I love to travel, and I love to write about my travels.
Julianna and I had the best time in Europe!! It was such an amazing adventure and I am so glad that I was able to go. From the moment we met at the Spanish Steps in Rome, Italy, all the way up to to the Eiffel Tower Paris, France, we shared some really great Continue reading “It’s Summer Break! Backpacking Rome to Paris”
What is it like being an international teacher? In a country that has no functioning government and a long history of fraud, corruption, and natural disasters? Well, things have been pretty crazy in Haiti since we returned from Christmas break. My classes are going well, although I am always so busy, trying to prep, teach, and grade so many different subjects and classes. I am also working on a lot of curriculum projects as well. But in between getting the generator filled up with diesel, flagging down the water truck to get our cistern filled, and trying (not) to listen to the political rumors that abound, we travel as much as we can, when it’s safe.
My housemate Christy and I were invited by a work colleague to go visit her beach house in Jacmel for the weekend- it’s always a delight to visit the bustling town of Jacmel. A small pre-Carnival celebration was going on and it was fun to see the city getting ready to party it up.
For our longer Carnival break, Tom, Sue, Christy and I went up to Cape Haitian for a long weekend. We went to the Citadelle, the fortress built by Henri Christophe in 1804. Twenty thousands slaves worked to build the massive structure, as a defense against the French, whom the Haitians had recently liberated themselves from. From the top of the citadel, the Haitian “King of the North” could keep watch over the coastline and the valleys, protecting their island with 365 cannons that had been left behind. You can still see the piles of cannonballs at the fortress, and even Christophe’s body is entombed in his beloved fortress for all time, after he died in 1820. The Citadel was amazing- just breathtaking views and the walls of the fortress are so tall and straight! And of course, being Haiti, there were no fences, railing, or security perimeters around anything, so it was pretty scary walking around the top of those walls!
After visiting both the Citadel and San Souci Palace, we took a small boat to a guesthouse near Labadie Beach called “Norm’s”. It is the same harbor that the cruise ships use when they bring people to Haiti- we tried to sneak into their waterpark, which has bouncy water trampolines, jetskis, and other fun water toys, but no dice. We had a great time, though, relaxing on some little beaches and just walking around the tiny fishing village of Labadie. Unfortunately, towards the end of our weekend, Sue started feeling really sick. The village of Labadie is pretty small, and there was only one doctor around- a Cuban doctor volunteering his time in Haiti. There was no electricity in the village, so I had to grab a flashlight and ask a dozen people for directions to find the doctor, then drag him back to Norm’s guesthouse to see Sue. Her condition was very severe, so we wound up taking that same small boat back to Cap Haitian, and flying back to Port Au Prince, where she had to be admitted to the hospital and have surgery. (She’s doing fine now in case you were worried).
Since then, things in Haiti are getting pretty scary again….. a group of prisoners (including our former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune) broke out of the national prison and have been roaming around at large since then. Yes, once again, this sounds made up, but it’s not. Some very bad people broke into the house of a teacher we work with; they held her, her husband, and children hostage while they ransacked the house for money and weapons. That, and worse things have been happening, and a lot of people are beefing up their security. Our house staff Desinor wants to carry a gun. Hopefully things will get better soon, and not worse.
Since Sue was sick, I got to go with Marie to the recruiting fair in Canada- and I managed to route my flight through DFW so I could see friends and family while picking up my winter clothes. For our Spring Break, we are all planning to go to Cuba (there’s a weekly flight from Haiti), and later in April I am attending a work conference in Quito, Ecuador- I love the life of an international teacher!
A vacation, at last! After 10 weeks of work, we have two days off to celebrate All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days (although I prefer to think of it as extra days to celebrate Deah’s Birthday). Tom is with the volleyball team in Venezuela for our tri-annual CAISSA tournament. Sue has gone to Florida to visit her sister and her mom, and I am going to Santo Domingo with my friend Nicole.
Nicole and three of her colleagues from the UN and I all drove to Santo Domingo together. The traffic getting out of Petionville/ Port-au-Prince was horrible, but we were able to cruise right through the border because we had diplomatic privileges, which extend to everyone in the car, so I didn’t have to go through the border hassle or pay the exit tax (which I have always maintained is a big fraud anyway). Before we knew it, we were in Santo Domingo and Nicole and I found our hotel, the Sofitel Nicolas de Ovando.
On Saturday Nicole and I got up early, jogged around the Zona Colonia, and ate a huge breakfast. The Colonial Zone is where Columbus built the first settlement on the island. His brother was the first governor of the area, and Columbus’ son lived there also. We saw the Cathedral Primera de las Americas, the first Catholic Church built in the Western Hemisphere. We walked along the Conde, went to an amber museum (amber and laramar are two of the Dominican’s major gemstones) and had a guide show us a few other sites. On Saturday evening our friends Lauren, John, Grace, and Conrad flew over from Port-au-Prince and we all went out to dinner in the Colonial Zone at Pat’e Palo, a restaurant which I would definitely recommend. Then we wandered around and went to various outdoor bars and clubs, listening to salsa music, Dominican music, and Cuban music.
On Sunday Nicole and I went jogging around the Zone again and went to breakfast. There we ran into the Griegs, two friends of ours from the Embassy in Haiti (see, everyone leaves and goes to the DR). We chatted with them for a while, then Nicole and I got a taxi to Boca Chica, a beach town about 20 miles away from the city. On the way over it rained but it appeared the storm was heading into Santo Domingo, not towards the beach. We made it out to the beach around 2 and slept in the sun all afternoon. What a relaxing afternoon. Later, we walked up and down the beach and visited all the beach bars and shops.
On Monday I visited the international school to meet with some of their teachers about curriculum. I stayed the night with one, and arrived at the bus station the next day to return to Haiti. Unfortunately, the bus was full and I had to get another taxi and haul ass over to a different bus station. That bus, too, was full, but they ordered another one. After a two and a half hour wait, we finally left-so late that we got to the border dangerously close to closing time, so they basically just waved us through.
In November I attended the Marine Ball, a great chance to dress up and enjoy some dinner, some dancing, and some drinking with friends! I accompanied my dear friend Micah to the ball this year. My favorite part? Watching the Marines cut a giant cake with a sword.
Last night I dreamed I was running and kept feeling these little pinches on my body. I woke up in a pool of sweat and my hair drenched, and there were three mosquitoes inside my mosquito net feasting on me. It’s so amazingly, freakishly, disgustingly hot here right now. I’m averaging three showers a day and I’m still always hot.
We all arrived back in Haiti for the fall semester; me, Tom and Sue, and Christy. Pia, our newest international teacher, arrived, and they put her up at the Hotel Montana for the night (a good place to transition from the luxury of the US to the reality of Haiti). We got a half day off as the whole country took off for the Haiti-Brazil soccer game. Tom got a ticket to the game; the rest of us opted to watch it on the big screen at the Petionville Club so we could eat there and swim. It was a fun game to watch and although Haiti lost, there was a tremendous amount of support and welcoming for both teams. Haiti is so into soccer, and it was a really nice gesture on Brazil’s part to put this event into motion.
To welcome our newest housemate, we went down to the Oloffson Hotel to see RAM (anyone who read The Comedians by Graham Greene, that is the hotel in the book). RAM is this really kicking Haitian band- featuring guitars, bongos, drums, and singing. They’ve opened for Jimmy Buffett in the past. Plus they have these three Haitian women dancers who do all the Haitian folklore dancing. It was also an ass-kicking 90 degrees inside the place. It was quite a workout and we were super sweaty when we got home at 2:30 am. But it was really fun and I’m glad we finally got to go.
We have a much larger student body at Union School this year; we dropped our tuition to try to bring in more kids. I’m happy with my class load this year; I am teaching 8th English and 8th US History, and 9th English and 9th World History. Since I taught three of those last year, I am hoping this year will be a little easier on me. Although I have to admit, just getting through August was a challenge. I’d go to the gym and it would feel like I was going to pass out because it was so hot (imagine 24 Hour Fitness with no a/c). Just when you get a good rhythm going, WHAM! The electricity cuts off and you go flying off the front end of the treadmill. It’s actually quite funny to watch, but not so funny when it happens to you.
In the weeks after Hurricanes Ivan and Jeanne hit, things got pretty bad in Port-Au-Prince. There was a lot of protesting and rioting, and looting in the port area. Customs was closed for a month straight, so we didn’t get any of the textbooks we ordered. Earlier in the month several policemen were beheaded, and their funerals were last week. Aside from the police, it’s estimated that up to 50 or 60 people have died in shootings and protests downtown.
As rumors swirled of targeting Americans to kidnap or kill, we canceled the hash two weeks ago and had a barbecue at our house instead. The Marines and other groups felt like it wasn’t safe to have a large international group of runners cruising around town. The embassy and some other personnel have curfews. As teachers, we aren’t restricted by our jobs. So we had a barbecue and about 15 people came over and we all had a good time.
Several of us managed to get together to watch some of the US Presidential debates. Some Haitians are for Bush because they see him as the one responsible for getting Aristide out, but others blame him because he didn’t do it sooner. Some say if Kerry is elected he will bring Aristide back (because Kerry is a Democrat and so was Clinton, who reinstated Aristide the first time). This past week Kerry addressed a group of Haitians in Florida and spoke in French, and said he had a plan for Haiti, but he didn’t quite state what that plan is. It is said that the demonstrations going on downtown have been financed by Aristide and the Lavalas party, in an attempt to influence the American elections in November.
The situation in Port-Au-Prince got worse and school was cancelled for four days. We’re not really sure at this point if we’ll have to make up those days, but the general consensus is that we will miss more before the end of the year. The UN and several embassies ordered the departure of all non-essential personnel, meaning wives and children, and we have lost five students so far.
The past week has been uneventful but many people still have a curfew. We couldn’t have a hash again on Saturday so we had a pool party and bbq at some embassy people’s house. I went out late last night to Barak, a night club in Petionville, and when I walked in there was about 200 Brazilian and Chilean UN guys, and about 7 women. I was literally the only American girl there. Oh, Haiti. Such fun.
Five more days of work and then we have a long weekend off for All Souls’ and All Saints’ Days. And of course, my birthday! I can’t believe I’ll be 29!
We finished the last week of school and had a MONSTER party at our house. We invited over 50 Hashers and other international friends, plus the entire staff of the school. Luckily we international teachers have a HUGE house and a great front yard and balcony. Some of our friends will be here when we come back in August, some will have moved on. Everyone had a great time and we finally kicked the last few people out at 4:30 am and went to bed. We had a very odd mix, ranging from people our age from around the world, to our bosses from work, and even some of our students’ parents that we are good friends with! The Marines showed up around midnight and brought their enormous sound system with them. Super fun.
The next week we spent packing up our classrooms and getting signed out at school. We discussed the possibility of us all moving out of our house and into some apartments, but when we went and looked at them we all said no. Our house is pretty cool, with the exception of not having a pool and having to live with four other teachers. But the apartments, while we would each have our own, were just not in a good area and not very nice. Besides, after our party, everyone knows where our house is now and we won’t have to give directions next time. Giving directions in Haiti is super hard because not every street actually has a name.
On Thursday most of the city shut down for a holiday. Did you know that June 10 is God’s Birthday? I kid you not. It’s celebrated all over Haiti and some other Latin American countries. The banks and stores and restaurants were closed. There were processions out in front of the churches and chalk drawings and flowers on the streets. How can God have a birthday? We all really questioned our Haitian friends on this one but they all looked at us like we were crazy for not knowing about God’s birthday.
We all headed out to Wahoo Beach Resort and stayed there for the weekend. I took a Scuba Diver Certification course at Wahoo Bay Resort. That kept me busy Saturday and Sunday, and Tom, Sue, and Maluschka all left Sunday evening and I stayed out at the beach on Monday and Tuesday and finished my class. They have this amazing coral reef out there called Îles des Arcadin- and it’s only 6-10 feet underwater. It’s beautiful. Good place for snorkelers too.
I’ve been getting a lot of emails about the flooding here- we’re fine in our area of the country. We’ve had rain, normal per the rainy season, but not as bad as in the fall. In the fall we really had a lot of debris washed down from the mountains and I remember there was a huge wall that piled up in front of our school that one day actually had a dead dog in it. That was gross. This spring hasn’t had as much stuff washed down. But it’s been very bad in the south part of Haiti and the part that is near the Dominican Republic. They are thinking the death toll is up to 2,000 and they haven’t counted all the bodies. I saw on the news the other day that they are spraying chemicals from helicopters to counteract the decomposing bodies. Gross. The road was washed out so there is no way to get in or out of that area except by air. I guess they will have to rebuild the road soon. In addition, we’ve had a couple of small earthquakes in the area. I don’t know how bad they were in surrounding areas, but they didn’t seem to cause any damage in the capital. I felt the first one at school; we thought at first it was kids running across the third floor. But it turned out to be a minor quake.
On Saturday our boys basketball team played in the National Finals. It was in downtown Port-Au-Prince (pretty scary area) and it was televised on national tv. Our boys came in second place and got a trophy. The Prime Minister’s wife was there and handed out the trophies. We had a good turnout, several teachers and parents and other students came to the game (with the requisite number of bodyguards and security, of course). The only bad thing was that it was amazingly hot. This had to be the hottest weekend I’ve had in Haiti so far. We thought we were just going to die sitting at that game. I was really glad I brought my hat and wore sunscreen (spf 30).
The political situation seems to be improving lately. In the past couple of weeks they’ve indicted and arrested some big time ex-leaders. Aristide has left Jamaica and gone to South Africa, but the opposition party there is questioning why South Africa is granting him asylum and who is paying for it. In fact, there is a pool going around the city right now about when he will be indicted and arrested. You can pick a date for twenty five gourdes– just be smart and don’t sign your last name. We’ve also been getting more electricity lately. We all noticed that we had city power going on at various times throughout the weekend, and I heard it switch over this morning. The fan in my bedroom sounds different when we’re on city power. Everyone at work says “Oh, isn’t it great, they’re giving us more power”, but as Sue pointed out, they don’t really give us power. We actually pay the same bill every month, whether we have electricity or not. Can you imagine in the United States if TXU sent you out a bill every month whether they were supplying your house or not? And here, of course, there’s only one company, and you keep paying every month in the hopes that you’ll get five, six, ten hours a month to help out with your diesel generator and your inverter batteries. It’s so bizarre.
