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.