, there were only Haitian faces. A woman came and sat down next to me. I loved her so much! Didn't know how I would feel about her for about the first 3 seconds. Although this is breaking from telling the story chronologically since I didn't learn her name for quite a long time, her name was Ramelle. Ramelle Joseph. She was great. She approached me talking in grunts and that weird “do you understand the language that I understand” sort of tone of voice. That soon evaporated, because I got up the guts to say, “Est-ce que vous parlez francais? Parce que je parle francaise, mais PAS BEAUCOUP.” And the response... “Ah Oui!!!! Vous parlez francais!! dududududududududud isca basca wasca ba!!!!!!” (that is a fairly accurate description of what I heard coming out of her mouth.) It was so hard to understand at first. Probably because not only am I rusty on my French (or rather, was rusty...) but she also broke every rule of French intonation I've learned throughout high school and she also talked like she was speaking to someone who knew French. As in she talked REALLY FAST.

But slowly, slowly I came to understand, and we talked about basically everything that I could figure out how to talk about in French. This included a number of French lessons and a number of Creole lessons, a thorough exploration of her family, a tour of the photos she had on her phone, an explanation of how many people speak Creole and how many people speak French, a rather garbled rendition of “I graduated from high school, I'm going to Haiti to work in a <didn't know the word for orphanage> and I have friends from Haiti and I am going to be going to France to study French and then I am going to go to college.” She asked what my mom did as a profession, so I said “journaliste”, and I said that she wrote two books, and then I pull out a copy of Fierce Compassion and showed it to her, and I worked very hard to explain to her what Donaldina Cameron did with her life, and I showed her the pictures, and I talked to her about the picture of the tremblement (earthquake) in SF which she obviously could relate to, and I told her about how Donaldina Cameron rescued slaves (thank goodness my topics for French class presentations usually had to do with social justice issues!) and about how she rescued Chinese slaves and about how “beaucoup des personnes pensent que l'esclaves dans aux Etats-Unis ont été seulement Afrique, mais il y'a été beaucoup des esclaves dans aux Etats-Unis qui a été Chinoise aussi.” She was totally enamored with the book, so much so that she turned and showed all of the people sitting in the general vicinity and told them I don't know what about who Donaldina Cameron was. And I ended up giving her a copy of the book, because she asked if she could keep it!

We pretty much were in conversation the ENTIRE WAY. And it was a four hour flight. Instead of feeling completely Frenched-out, however, I pretty much wanted to talk to every available Haitian in French. I was loving it.

Twenty minutes of the flight were not at all fun when I panicked due to the fact that I thought that I had left my passport in New York at the airport... That conversation went like this, “Ramelle!!!! Ahhh zut!!! Je pense que j'ai un action mal!!! Je ne sais pas ou est mon passeport!! JE NE SAIS PAS OU EST MON PASSEPORT!!!...ah, oui, oui je cherche dans mon sac a do, mais ce n'est pas ici!!!! Non, non ce n'est pas la. Oui, je cherche beaucoup de fois. Je ne sais pas ou est mon passeport!!!!!”

It was a terrible 20 minutes. I prayed the life out of my brains, and broke out in a cold sweat imagining what would happen to me when I got to the PAP airport WITHOUT A PASSPORT. Thank God (and I did profusely) it was hidden in the dark deep recesses of my seat. Don't know how it ended up there, but it did, and I found it after a major panic and after Ramelle got out of her seat and announced (in French and then in Creole) to whoever wanted to listen that the girl sitting next to her couldn't seem to find her passport while I was all the way upsidedown in my seat on the plane with my bum sailing high in the air until finally, “JE TROUVE! JE TROUVE! C'EST MON PASSEPORT!!!!” And the world started turning properly once more and my heart went back to a normal pace. But it was not a fun 20 minutes let me tell you.

Haiti is breathtaking from the sky. It's beyond beautiful. I won't try to describe it beyond that, because it would utterly ruin everything. But then when you start to get closer, you see the poverty, and it's quite striking. You see the tent cities. You see all the people, mini-people, running to and fro in harrowing patterns. You see the straggling children. You see the rubble and the barbed wire. You see the poverty from the air. Dozens of mini towns with mini-people living in poverty.

The minute we touched down in PAP, something happened that I've never heard happen before on an airplane. The crowd erupted, yes, erupted, in applause and shouts of, “Hallelujah! Thank you! Thank you! Merci! Merci beaucoup! Mesi!” And everyone was shouting thank you and everyone was clapping and everyone was laughing for a solid 3-4 minutes. Quite the thrilling experience I must say.

I got off the plane and the heat hit me in the face. I followed Ramelle like a puppy dog, and she didn't let me get lost either. We went down the hall to the escalator together (while still chatting it up in French) and then we got on the bus and sat down next to each other, and then we got off the bus and Ramelle dragged me along with her when the airport lady yelled at her to go to a different line, and then Ramelle continued to drag me with her when she cut into said line.

The customs building was a warehouse. No other way to describe it. Florescent lighting, lots of fans, lots of heat, and lots of Haitian people. There was a Haitian band playing very colorful and upbeat music right outside of the building when we walked in. So that was fun! Very fun. Got my blood racing and my heart beating and my mouth smiling.

The customs official didn't even say a word to me. He barely even glanced at my passport. Baggage claim was a jungle. After much valiant searching, I located my massive pieces of luggage, grabbed them, and even more valiantly hauled them all the way through the sea of luggage (because they were, of course, on the far, far side of the sea of luggage).

I found Ramelle, and we chatted for a while in French while she searched for her luggage. It was hot and confusing and luggagey in there. And there were lots and lots of Haitians. Haitians everywhere – including the little roundabout with the luggage on it (what is that thing called??) Haitian airport workers were walking all over it as if it were a treadmill!!!

Then I maneuvered my massive amounts of luggage over towards the door where airport people were taking some sort of paper before waving us through. I couldn't tell what they were taking, so I asked Ramelle, and I thought she said that they were taking the luggage receipt to make sure we weren't stealing luggage, so I got that out, and the guy said, “Non, non, non” and then waved me through. I looked back as he waved me through, and saw everyone handing him their customs forms. So.....cool, I found that sheet of paper crumpled up at the bottom of my bag late on Thursday night...

I got outside, and OH JOY! There was a man, tall and Haitian, holding a sign that had my name on it!!!!!!! Oh joy oh blissful joy!!!!!! Oh relief of massive relief!!!!! I would not be stranded in Port-au-Prince. His name was Cherry. Cherry Elie. He was very affable. He loved the fact that I spoke French. We chit chatted. Thankfully, I could understand his French a LOT better than I could understand Ramelle's, and I actually think that I caught about 90% of what he said! It was fantastic. He informed me that I should give him a tip. I told him I knew that “parce que GLA dit te donne tip!”

We walked through the airport “parking lot” aka where cars – 95% of which are decrepit, filthy things you would never see driven in the states – are parked in every which way with no reason or rhyme. We walked through several of these parking lots and through several gates, passed a bunch of people sitting in a park...still not a white person to be seen...past crowds of Haitians waiting to greet family members who had just arrived on a plane.

Then we finally halted by the curb, waiting for Watson to come pick me up in what Cherry Elie said would be a very nice car (at least I think that's what he said... “nouvelle voiture!”) We continued to chat. I do believe he liked me. At least he found me highly amusing. Halfway through our walk, he stopped and suggested that I just get it over with and give him his tip right away!!! So I did!!! And happily too.

Here's where the bag of food comes in again. While we were waiting by the side of the road for Watson, I explained that, “Ce matin, ma tante a arrivé a l'aéroport, and elle donne-moi beaucoup de la nourriture, mais je ne mange pas beaucoup de la nourriture...vous aimeriez la nourriture??” (This morning, my aunt came to the airport and she gave me a big bag of food, but I don't eat a lot of food, would you like some food?)

He looked rather shocked in a funny way, “Moi?!?! Donne-moi la nourriture?? Ah, oui, oui je l'aime!” (Me?!?! You give me the food??? Yes, yes, I love!!” And so I proceeded to place in his hands a whole heaping pile of food!!! I do believe he was very pleased, because we continued to discuss nourriture for a decent amount of time after that. Good stuff. Finally, Watson pulled up in a big tan pick up truck. I do believe Watson was quite relieved when after he had attempted some semblance of “hi, how are you?” I responded with, “Vous-parlez francais? Je parle francais, mais pas beaucoup...” Cherry Elie ran beside the car for a little while shouting “nourriture!!!! nourriture!!! Au revoir! Merci beaucoup!” And then my drive through Port-au-Prince began. Time for me to go eat lunch. For now, enjoy those stories from my travels :)