Day 9: A Walk To The Heavens

Today is Sunday which means a day off! A day off maybe, but rest definitely not. A 6k hike up Korai mountain in 90 plus degree weather with a big backpack on my pack is not technically my idea of rest, though it is definitely my idea of relaxation.

SASH (Sustainable Aid Sustaining Haiti), an NGO about half an hour away, organized a premier hiking excursion up the side of one of Haiti’s many mountains. The purpose was to promote tourism for the village on the side of the mountain and help boost their “economy.” Since, as far as anyone knows, no group of white tourists has ever traversed this mountain before, this would be a very unique and interesting experience. The difficult part with promoting tourism in a village so un-scathed by modern capitalism is that over time you lose the organic, un-touched beauty of the village. It’s a hard balance to find in trying to help the people bring in extra income without over exploiting them. But that’s for another blog.

There were nine of us from HODR, three from SASH (one of whom was the Haitian translator and tour guide), and one local woman from the village (Beatrice.) One of the volunteers from SASH had guided Jameson (the Haitian tour guide) on how to be a guide, enabling him to earn income from this experience, also. The whole idea around the excursion was rather fantastic.

We hiked the beautiful mountainside, something I’ve wanted to do since the moment I saw Haiti from the tiny plane window. The climb is too treacherous for vehicles (as if many of the Haitians on the mountainside would even own a car even if it could get up the terrain) and most are not wealthy enough to own a donkey. Which means every time they need something from the market they have to walk all the way down and then carry anything they buy back up the steep climb. As you can imagine, that’s a lot of work and a lot of time, so the mountain people only come to the market on Saturdays for anything they can’t provide for themselves. They are almost completely self-sustainable on the mountain. And since visiting the doctor or hospitals would be quite timely, they had to find their own cures in nature. Let’s be honest, that’s probably the best way anyway. We stopped throughout to learn about a leaf used to aid in digestion, another that is boiled to settle upset stomachs, one for anxiety, and many, many more.

Beatrice took us to her house to see inside her tiny two rooms for herself and four children. She then showed us a house of a wealthy man. This was evident because he was one of the only people on the mountain to have a cement floor. Imagine that. His house still had no more than two rooms, one of which with 4 beds in it, but he had a cement floor. Everyone was so eager to take us in, show us around. We were like the bright, shiny new toys…or the strange white people asking to see inside their home and sit on their chairs!

One of the many things I love about Haitians is how generous they are. They have so little and yet here comes a group of sweaty blans invading their land and what do they do? They go into three or four houses to scrounge up as many chairs as they can so that we can sit and have a rest. And they don’t stop until they find enough for all of us, even after our persistence to stand. These people who have so little, giving without reservation to people who have so much. Again, generosity at its finest. I’m constantly learning from these beautiful people.

We reached the top of the mountain to find a warm welcome of at least a hundred village people (mainly children) and several tables with tablecloths and chairs. What a surprise on all fronts. We were flabbergasted and incredibly grateful in so many ways.
The top of the mountain came to a plateau where a school for all the mountain children used to stand. It used to look out over more mountains and beyond that Caribbean-blue water that sparkles in the sun. Like so much of Haiti, it too was destroyed in the earthquake. SASH hands out tents to those who lost their homes, and in this case they also were provided with two large tents (about the size of my studio apartment in NYC a couple years back) that would suffice as temporary classrooms. We helped the people of SASH put up the tents- something of which we were all eager to help. We set the tents up with the entire village looking on. They were so intrigued by us, yet they looked on as if staring at a lion in the zoo with a glass wall separating you from this foreign creature.

We were cooked a meal with all products grown or raised on the mountain (a typical Haitian meal: chicken, rice, and onions.) They served us incredibly generous portions, without taking any for themselves, and then the entire village watched us eat. It was a bit disconcerting to sit at such nice tables that you knew took a lot of scrounging around to find, eating such a hearty meal in gigantic portions, while people who are generally always starving stared on from the other side of the glass.

It was also intriguing how quiet and well behaved the children were. By the time the school tents were up and lunch was finished there were at least 100 children standing nearby. If we were in Leogane the children would’ve been running up to hold our hands or hug our legs, or calling out “hey you” repetitively. But these children stayed a safe distance back without smiling faces. I tried several times to interact and they slowly came around, and even once I caught a few smiles. Life in the mountains shields them from many things, including Canadian armies that teach you such awful phrases as “hey you.” (Ha!)

After lunch a local man showed us how to climb a coconut tree. I instantly slipped off my shoes and ran to the base - how often do you get to climb a palm tree? The village people loved it. The cheers and laughter at seeing not only a white person, but a white woman try to climb a tree and then smack a coconut (it’s very hard to rip one down especially twenty feet in the air.) We were such entertainment for them. Another volunteer used a machetee to open a coconut and then passed the milk around for all of us to share. We tried a half dozen fruits, none of which I’d ever had before. Bread fruit was my favorite – its name describes it perfectly. When it’s ripe enough you can pull a piece right from the tough outer shell and the inside has the color and consistency of bread. Bizarre yet fantastic.

Then we made our way back down as the dark clouds rolled in over the opposite mountains. The entire village followed us down, slowly dropping off group by group as they passed their houses. It was such a beautiful and unique experience. Never again will it be like this for any group of tourists visiting. We were the first they had ever seen and that offered such a different light on the experience. I was in awe from the moment we took our first step on the mountain to the moment I wrote this blog. The people, the food, the view…indescribable.