Day 21: Leave Room for the Unexpected

There are not words for this weekend. No matter what I say it will never express the generosity, kindness and beauty we experienced. I will try anyways.

I am a firm believer in keeping yourself open to the unexpected. Extraordinary things can happen when you don’t spend your entire life planning, pretending like you know what the future holds. When it comes to traveling, I particularly hold tight to this belief. Today was a reminder why.

Myself and 3 other women jumped off the taptap full of 25 people in the bed, 3 on top of the roof, and three in the front seat (remember taptaps are about the size of a Ford Ranger) to hitch our way to Jacmel. Within 10 minutes we were in the bed of a large truck, fresh air blowing through our hair, and vast mountainside before us. A friend had recommended hitching a way to Jacmel, preferably in the back of a pickup truck, because the drive through the mountains is breathtaking. “After all,” he reminded me, “you are 4 women. You will get picked up in a heartbeat.” I also preferred the idea of an airy truck bed to a covered, over-filled “bus” that costs 100 goud (a little over 2 dollars.)

I remembered every time my dad brought home a truck from work we wanted to ride in the back. We were only ever allowed to sit in the bed if we sat smack dab next to the cab of the truck and went no more than 5 or 6 blocks, never reaching more than 20 mph. Now here we sat each in a corner, arms and legs sprawled out, going well over 60 mph up a mountain, around treacherous curves on one lane roads with two directions of traffic. Sorry, Mom.

The countryside was beautiful. Green and rolling. Yet, even with the ocean kissing its border, it all still seemed so dry. Less than 10% of Haiti’s forests remain. Looking down from so far up, this fact was incredibly evident. Nonetheless, each curve in the road brought another “ooh” from my lips.

The couple we hitched a ride with were in their early 60’s and instantly took us in like family. It in fact felt as if we had planned our trip to come see them, our family. By the end of the weekend they introduced us as their daughters and their neighbors would ask each morning how their blan daughters were.

Like any worrying parents, Jean Pierre and Mimi refused to leave us until we found a hotel. The search was a futile attempt so we pitched a tent in their front yard. They had offered us the tent right off the bat (I immediately jumped on board) but one of the woman traveling with us was determined to sleep in a bed - a foolish request in my opinion when a local family offered to take us in. When given the chance to stay as a tourist or visit as a local – always give in to the unexpected and choose the ordinary local life over that of a tourist. I promise, dear reader, you will never regret it.

They live across the street from a beach that stretches on for miles lined with palm trees and bordering bright blue waves crashing on the shore. A little hike up the mountain, through all the fruit trees we came to their tiny house with a front yard that actually had grass, and lush grass at that. After we settled in they took us to dinner at a restaurant on the beach. It was the best meal I’ve had yet in Haiti. We started with a salad that consisted of more than just ONE tomato and ONE piece of lettuce (like on the HODR base) and actually had dressing on it. This was accompanied by a piece of warm bread and butter. It felt lavish. It tasted so good. It's amazing how sick of rice and beans you can be when you have rice and beans for lunch and dinner for 4 weeks straight. The entrée of fish was so fresh and delicious I felt guilty for such indulgences. We chatted the whole time, getting to know their family and feeling more like kin. Then they paid for the bill without a single consideration of our request to treat.

We headed back to the house, climbed in the tent under a blanket of stars and just smiled. What a lucky day. Transportation, room, and meal considered we spent a total of one American dollar. More than that, we were in the company of truly special people, and that is worth more than any amount.

...

I feel I should take a moment to describe a conversation we had with Jean Pierre. While we were in the middle of scrambling to find a hotel and I was in the middle of profusely apologizing for all the inconvenience, he remained incredibly calm and pleasant. He said he had realized that you just have to learn to be happy. In Haiti you never know what tomorrow will bring so you learn to be happy right now. He had spent 24 years in the US where he said he always planned for the future. But Haiti is not like that. "You can’t plan for anything because nothing is stable. So you live one day at a time," he explained. This is something I have noticed a lot in Haiti; for better or worse, people don’t think about the future. For example, there are many reasons why Haiti is almost completely de-forested, one of which being that they use the trees to make coal which they can sell for a living. A short-run living, but a living none the same. Yet, if they left the trees for longer they could sell the fruits for years and make money continuously. But making coal is something you can do in the present- it has immediate effects and gratification. They are not worried about how they will survive in the future so it doesn’t occur to them to save things for the future. In America all we ever think about is the future. We have social security and retirement funds and a hundred different options for making ourselves feel stable about the years to come. And that allows us to sleep “better” at night. But maybe that isn’t the way. I don’t think we should disregard the future completely but there has to be a happy medium, some sort of compromise. Maybe we are meant to live more by the day. To enjoy life now. To find that middle ground where we keep an eye on the future while remembering to treat each day like it’s all we have, because let’s face it – one day it will be.

It never ceases to amaze me how much I learn from Haitians. I learned so much from Jean Pierre and Mimi after only a few hours. Always generosity. And now a reminder to enjoy our days, no matter how rough they may be. Because if anyone has learned how to find joy in tribulation it is the Haitians.