Living Haitian Style

It was a joy to stay with a Haitian family in Gonaives for three nights. They cleaned out a room for the three of us, and we set up our portable beds in it. The room was all cement and had only one widow, so it held the heat, but thankfully, they had a pedestal fan that sucked the cooler air in from the outside and made the room a little cooler.

Gonaives is the fourth largest city in Haiti and was flooded in 2004 and in 2008. The family we stayed with survived both floods by living in a room for a month in a nearby public school above the flood waters. There were 10 people in one room with no clean water to drink, no electricity and no toilet facilities. Their house was completely underwater, and would have been swept away had it not had a cement roof.

This family's day began at 5 AM with getting water from a well in their courtyard. Several families share the walled-in compound and there were always children around. I made friends with two 7 year old girls who wanted to play with my hair (what little there is left!). I told them I wanted barrettes like they had, so they tried to put a couple in my hair (see pictures).

Then they have a breakfast of leftover rice or Spaghetti with ketchup.
At noon they have their big meal of rice and beans and maybe “Lalo” - a spinach-like vegetable they cook with goat and one or two small crabs to give it flavor.

After teaching seminars all day, we held soccer practice for one of the teams involved in our program. The field was nothing but dust. Every time you kicked the ball, a cloud of dust spewed up. This was supposedly one of the best fields in Gonaives and they had played championship matches on it – all without one blade of grass!

At night we had either “Fritay”, fried stuff that can easily give you the runs, or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (you can guess which on I chose!)

There is no plumbing in the house, so there was an outhouse with a cement “seat”, and a place to take a bucket shower. Somehow looking up at the stars under a full moon while you poor cold water over you with a pitcher is invigorating! It felt good to get at least most of the dust off.

At night I feel fell asleep to the sweet sound of mosquitoes buzzing in my ears (since I lost my OFF spray). My roomates wrapped themselves in a sheet to protect themselves and ended up looking like mummies.

But we slept well in spite of the little pests since we were so tired, only to awake before dawn to the sound of water being fetched, and meals being prepared to the singing of Christian songs and Christian music from the radio.