I returned to St.-Marc yesterday; what a difference! I began my journey by going to the bus stop about 5AM. They call it the station, but there is no station, it is a huge business conducted in the street. I arrived home here in St.-Marc around 2:30 and breathed such a sigh of relief. It was only 90 miles, and I was actually on a moving vehicle for 6 hours of that, so that's 15 miles an hour we went, on average. Both going and coming back.
Travel is problematic for the average Haitian. The tap taps are uncomfortable, crowded,dusty, and badly sprung, and often on their last legs engine-wise, so they break down a lot. You see them with broken axles, maybe a wheel spun off, all manner of catastrophes by the side of the road. And if the tap tap coming along already has 20 people in it, it's not like they are going to take all 20 of you with them. But Haitians, being generous, would be sure to pile at least a few more on top.
Since things are expensive here, bus travel is something of a luxury. They don't run a bus unless it is full. (See above, re 3 to a seat in a schoolbus. That's usually 3 adults to a seat.) Last Friday, even though the bus left at 10, I went at 8 so that I could get a window seat. You never know when it will fill up, and then suddenly, they're off. Haitians are very good at waiting.
Wednesday's journey began on a hopeful note on Tuesday night when Tony, the houseman and jack-of-all-trades for Sasha Kramer and Sarah Brownell, went out and bought my ticket in advance. A ticket is just a photocopied slip of paper, maybe 2 inches by 4 inches, that has scribbled on it the destination and time, and that you've paid. There is no Cap Haitien to St.-Marc bus, so I had to buy a through ticket for Port au Prince. It cost 400 Gd., $10 even. The ticket said 5:30.
Sarah, bless her heart, got up early and took me to the bus herself. She wanted to be sure I got on the right one. She went up to the door and asked if it was the bus for Port au Prince. It was, so we said goodbye and I waved my ticket at the driver and got on. It was pretty nearly empty, even though it was 5 o'clock, so I grabbed a seat by a window. I even got to put my suitcase up in the rack. The racks fill up quickly. About 5:20, someone came up to me and said, excuse me, you're in my seat. I hadn't noticed, on the back of each seat was written 3 numbers in black magic marker. I had grabbed seat 18. Uh oh, will I get a window? Yes! Seat 25, my real seat, is a window. Thank you, Tony!
When the bus did not leave at 5:30 I was not shocked, as very little happens in Haiti on time. I was shocked at 5:40 when someone came up waving their ticket at me that also said '25' on it. We all gathered around and then someone observed that my ticket was for the other bus to Port au Prince. The one, the only one in Haiti, apparently, that actually leaves on time and was even now on its way up the highway. At that point I should have hired a motorcycle and chased it down, but little did I know.
I went to the bus driver. He was a very nice guy and felt a little bad about this. He took me by the hand and we went out to the street where a lot of men proceeded to have a very loud, animated discussion about what was going to happen about this. We walked hand in hand up the street to the spot where the other buses leave from. I was definitely the little lost girl. The go-to man was taking a break, having successfully gotten his bus to Port out the gates. Loud discussion. Shrugs. I could tell: No money back. Not my problem if the Blanc missed her bus!
We walk back to our bus, 50 yards away. More discussion. He gets the OK from his boss to take me to St.-Marc without buying a ticket, so I give him my ticket. He will try to get the money for the unused trip from the other driver if he is lucky. I realize about this time that there really is no way they will let me sit in a seat for free-- when he shows me my "seat." It is a little table, between his seat and the left side of the bus. I will be able to sit there. Very cosy, no? he empties it off, smiles, and taps it for me to sit down.
Now it is 6:00. There is a little streetside vendor beside the bus, right in the middle of the usual wet and dirty, garbage-strewn gutters. As I am looking out the window I realize that underneath a rickety table with pots of food on it, a street kid is sleeping curled in a ball. He is laying on a piece of filthy cardboard and you know he's been there all night. A few minutes later another guy stumbles up the street. He is maybe 10 or 12. He crawls under the table and curls up next to the first one. Now the vendors are ticked. When they go past they keep nudging him and giving him little kicks. A lady sprinkles him with some water, but he's fast asleep by now, his face and hands pressed into the dirt. The cardboard doesn't reach that far. He is maybe 8 feet from me. I think I don't have it so bad.
At 8:00 there are only 20 or 30 people who bought tickets, and the owners abandon the notion of sending their bus to Port au Prince today. You would have thought there was a fire on board. I don't realize what is going on until the second last person getting off explains it to me. I get up and go back and wrangle my suitcase off the overhead rack. I think it must have been at this point that I lost my cell phone. There is a huge frenzy of returning all the passengers' money.
There are some tap taps there. Someone grabs my suitcase and tosses it up on top, between two bags of flour. They just kind of stuff it in between them. The ride will be unbelievably jarring; I worry it may fall off. The price to sit in the front (an honor; it is assumed that a Blanc is only going to want to ride in front!) in the middle spot of a two-seater Toyota pickup that will only take me as far as Gonaïves? 400 Gd. I get out of the truck to go get my suitcase down from the rack. When I come back dragging my suitcase the driver starts yelling at me to take it out of the cab (in fact there really is not room in the cab for the three of us and our little backpacks which we do bring with us into the cab.) He settles down when he realizes my extra money is inside it. I didn't think I'd be needing extra money this morning and packed it away.
He said we would get to Gonaïves, site of all that death and devastation last autumn, in 3 1/2 hours, and he hit it pretty much on the button. We stopped at the same mountaintop rest stop that we stopped at on Friday on our way north. It is evidently a tradition. The same old lady came up to me begging for coins, and I gave her the same thing I did on Friday: A peanut butter sandwich. She smiled and thanked me graciously. Women surround us and try to sell us avocados and figs and chadèques. I try to tell them we have not any room, for nothing. They persist. I say, "Désolée, but I just can't." I am so sorry, desolated, in fact. I think I am demonstrating typical Haitian effusiveness, but they think it is over the top and laugh at me.
We finally reach Gonaïves, and our tap tap driver drops us off where there is a bus loading for Port au Prince. It costs about 150 Gd. to go as far as St.-Marc. There is a lot of line jumping. As soon as a couple dozen of us get situated on the bus, someone announces they will not be running it, better get in the bus behind, instead. By this time we are snapping like sharks. I start to wonder about those tragic crushings at the soccer matches; the bus doors on Haitian buses seldom open up all the way. Eventually we all mob onto the new bus, kind of like an octopus pressing itself through a very small opening. By now no one is taking any chances. We know the drill.
I do get a window seat. The women seated with me have chickens in a box. This is lots better than goats, much quieter. The husband of one of them, up the aisle from us, holds a chicken in his hand. It is a well-behaved chicken. I see one of our chickens' feet sticking out of a hole in the box and gently push it back inside. No use he should be uncomfortable. The women smile at me.
More teeth-rattling bouncing and banging down the road for another two hours. A brave but crazy vendor is hanging onto the back corner of the bus, screaming "Sodas! Water!" The driver yells to him to be quiet. How can he hold on out there, with such a rough ride? How can he breathe, in all the dust? It is 90 degrees in the bus and he keeps selling, passing drinks in though the window, a helpful passenger passing money back out the window to him.
Then they stop for me! St.-Marc! There is my market, there are my little Bons Samaritains students coming home from school at 2:30 in their dear little uniforms. I yank and pull my suitcase from between my chin, my legs, and the seat in front of me. It's wedged tightly in there with the 3 of us and our box of chickens. We send it off and I watch as it surfs up the aisle. 6 adults across, lots of them men, and all those bags and boxes really fill up a school bus. Next, I surf up the aisle. I get to the front and the whole area beside the driver is full. Nobody moves. Then a couple of guys jump off the steps. I see my bag out on the sidewalk. Almost there. I perform a gymnastics move of grabbing the bar in front of the seat by the door. Mrs. Ebling would be so proud! I swing underneath like a very clumsy monkey, over the people who are seated there, make it down the steps and I am home.
As I come through the market my little students call out "Lees! Lees!" and rush up to me for kisses and hugs. I don't know their names, but they missed me and I've missed them, too. It's great to be back.
The view from the rest stop at the top of the mountain. You see one of those no-railing switchbacks up ahead. I'm sure you noticed it's on the way to Cap Haitien, since I am taking the pictures from a schoolbus. The sweet old lady that I mention in this post makes a brief appearance as well.
Liz,
ReplyDeleteThis is a great piece of writing that really gives the reader the reality of what it the public transportation system is like in Haiti and the difficulties of working through what it takes to ride on it.
I hope this isn't too assuming but I would like to post this one blog on our ministry website www.totheleastofthese.org as an example of cross cultural living in Hait. I would be sure to give you full credit for the article. If you would agree to this please let me know via my email addess: totheleastofthese@gmail.com. Blessings,
John and Jodie Ackerman
Why thank you! Traveling here is an adventure, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteWow-- you were lucky. It isn't always this easy! :)
ReplyDeleteDon't I know it! Plus everyone was kind to me, even the tap-tap driver, once I paid him and put my suitcase back up on top where it belonged.
ReplyDeleteI read that you were in Gonaïves last year: I don't know when you left, but a lot of that mud is STILL in the streets! There are huge piles everywhere, and workers with regular wood-handled shovels, removing it one shovelful at a time. We passed a playing field that was covered in small tents, probably hundreds of them. The guy beside me said they were living there ever since the storms.