26 October 2009 – Preparation for Sailing
The local Marina de Guerre official is circling like a vulture. He stopped by the boat this morning, reminding me to get a Despachio before leaving. Even a free Despachio requires paying him “something extra.” His blatant greed finally crossed a line with me, so I told him I was broke and was waiting to get money in two more days. I am leaving tomorrow.
27 October 2009 – Leaving Sosua
Spent the day preparing to leave Sosua, DR. Just after dark, Tim Schwartz and I paddled away from the beach, boarded the Pequod, pulled up the anchor, and sailed away. Motoring a couple miles put us into the conveyor belt of trade winds that would carry us to Haiti.
28 October 2009 – Arriving in Haiti at Night
The exhilarating part of the 28-hour run was surfing down seven-foot rollers in temporary rushes of 9-10 knots as we drew close to Labadi, Haiti. In the dark, we nosed through an unfamiliar, cluttered harbor to finally drop anchor at 11:00 pm WT 1947 7215. The smell of wood smoke, the dark mass of nearby mountains, and the sound of distant voices made me wonder. What will we find tomorrow?
29 October 2009 – Labadie, Haiti, in the morning
A few boats and kayaks stopped by in the morning, mainly to sell us fish. One guy asked for my bathroom bucket. Tim’s weightlifter physique and fluent Creole persuaded them to leave. Buying anything, or giving anything away, would have created a feeding frenzy. Haitians feel that they are all equal. Therefore, if one person receives a benefit, it is unfair until everyone receives a benefit. Midday, we met with a local American expatriate, Tim Mang, and then traveled 45-minutes over a couple of mountains in the back of a Toyota pickup truck to Cap Haitien to see one of Haiti’s most powerful native-born businessmen, Maurice Laroche. The local road is a rocky path that ends before it even reaches Labadi. Townspeople make the last mile of the trip by boat. The only vehicles that survive traveling the road are “tap-taps”, four-wheel-drive Toyota pickup trucks. Twenty people crowded into the back of a tap-tap is a common sight.
30 October 2009 – Separation Anxiety, Cap Haitien, Haiti
Tim and I returned to Cap Haitien. After kayaking to shore, I realized my shoes were still on the boat. Amazingly, a Haitian loaned me his shoes. They almost fit. Once in Cap Haitien, Tim dropped his bags off at Terez Boisette’s house. She is an elderly Haitian lady that served a long time as a school director. Down the street a ways, Tim knocked on a short steel door, where a chinaman lives, but he wasn’t home. Then we jumped on the back of motorcycles and went to Hotel Mont Joli, where Tim introduced me to Daniel Morel, a former career AP photographer and Haitian. We three ate a late lunch at Lakay Restaurant near the waterfront. Then Tim said goodbye and headed off to retrieve his bags and board the bus that would take him back to Sosua, DR. I was alone and lost in the second-largest city in Haiti, ignorant of the language, struggling even to find the tap-tap stop to get back to Labadi. My skin was like a neon sign and I had not even gotten my passport stamped to be there legally. Once in Labadi, how would I ever find the guy that loaned me his shoes?
31 October 2009 – First day on my own, Labadie, Haiti
Spent the morning waiting for a USAID contractor from Cap Haitien to stop by. Tim set up a meeting between us, but something must have come up. In the afternoon, I paddled to shore and walked over to Tim Mang’s place, but he was in Cap Haitien on business. So, I walked up a mountain overlooking the bay and providing an excellent view of the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line facility. In the evening, I ate a supper cooked by Noralis, a Haitian who is trying to attach himself as a guide and cook. Two fish cooked with head and skin still attached, along with a bowl of flavored, colored rice, were a meal.
1 November 2009 – Voodoo Festival, Balan, Haiti
The first of November in Haiti marks a date very similar to our Halloween. Voodoo is a Haitian religion and the first three days of November are filled with voodoo ceremonies. Noralis, his brother Adonny, an American named Tom, and myself took a water taxi to the tap-tap stop, then took a tap-tap to Cap Haitien, then a combination of several motorcycles, buses with burning brakes, and more tap-taps to get to a small building where a bunch of natives were dancing and sweating and beating on things. The price of admission for white people was to buy them all cigarettes. After a while watching the voodoo, we four went to a nearby beach at Balan, on the Bay de L’Acul. To show me where we were, Noralis pointed out the direction to Miami. Miami seems to be like Mecca or the Promised Land. The return trip was a replay of the earlier trip, with quite a bit of walking thrown in. It was good to get home. Supposedly, the voodoo dancers were in a trance and speaking in tongues by that time, but I was happy to be back on the Pequod.
2 November 2009 –
Visited with Tim Mangs in the morning. He runs a tour concession from the local cruise ship port. About noon, I headed back to Cap Haitien with a whole list of things to do. Welcome to Haiti. Probably the more you plan, the more frustrated you become. Noralis met me in Cap Haitien and was honestly trying to help me, but the big city was confusing him as much as me. It was hard for him to help me find an Internet café, when he really had no concept of what the Internet is. The banks were closed and the only ATM was down for maintenance. I did find a Creole language book. Overall, it was good to walk around and start leaning the city. I went back to Hotel Mont Joli and talked to Daniel Morel for so long that all the tap-taps were finished running to Labadi, so Noralis and I had to ride the back of a motorcycle to Labadi. Some day Disneyworld will develop a ride that is as terrifying and gravity-defying as riding a Haitian motorcycle taxi on a twisting goat path high above a rocky ocean coast in the fading light.
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