Rodents of unusual size

One night last week, I awoke to some mysterious sounds. And I laid in bed for a long time trying to figure out what the sounds were. And then I remembered my phone conversation with Peter before I left the States, in which he told me that he had often found mice in his room. And I realized that I was hearing the sounds of a mouse chewing on wood. And the sounds were coming from a locked closet in the corner of the room where Peter had left a lot of his stuff. So, I woke Aaron up and told him there was a mouse in the room. But he didn’t seem very concerned and went back to sleep. I put on my headphones and tried to go back to sleep but I could still here the sound of the mouse trying to get out of the closet, making it very difficult to sleep. The next day, we decided we would name the mouse R. Kelly. Because he’s trapped in the closet.

The following night, I was reading in bed and I looked towards the window in our room, and saw a mouse staring back at me. Aaron and I approached with great caution. And it began crawling on the outside screen of the window. And this was no mouse. This was the largest, fastest rat I have ever seen. And it wasn’t afraid of us. This was a fierce, mutant Haitian rat. A rat that has been naturally selected to survive brutal Haitian conditions. We realized that the duck tape on the inside screen of the window represented previous rat entry-points. So we have begun fortifying our room, re-duct-taping the window, pushing one of the bunk beds against the loose window frame, and placing a giant rat trap by the door. And Aaron keeps a pocket knife beside his bed just in case of a night attack. We still hear R. Kelly every night trying to get out of the closet, but haven’t had any more encounters with Smog, the dragon-rat that lives outside our window.

(when we showed this photo to one of the ladies that works at the guest-house, she screamed)

Our beginner English class is multiplying with each lesson. First it was 18 students. Now it is 38 students, packed into a concrete classroom less than 1/3 the size of an average Davidson classroom. A classroom with a roof made of aluminum sheets that gets more and more hot as the lesson goes on. Our advanced class, on the other hand, has sort of fallen apart. Of the six students that showed up for the last class, only two of them were from the original group of students, making teaching very confusing. But hopefully this week everything will get sorted out.

Something that has been on my mind a lot lately is the Haitian response to issues of hunger. Whenever I go out walking, I always meet people that ask for food. Some are genuinely suffering, and you can tell that they haven’t eaten in a while. But others treat hunger with an odd sense of humor. They playfully ask for food, practically doing impersonations of others that ask Americans for food. Many Haitians in Bayonnais only know three phrases in English: "Good morning", "What is your name?" and "I am hungry", and they say them in that order when they meet you. I have met so many people who have asked me for food, and motioned to their stomach to show that they were hungry, but had a big smile on their face. They seem greatly amused at the idea of asking an American for food, and don’t seem disappointed when you don’t give them anything. It’s almost as if hunger is such a common and understood part of their existence that they can treat it with a sense of humor. I am not trying to understate the problem of hunger in Haiti, but am just trying to say I am very confused by the cultural impact of a longstanding state of hunger.

One day last week, while we were standing outside of the classroom before one of the lessons, we saw a funeral procession pass by on the main road. People were dancing and singing what sounded like a fairly joyful song. And a group of men in the middle were carrying a very, very tiny casket made of plywood. I asked some of the students about it and they said a two-year child had died nearby. I asked how he had died and they said they didn’t know, but that it could be a number of things. They reminded me that the nearest source of medical care is 20 miles away and most people in Bayonnais do not have the means to get there. The students were kind of smiling when they said this, reminding me of those people who playfully asked me for food despite genuinely being hunger. The unexpected death of this child did not produce a great sense of mourning in these students, because this was not an uncommon event. A child can come down with malaria or some other illness and die unexpectedly. This is just a fact of life in Bayonnais. And because it is not uncommon, it seems to loose its element of tragedy. But there was nothing morbid in the smiles of these students. A part of me wants to pity the people in Bayonnais who are so accustomed to hunger and death that they must find other ways of coping besides mourning. But a part of me is amazed by their resilience in the face of suffering, and the great comfort they find in family, friends and hard work. They understand more than anyone that life is impermanent, but they have a greater appreciation for what life gives than others.

Camera update: The rice has sucked all the water out of my camera. The screen works perfectly, but I can't take any new photos because I think there is something wrong with the lense. So, Demilsaint has taken it to Port-au-Prince to hopefully find someone who can fix it. Hopefully the rest of the summer will not be photo-less.