Day 1 in Haiti - Port-au-Prince

Monday 02/20/2012 – Port-au-Prince
Haiti! Finally. After months of waiting, planning, discussing, dreaming and reading up on Haiti, I finally got to see the country with my own eyes. “Ayiti” as the Haitians write it in their now officially recognized Haitian creole, means the land of mountains. And it was plain to see why as we flew above it in the airplane. Mountains of brown dirt were specked with dots of green foliage, far and few between, the glaring proof of severe deforestation. Thousands of feet above the ground, the rolling mountains looked like a piece of wrinkled cloth, reminding me of the powerful tectonic forces that had pushed the Earth’s plates over hundreds of millions of years, in much the same way a fabric creases under pressure.

Our team, Jack Reid, Lee Bristol, Martha Mason, Diana and Ben Snouffer, and me, landed in Toussaint Louverture International Airport around noon and were welcomed by Father Verdieu’s brother, Canas. On the way out of the airport, a dozen people immediately crowded us, each one hoping to get a small tip for helping us to carry the suitcases – one of many reminders of the country’s poverty. I got my first glimpse of Port-au-Prince on the way to his house. It was not my first time in a developing country, and so I was not surprised by the typical scenes of a poor overcrowded city: unpaved roads, people in rags carrying heavy loads on their heads, pushing carts full of merchandise as they could not afford to transport it by car.

After dropping off our bags at Canas’ house (and a few beers), we went to check out the base of an NGO called “Haiti Communitere” (recently changed from Grassroots United), which mainly acts as a coordinating body between different NGOs – an important role, seeing as Haiti has the most NGOs per capita of any country in the world. The base is a hub and a kind of experimental ground for different organizations to try out their sustainable buildings and small-scale projects. Or to quote one of our team members (he knows who he is ;-) ), a dream place for “hippies gone wild.” If “hippiness” is all about green, cheap, do-it-yourself sustainable technologies that the average Haitian can use to better their lives without the need for massive outside funding, then count me in.
The best place to find out about their projects is on their website, but I’ll go over a few things we saw.

The first thing we saw was the aquaponics center. This was the first time I had ever seen one, and I was impressed by the simplicity of this self-contained ecosystem. I don’t remember the details, but the idea was that Tilapia fish in a black plastic tank were fed a type of plant contained in a nearby box, and their composted waste material fertilized the plants, with a small pump circulating the water around. There was no need to add fish feed or clean the water, which is I imagine part of what makes regular fish farming so environmentally unfriendly and expensive.

Next we took a look at the different types of composting toilets – I was especially eager to see the thermophilic composting system set up by an NGO called “GiveLove,” who has set up composting systems in several spots in Haiti including Cite Soleil, a refugee camp outside Port-au-Prince, and I one of the largest slums in the northern hemisphere. I could talk for hours and hours about how fascinating composting toilets are (especially thermophilic ones) and why they’re a crucial part of the solution to fixing our planet (ecologically and in many other ways), but I’ll save that for another post. Strangely enough, many people don’t seem to enjoy hearing about the wonders of composting “humanure” - especially not over dinner, I’ve found. But I highly recommend “The Humanure Handbook” by Joseph Jenkins, for those who are interested in the topic. This book isn’t just an instruction manual on how to start your own composting toilet - it gives the bigger picture, putting many related environmental problems into perspective, in a witty, humorous way.
Next we saw the different types of green buildings. Since virtually all of Haiti’s steel and cement is imported, construction of American-style homes is expensive. Workers don’t have the right tools to mix the cement properly, and tend to water it down too much in order to reduce costs. The result is shoddy buildings, ready to collapse at the first earthquake, as we saw in the Port-au-Prince earthquake last year. This article “Death by a thousand shovels” (http://cementtrust.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/concrete-crisis-in-haiti/) lays most of the blame for the 230,000 deaths on poor construction practices. All of the green homes we visited in Haiti Communitere, on the other hand, are made from locally-sourced materials (mostly) and have been tested for resistance to earthquakes and other natural disasters. We visited beautiful houses made out of trash (walls made from plastic bottles, or Styrofoam/trash bricks), cob (a mixture of straw, clay and sand), strawbales, earthbags, and many other designs. I could also go on about green homes for hours, but there’s plenty of information on the web about it (such as here: http://www.greenhomebuilding.com).
There are also plenty of people, including average americans, who have built their own homes out of cob for a few thousand dollars, literally from the ground beneath their feet. Their stories are easy to find on the web and quite interesting. Cob houses are quite durable, as evidenced by the fact that there are still several-hundred-year old English cob houses being used.
I also quickly looked at one of the NGO’s albums of solar cookers made and used in different parts of Haiti.

We returned to Canas’ house to find a sumptuous feast waiting for us. Canas imparted that this meal was a small thank you gift for all that St. Mary’s has done for the Parish of Carcasse. Unfortunately I’m writing this a week later after the actual meal, so I don’t remember everything we had, but I know it was delicious. We spent the rest of the evening chatting under his cherry tree, accompanied by clucking hens and proud fighting cocks. We went to bed early, exhausted from our early start at 3 am and long trip.

First day in Carcasse

Tuesday, 02/21/2012
We took a flight to Jeremie first thing in the morning on a small plane holding maybe 10 people. I was a bit nervous about the flight at first, but my fears were relieved as soon as we soared into the air, and before I knew it we were landing on a shelly runway in what seemed to be the middle of a jungle.

We had arrived in the middle of Carnaval, and kids wearing paper-mache masks and towels on their heads grunted and growled at us, begging for some kind of compensation for their act. Father Verdieu greeted us at the airport, a small one or two-room building. After hugs and greetings for the old-timers and introductions for the first-timers, some locals helped us get our 10 or so heavy suitcases on the car roof and strap them down.
We drove to a nearby church and met with Pat Labuda, the medical mission organizer, and Honore, our translator and sanitation expert, who would accompany us on our week-long trip to Carcasse. After breakfast, Pat introduced us to several doctors, nurses and assistants who were seeing patients and giving out medications in the church.
We then packed ourselves back into the car like sardines and took off. Haiti is about the size of Maryland, but the infrastructure is so poor that it would have taken us about eight and a half hours to drive from Port-au-Prince to Jeremy, and the drive from Jeremie to Carcasse (30 miles away as the crow flies) took us 4 hours. Part of this is due to winding roads around mountains of course, but muddy roads carved by run-off from bare mountains slowed us down considerably. Navigating an overcharged car around ditches while maintaining a safe distance from the edge of the mountain cliff required considerable skill, and I’m thankful to Father Verdieu and Jack for getting us to Carcasse safely. I doubt I would be here to write this if I had been driving (especially since I don’t know how to drive a stick shift!).
On the way, we admired the landscape – mostly deforested mountain tops, and lusher valleys where all the topsoil that had washed down had accumulated. We passed small towns with houses made from concrete, sticks, bamboo, tarps with USAID and other donor names written on them, and other materials. People on the side of the road waved to us, small kids pointed at us and yelled out “blan!” which means foreigner (“blanc” in french means white). Small children went around naked, or with a t-shirt on. Adults wore American-style clothes, although I’m guessing many were donated, such as a t-shirt I saw with something like “Miami sewage maintenance team” written on it. We came across several carnival crowds blocking the road, dressed in festive and strange outfits, marching and dancing, beating on their drums and blowing their whistles in synchrony.

We finally approached Carcasse in the late afternoon, and had to stop as the road was blocked by all of St. Joseph’s school’s students who had come to welcome us. All 300 or so of the students were there, singing “Oh welcome to you, welcome to you my friend.” We got out of the car and walked the rest of the way to Carcasse with them. Several students stayed and talked with me, speaking English as much as possible. One student told me he loved English and wanted to become an interpreter. We were greeted by more singing and dancing once we got to the village by both the school children and adults in their carnival outfits. The school principal and a couple students gave thank you speeches, and Jack reciprocated by saying how happy he was to be in Carcasse again and to see how things had changed for the better.

We took the rest of the evening to settle into our rooms, have dinner and rest from the road.

As they knew I would be staying for 3 to 6 months, they gave me my own room, thoughtfully decorated with small religious figurines and stuffed animals, and papers on the wall with positive messages like “you are at home.” I soon learned that a great deal of work went on behind the scenes for everything we saw and used at the rectory. The beds and the furniture certainly didn’t get there by home delivery from some big furniture store. Father Verdieu probably transported them all from Jeremie or even Port-au-Prince on those bumpy roads. The water is another case in point – it all has to be transported from the stream, a 10 minute walk away.

The rectory has two 50-gallon drums to be filled. One stays close to the bathrooms, one is for the kitchen. The father employs someone to fetch the water from the stream, a practically full-time job. With 10 or so people in the household, the water goes fast – for bucket baths, hand-washing clothes and dishes, pouring some down one of the toilets after use (the other toilet is a dry latrine) and many other uses. In the first couple days, I didn’t even notice the man refilling them – he came in before everyone got up (or at least before I got up, before 6:30 am) and made his multiple trips to the stream, carrying several buckets of water in a wheelbarrow at a time. Augustin would have to refill the drums several times a day. I asked him the other day how many trips he made, and he communicated to me through creole and sign language that filling up one drum takes at least 10 trips. After he complained of elbow pain one evening (for which Jack gave him some painkillers), I realized just how heavy a toll carrying that wheelbarrow was on the back and elbows. For drinking water, a panoply of items is needed. Gallons of filtered water are brought in from Jeremie or LesCayes. When that water runs out, local spring water (contaminated by people washing themselves and other things in it) is sterilized with aquatabs and passed through an american-type water filter, or slowly filters through a clay pot sitting in a bucket, called “Aquapur.” Honore, our water and sanitation expert, told me this was his preferred filtration method, as it was cheap enough for many people (less than 5$ I think), lasted 5 years, and worked well. As a last resort, local spring water is boiled. I’ve talked to the father about using the SODIS method, and we’ll probably start that as soon as we can go to Jeremie to buy plastic bottles of water, or collect them on the ground after the “Fete Patronale,” when vendors will come to sell all kinds of things, and people will inevitably leave trash everywhere, as there are no trashcans around.
I also asked the father later in the week where most of our food came from, and he told me that when visitors came, it was easier to buy it in bulk from Jeremie (4 hours away) than to go to the weekly market in Irois 15 minutes away by car to haggle for things piecemeal. Food from Carcasse was occasionally eaten. In my two weeks here, we’ve had coconuts, tea made from Corossol tree leaves growing on the rectory property, milk (boiled) from a local farmer’s cow, and eggs which I assume are local. The rectory property also has a compost heap and plenty of chicken running around, but I’m not sure how often their eggs are harvested. I found out that being able to live off of your backyard garden is more myth than reality. Most cultivators here own land far off in the mountains just to be able to feed themselves, and those who can’t afford land and who aren’t fishermen don’t have many options left. As I settle into my life here, I realize more and more that nothing comes easy in Carcasse. It’s easy to take things for granted with Father Verdieu providing for me and making me as comfortable as possible, but I’m sure there’s plenty more work which I’m not even aware of that goes on just to provide basic necessities. Jack Reid has written up a very good log of everything accomplished during the team’s week here, so I won’t repeat their work. I’ll comment on a few things I was more involved in.

Carcasse - Day 2

Wednesday, 02/22/2012
We set up two solar cookers full of rice on the school roof. Before we had even put the food in the pots, most of the secondary school students came up to see what was going on. So I explained the use of the solar cooker, how it worked, and how it was important for preventing deforestation. Most students were interested but a little skeptical. Some started joking around and teasing me, saying “And if it doesn’t work, are you going to go cut down the trees yourself?” I had told a few students that I had previously worked in forest conservation, and they found the idea of me having to go chop down trees while preaching about forest conservation hilarious. I admitted I would have to and laughed with them. Unfortunately, the day soon turned cloudy and I let them know that it probably wouldn’t cook in this weather, and that there was no need to come back up later to see the results. School was out for the week, and the students had only come on the principal’s request, so I didn’t want them to stick around for nothing. Some of the teachers stayed behind to talk. They wanted to know how they could get their own and try it out. I told them I had brought two rolls of aluminum foil and other materials to make some, but that they would need to provide the cardboard. But I realized they were thinking on a much larger scale when they said “But how will we get enough aluminum and cardboard for all 4000 people here?” It was wonderful to see that they had already understood the potential of solar cookers to improve people’s lives and save the environment.

Meanwhile, Honore was giving his water and sanitation seminar to the secondary school students. I had talked to him the night before about his seminar, and we had gone over a couple pages of his creole sanitation education manual. His book included information on the SODIS method, and he told me he would be talking about it in his seminars. SODIS is short for solar disinfection. It’s a surprisingly simple and cheap way to kill human pathogens in water by exposing them to 6 hours of the sun’s UV radiation. All one needs to do is fill up a transparent, non-tinted plastic bottle with contaminated water, leave it out in the sun all day in a horizontal position, and by the end of the day it will be drinkable. It’s deceptively simple, but just like for solar cookers, training and reinforcements are needed to effect lifestyle changes.
After his seminar, Honore brought the kids up to the roof to show them the plastic bottles we had filled up with water lying in the sun. I’ve talked with the Father and teachers about starting a program to teach kids to use the SODIS method at school, and they’ve agreed it’s a good idea.
Later that evening, Diana, Ben and Jack met with key members of the Association of Producers of Coffee in Carcasse (APCC) to discuss their experiences. Walnus, the head of the APCC later asked me if I could help him and another APCC member with something. He invited me to read a document on how to run a small business association in Creole. In the end, he was the one helping me to understand the Creole text rather than me helping him with anything. I suppose they wanted me to make sure they were reading the document correctly as they were not expert readers. I think it was mainly though a way to engage me and make me feel included. Like many people here, Walnus always has a smile on his face, and as Jack put it, “being around him just makes you happy.” Despite the language barrier, we shared many good laughs with him and other people from Carcasse. Since I speak French, I can understand most written creole. That’s part of the reason I didn’t put too much effort into reading my creole lesson book before coming to Haiti. Reading it was so easy and intuitive, I figured that listening and understanding it would be a breeze. I soon realized I was wrong - spoken creole is much harder, especially when people talk quickly and use contractions.

Carcasse - Day 3

Thursday, 02/23/2012
While Honore gave his water and sanitation presentation to the primary school students, Diana, Ben, Marty and I taught some young secondary school kids how to make rosaries from beads and string Diana had brought from the US. They were visibly pleased to be making something that vaguely resembled jewelry, and they all wanted the sparkly beads for their rosaries. Some complained that the rosaries we were making were too short to put around their necks, but we told them that wasn’t the purpose of a rosary. Seeing as the parents here barely have enough money to buy notebooks for their children, jewelry is a luxury few to none can afford. Indeed, several times people asked Jack or other team members for the watches on their wrists, and several people including little girls have said that they wanted my glasses, or at least some glasses since their eyes are bad. From what I’ve seen, I am the only person wearing glasses in Carcasse, apart from Abbe Damas, one of the priests in training here. And it certainly isn’t because they’re wearing contact lenses! But glasses and hence the ability to see clearly are way beyond the villagers’ economic reach. When I think of how incapacitated I am without my glasses, I wonder whether eyeglasses and other ways to correct vision shouldn’t be a priority in development projects. I don’t mind having occasional digestive troubles, but never being able to see people’s facial expressions when they’re talking can take the joy out of life. I suppose blind people have figured out a way around that, but for me it’s still crucial, especially when I’m learning a new language. On a more serious note, not being able to read the lessons on the blackboard can ruin even the most talented students’ chances of excelling at school. As I write this, I realize I don’t even know whether all the students in my own English classes can read what I write on the blackboard, and wonder whether their myopia might be the reason why it takes some of them so long to copy everything down.

The team then visited the clinic in Carcasse run by two nurses full-time and one doctor for two weeks out of the month. It was quite clean and neat, with the medicine arranged in an orderly way.
I attended the APCC meeting in the afternoon, headed by Jack and the head of the APCC, Walnus. The results of that meeting can be found on Jack’s report.

Carcasse - Day 4

Friday, 02/24/2012
Most of the team met with business people in Carcasse in the school auditorium, while I helped more children make rosaries in a nearby classroom. Being the only American speaking native French, I was the only one able to help the kids in their crafts. I took a few moments to steal away from the class, however, to set up a couple solar cookers on the school roof. One of the students, Batisse, followed me up and prepared one of the pots of spaghetti himself. When we returned an hour later, the pots of spaghetti were done, and we decided to bring one down with the cardboard-aluminum panels to the small businesses meeting to show everyone. Father Verdieu invited us on stage, and I asked the student who had helped me to explain to everyone in creole how he had just cooked a pot of spaghetti in the solar cooker. People gasped and started talking to each other when they realized the sun could cook food. While Father Verdieu explained the science behind solar cookers, Batisse went around with the pot and let everyone taste the spaghetti. Batisse and I exited as they resumed the small businesses meeting, and I gave Batisse the other pot of spaghetti to eat with his friends to thank him for showcasing the Cookit. They were done in a few minutes and gave me back the pot.
After the meeting, a woman approached me to tell me she wanted a solar cooker to try it out for herself. Her standing in the community as the APCC representative in Cap-a-Fou made her an ideal person to promote its use. Unfortunately, with her living so far away and a limited number of solar cookers, I didn’t want to give any up just yet. I told her maybe next week we could arrange for a kind of training in the use of solar cookers and make some more.

In the afternoon, we took a walk towards Cap-a-fou. After about 30 minutes of a steep walk up the mountain and 20 minutes of a steep walk down it, we saw the Cap-a-fou village in a valley by the sea from far away and decided that was good enough for us. I was especially ready to head home, as I was wearing my crocs which have little to no traction, and was having a hard time not slipping. I thought I would be the only one with crocs, but strangely enough, many if not most people wear there them here. But most people we passed did not seem to be having any trouble climbing the mountain. They were at ease on their motorcycles, or carrying enormous loads on their head. We especially admired the skill of one older woman carrying a mountain of bread loaves on her head, piled more than a foot high, any loaf or baguette ready to roll off at any wobble. We couldn’t help but comment on what a waste it would be if she should lose her balance. I had heard that Cap-a-fou and Bigarous were part of the Carcasse parish before coming, but I hadn’t realized they were so hard to get to, and that children, merchants and others made this trip every day just to go to school or buy or sell necessities. We made it back exhausted, dusty, and sweaty and made dibs on who would get the shower first.

Carcasse - Day 5

Saturday, 02/25/2012
I attended the teachers’ meeting at 9 am with Diana and Jack (more information on Jack’s report). I asked if I could put the books we had brought with us in the auditorium for students to read, as I was already getting so many requests from students to borrow the books. I had lent out a few, but I wanted them to be available to everyone and not have to keep track of them myself. To me, reading books for fun is one of the most important, if not the most important tool for learning, at least for languages. Students can repeat grammar rules all day, but they’re not going to stick and become intuitive until they see them applied in different sentences, and they’re only going to read for hours on end if the book is engaging. I owe my English reading and writing skills to English books read when I was young, as I went to French schools until 10th grade (except for 2nd grade, when I learned English). As far as I can tell, these kids don’t have any books at all. Just buying the textbooks are a drain on the family income, so leisure books are out of the question.
Another discussion point was the budget, and the teachers agreed to meet at 5 pm later that day to draw one up for the adult education classes, library and other expenses.

While most of the team went to Bigarous in the morning, I went to Batisse’s home(the student who had demonstrated the solar cookers yesterday) so he could try it out at home and show his family. After meeting his mother and younger siblings, we put some spaghetti in the solar cooker with at least 10 other people watching. I explained to them how it worked, and how to turn it towards the sun, and said I would come back in an hour and a half. When we came back, everyone on the way to his house (even those living blocks away) asked us “se cuit?” (“Is it cooked yet?”). The news had traveled fast.

The spaghetti was indeed cooked when we got there, and as soon as I took off the lid 10 or so kids gathered around and picked strands of spaghetti directly out of the pot, pushing each other over for a little bit of food. It was gone in minutes. I told Batisse that he could borrow the solar cooker so he and his mother could try it out, and that I’d like to know about his experiences with it in order to better help others. As a 19-year old breadwinner since his father died, a student at the school, and a choir boy who knew Father Verdieu quite well, he seemed responsible and trustworthy.
While I’m on the topic of parents dying, I should note that in the first week, I met at least four young people who told me that their parents had died. For example, I had asked one 16-year old if she lived with her parents, and she said that no, they had both died, and she lived with her husband. The average life expectancy here is pretty low – around 40 I think. I thought before this was mostly due to high infant and child mortality rates, but I’m realizing that few adults make it to a ripe old age. At 5 pm (or maybe 6, nothing starts on time here), I went to the teachers’ meeting to draw up the budget. It was only the school principal (who is also a teacher), the other teachers and me. Most of the teachers, especially the women, didn’t say much, maybe because they were not confident about their French. We started with the adult education classes – how many teachers were willing to teach and when, how many books each student would need, whether St. Mary’s could pay for adults’ uniforms (I said the money could probably be better spent elsewhere), the cost of chalk for the blackboard, etc…We then listed some basic books the library would need, and then came to the part about extra things the school would need. Some items that came up were: maps and pictures (the teachers have drawn maps themselves of the world and Haiti and pictures of the body), trashcans (there isn’t a single trashcan at the school, so there’s plenty of trash right behind the school), a corkboard for messages, a projector (I told them this required a lot of electricity and there wasn’t even enough for the computers, but we would look into it), and they emphasized that the most important item was a set of marching drums for an inter-school competition they would be holding soon.
I asked if the students had clean water to drink. They said sure, and pointed to the “aquapur” bucket, in which a clay jar slowly filters water. I asked if that was enough to supply all the kids with drinking water, and they nodded.Then I said “But there are two of these at the priest’s house and it’s not nearly enough just for his household.” They looked embarrassed and admitted it wasn’t enough. Before I came to Haiti, I figured they had enough drinkable water for the kids. Then I heard from one of the Americans that they brought a bucket of water from the stream (contaminated of course) for each classroom. But I’ve found out since then that there really is no water at all. I found that out when I asked the director if he had a little bit of water to wet the eraser to wash the blackboard. He said no, and said if I really needed to, I could take the filtered water from the Aquapur clay pot/bucket system. I
imagine that single water filter must be reserved for teachers in case of extreme thirst or important guests. I think there is one drum which is sometimes filled with stream water in the schoolyard. But I haven’t seen anything close to the latrines, and I have to assume that kids simply don’t wash their hands after using them. I’ve gotten into the habit of bringing my own water bottle, but I haven’t seen anyone else do that.
But back to the teachers’ meeting. After seeing that they didn’t have a filtration system large enough to supply the whole school, I wanted to find out how important clean drinking water was to them. I asked them if kids often got sick with stomach problems, and said good health was very important, as kids can’t study when they’re sick or hungry, not to mention it’s a waste of food when it doesn’t get digested due to illness. They said it was true that the children were often sick, and seemed concerned. But it did not seem to be one of their priorities, perhaps because they had simply accepted contaminated water as a fact of life that could not be changed and was not worth thinking about. I suggested we start a SODIS program there to disinfect the water by exposing water in plastic bottles to the sun’s UV radiation. The teachers had apparently never heard of the method, but sounded genuinely interested, and agreed to try it out.
I then naively asked if they needed supplies for the toilets – toilet paper, soap (not knowing they had no water close to the latrines). They nodded, a couple of them repressed giggles, and we continued. I later found out they don’t use toilet paper (they use sand, apparently), and obviously don’t need soap since there’s no water.
At the end of the meeting, the director asked me what the most important item on the list was for me. I said clean drinking water. He said the drums for the marching band, and he made sure I underlined that item in the list 3 or 4 times.

Carcasse - Last day

Sunday, 02/26/2012
The whole team attended mass, with Honore translating the Father’s homily. He talked about how Carcasse was when he first came – no school, no electricity, no internet, not many community organizations, no roads, no clinic, no cell phone network, etc…As I imagined what the town must have been like back then, it struck me that the town I had considered thus far to be about as underdeveloped as you could get, was in comparison to a few years ago very much developed. And that was in large part thanks to technical support and donations from St. Mary’s, the Father’s leadership skills, and the community’s hard work.
He also announced to everyone that I would not only be teaching English, but also French, and adult reading and writing, and joining the choir, and that I knew how to make lamps using plastic bottles (I had shown him solar bottle lights on the web earlier that week), that I knew how to cook with the sun (solar cookers), and sterilize water with the sun (the SODIS method). The
father and I had briefly discussed me doing all these things, and I had vaguely agreed I might be able to do them, but in my mind I had not made any promises as I needed to take one day at a time. So the Father’s announcement took me by surprise, and as the audience roared with applause, I vowed to make my intentions clearer next time. On the one hand, it was a good idea to publicize these technologies, but on the other hand, I didn’t want people to think I broke promises if I didn’t deliver on his statements.
He continued by imploring everyone to treat me like their sister or daughter or granddaughter and to make me feel as welcome and included as possible, as I was accepting to live under such harsh conditions as theirs. He said that he hoped that by the end of six months here, I would feel so much at home that I would not want to leave. At the end of the mass, the Father asked all the Americans to come to the altar and say a few words. We all introduced ourselves again (we had done so at the mass on Ash Wednesday), and when it came my turn to speak, I said I thought the father was probably right, that I would not want to leave, and that I already felt at home, to much applause.
The mass ended on an amusing note, when the father announced to everyone that the rumor that Natcom (a new phone company with cheaper rates) is the devil, is NOT true, and that they can safely buy and use Natcom phones and should do so in order to save money.

The Americans and the mens’ choir with Abbe Damas, the choir director, and a couple other people, then went to go to a secluded beach for a bit of care-free swimming in uncontaminated waters. It was secluded as climbing down the cliff from the road to the beach was not easy, and the younger men had to support us to make sure some of us didn’t fall. While the men’s choir sang accompanied by the guitar and bongo, improvising new songs and playing around, we relaxed in the ocean waves. After eating, playing the Frisbee, a little bit of dancing and singing, we left just in time to avoid a downpour. Once home, some took advantage of the rain falling from the tarps for showers.

For our last night in Carcasse, many people gathered outside the rectory for a small goodbye party. We came out for a little bit and listened to some beautiful creole music, with Abbe Damas leading on the guitar.