In the Mountains

Yesterday, I took a walk. I asked Vital (the brother of Actionnel, the head of OFCB and main pastor of the church) where Peter used to go walking in the mountains. I had been told that Peter would go off into the mountains for long periods of time and read, and do art work, and other things, and so I asked Vital to point me in the direction that Peter used to go. I think the idea of me walking aimlessly through the Bayonnais countryside kind of freaked Vital out, given that I don't speak Creole and I've only been here a couple of days, so he told me that he would walk with me. We followed the irrigation system towards the mountains. We reached a ledge on the waterway that overlooked the valley and mountains in the distance and sat for a while. Vital was tired, and sore from the long, bumpy ride to Limbe the day before, and I said he could go back and I would keep going.

It's amazing how much can be communicated with only a few phrases in Creole ("Hello", "How are you?", "I don't speak Creole," "I'm walking", "Nice to meet you"). I passed by people outside of their houses and would say hey, and wave. Usually people just smile and wave, or they may ask a few questions, most of which I don't understand. Everyone notices me, given that they probably haven't seen a white person in a while. I met two guys along the way that I talked to a little. I told them that I spoke Spanish, and they told me they knew someone who spoke Spanish and motioned for me to follow them. So, I met a guy named Eddie, who works at a dicotec in the Dominican Republic. We talked for a long time while he was shelling peanuts (pistache!) to sell at market the next week. He asked me if I was scared to be walking alone, and I said no, and asked if I should be. He said no, but said that there were probably people much, much farther out in the mountains that had never seen a white person, and might freak out and think I was an evil spirit.

Today, I went out walking again in the same direction, hoping to make it to the mountains. I hadn't walked far when I passed by the house of Jean Juneul (I have no clue if I am spelling things/names right), Actionnel's nephew. He caught up with me a few minutes later and said he would walk with me. I haven't really figured out whether people feel the need to walk with me for safety reasons, or just because. The farther away from the school, the farther apart the houses and fields. Jean speaks a little English, so we talked while we walked. He would teach me Creole names for things (cabuit = goat, etc), and I would teach him English names for things. We made it pretty far up a hill, far up enough that you could see the entire valley. Words can not describe how beautiful the valley is. It's unlike anything I have ever seen.

We came back a different way we had gone. At one point, a man walked out of his house and staggered onto the path. He was probably in his late-fifties, just skin-and-bones, and drunk. He held out his hand, asking for money, and I kind of shrugged, as if to say I didn't have anything to give. He started to get kind of angry, and starting ranting in Creole, waving an empty bottle of some type of alcohol in his hand. You could tell he was genuinely hungry, maybe hadn't eaten in a while. This is my first real experience with hunger in Haiti. Everything we hear on the news about food shortages and rising food prices is very real.

I sort of started guitar lessons today. Jean Juneul asked me to teach him a little after we got back from the walk, so I taught him a few basic lessons on my guitar and he practiced for a while. I've been meaning to talk to Demilsaint, Actionnel's brother, who is currently in charge (Actionnel has a broken ankle, and hasn't been in Bayonnais since February, but should be back this month), about starting up some type of music class after exams are over in a few weeks. A couple of students at the school have told me that they would be interested in taking a class. Miselet, who I see a lot, told me that he was "thirsty for playing guitar'.

I ate goat today. I didn't know it until after I ate it because it was goat soup, with carrots, potatoes and onions. It was delicious. There are adorable, baby goats everywhere in Bayonnais, but I will probably look at them differently now.

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