Working for the weekend

It’s Saturday, which means I don’t have any classes, and I don’t have to prepare any lesson plans, and I don’t have any obligations whatsoever. This morning, I woke up to the sounds of the Saturday morning choir practice at the church. I am getting pretty good at sleeping through the choir (they practiced every day last week, usually starting around 5:00 am). But I got up around 6:30 and set out on my walk. Morning walks are becoming almost a daily ritual. I walked by the river for about an hour until I found a spot that I had discovered a couple days ago, a really isolated spot with tall trees all around and a natural pool. And I was going to take a bath (more on that later), but someone else had found my little spot, and decided to stick around to see what the strange, white guy was up to. So, I sat down on a rock and pulled out East of Eden and read, while he sat down about twenty feet away and just stared at me. This has become a fairly normal occurrence. I’ll find a place along the river or in the mountains to sit and read, but a stranger will see me and come by and sit near me and stare. They seem confused as to why there is a white guy sitting by their river reading a book, and decide to watch me, as if they can figure it out by staring long enough. And it can get pretty awkward having a group of strangers all trying to have staring contests with you, so I usually move along and find a different spot. But not today! I had found a perfect Haitian oasis and was not going to be moved, and I was also curious to find out how long this guy would sit there, not moving, just staring. Two hours later, he went along his way and I took a river bath, and then went on my way.

While on the topic, I have begun bathing in the river (in swimshorts, not in the nude). I felt a little out of place taking showers at the guest house given everyone in Bayonnais either bathes in the river or out of a bucket of water. And I figured, the showers at the guest house are ice-cold anyway, why not go to the river? Bathing in the river is probably not the safest thing in the world. Actually, it’s probably relatively stupid given waterborne diseases. But I am well-vaccinated, and there are many upsides. For one, most of the people at OFCB seem fairly proud of me for it. I think I might be the first American to visit OFCB and bathe in the river, which makes me a little less like that one, white, American guy in a twenty-mile radius and a little more like a Haitian. And two, a river oasis under the shade of mango trees is a lot cooler than a concrete shower. So, every day or so, I head out to the river and find somewhere secluded and do my thing.

On Tuesday, it began to rain during the music theory class. And by rain, I mean pour. Trying to teach in a classroom with aluminum sheets for a roof, during the rain, is a lost cause. So, we waited out the rain. Some of the students took naps on the wooden benches and some just sat there. There was no point in trying to continue the class because the sound of the rain on the roof drowned out everything. But the rain died down after almost an hour and the class resumed. I was reminded that these students have to put up with this everyday. Classes are cancelled all of the time because of the rain (and it may rain every other day). And classes that are conducted outside under the mango trees (because there aren't enough classrooms) haven't got a chance. But the students were more than happy to sit out the rain and have a longer lesson than normal, because they were eager to learn, despite the forces of nature against them. I was reminded of a day last semester when the power went off on the Davidson campus (that time the squirrel got stuck in the generator). One of my classes was cancelled because the professor couldn't use the digital projector. In Bayonnais, classes have only the following requirements: teacher, students, chalkboard, chalk, mango tree. Anything else is a luxury. And it takes a whole lot more than a power-out to dissuade the students from learning.

Aaron left yesterday, and no more outsiders will be visiting Bayonnais until after I leave. A few work teams from the States were scheduled to come in this summer but were scared off when news of food riots in Port-au-Prince came out. Bayonnais is practically the safest place in the world, and from what I understand, the situation in Port-au-Prince isn’t nearly as bad as the international news media have portrayed it (in terms of violence). But, that’s the way it is. It is beginning to set in that the next seven weeks are not going to be easy, considering that talking to people is difficult. Conversations are often in an English/Creole/French/Spanish blend that makes things very difficult. But I have picked up a fair amount of Creole, and will hopefully be able to speak coherently by the time I leave.

Our rat problem solved itself. We had not been able to open the closet in our room, the closet that R. Kelly was trapped in. Whenever we would hear him trying to gnaw his way out at night, we would just throw something at the closet and go back to sleep. But we eventually stopped hearing him. We finally obtained the key to the closet today and opened it to find dead R. Kelly, and some of Peter’s ties eaten. We have not had any more encounters with Smog, the dragon-rat, and the fortifications in our room seem to be standing strong. But, I’m sure Smog and his minions will find a way in sooner or later….

My camera is not fixable, at least not in Haiti. So, there will be no new photos on my blog. But I will try to space out some old ones, and some that I got from Aaron.