Voodoo at the Waterfall

Hello all,

I'm sure you all expected my next post to be about our new apartment, but you'll need to wait at least another post for that one. As much as I love our new place, I had a great experience last weekend I think you'll be more interested in hearing about.

Last weekend we went to Saut d'Eau, which literally translates from French to waterfall (in Creole it's just Sodo, because, as my colleague put it, the French just add in too many extra letters when they try and spell stuff). Saut d'Eau a town plus the waterfalls themselves about an hour inland north-east from Port-au-Prince, and last weekend happened to be the anniversary of a supposed sighting of the Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel. The story is kind of fishy, but apparently a priest saw the virgin appear on a palm tree a couple of hundred years ago, and not wanting it to turn into a superstitious thing, he cut the tree down. Nevertheless, it turned superstitious and both Catholics and Voodoo-practitioners have associated something religious with the place. There is a pilgrimage to the waterfalls every year in July to bathe in the waterfalls using herbs swirled around and blessed in a calabash (or you can just use plain soap).

Ian making his way up the waterfalls

We drove up on a Saturday and went straight to the waterfalls, where the festival atmosphere had started a bit. We passed lots of stalls selling soap, herbs, alcohol and more, and President Martelly had been at the waterfalls only a few minutes before we arrived. The waterfalls are quite big, you can either get into them from the bottom or the top, but it's possible to climb up or down through the waterfalls. They are also a lot of places to just sit down and have the water run down all around you. It was a really relaxing afternoon, and it's somewhere easy enough to drive to, spend a few hours, and go back to the city on a weekend or with visitors (ahem).

We stayed overnight at a friend of a friend's, a Haitian that lived in Montreal driving a taxi for 16 years and has come back to enjoy retirement in his home country. He was very welcoming and had a lot of people around for the festival anyways, so a few more were no big deal. At night he had a lot of friends over, and got this "troubadou" band to come and play while everyone ate. Troubadou is one of the local music styles here, quite African and super cool. There was a guy on a banjo, a maracas guy, a drummer, and a guy with a bass that was actually a big box he sat on with a hole in the middle, and different lengths of knives over the hole that he would pluck for the sound. These aren't the same guys, but this gives you an idea of what I'm talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmcvQ8-Aoq0.

One of my fav photos - scrub scrub scrub!

The next day we went back to the waterfalls, and it was a LOT busier than the day before, I bet there were at least a thousand people in the waterfall at any given time. We stayed up at the top of the falls where we were the day before, and spent a couple hours just watching the real festival-goers do their thing. There were a lot of people going through the bathing ritual - in fact I saw so much flesh that it felt weird going back to Port-au-Prince and seeing people in clothes! No one was running around naked, but everyone was in their underwear, and given the force of the waterfalls, there was little to be left to the imagination. If I ever had any doubt about how a man washes himself, it was put to rest last Sunday, I can tell you that. We also saw some voodoo priests with a gathering of followers, normally women, and he would swirl around the herbs in their calabash and wash them all up and down. There were rah-rah bands around, lots of chanting and a bit of singing and you can tell it was generally just enjoyed by all.

Better to be upstream than down

When we were leaving the city we encountered one of the major problems with holding a festival with only two roads in and out - traffic. Our driver had done the smart thing and parked on the outskirts of the city, but the traffic to get there was horrendous. There were about 10 of us in one truck (between the seats inside and the flatbed), slowly crawling along to try to get to the other car. Finally we decided it would be easier for those of us going to the other car to hop on a moto taxi, so that's just what we did. We had a mini-convoy of three motos with 6 people plus drivers that easily weaved through the traffic and got out to the car in 5 minutes. Ian and my driver had the speaker system set up to his phone and was blasting the tunes while the moto in front of us was beeping along to the beat. It was just one of those situations where you had to laugh... 

Jellyfish to the Face

Hello all, 

I hope that you're doing well and are enjoying the full swing of summer. It's been summer since I got here, but hurricane season just officially started, so I expect a rain or two in the coming months. 

The most exciting news of this week is that we found an apartment! It's quite close to where I'm currently living, so it's a good distance between work and the after-work places we like to go. It's "homely" as Ian calls it, because not only is it furnished but there are paintings on the wall and it is a very comfortable place. The best part is that is has a big balcony, I imagine we're going to be eating a lot of meals and playing a lot of scrabble out on it. We should be moving in next week, so I'll send pics once we're settled. What most important for you perhaps is that it's a two-bedroom, so there is a bed for visitors :) Yes, that means you. 

I also got to get out of the city for work this week, which was nice. I went to Leogane, south and west along the peninsula from Port-au-Prince. I had only driven through it once before, and didn't see that much this time around, but it was nice to get out and see the rural areas of the country. There are lots of banana trees and agriculture around, and life is just as colourful but seems a bit less crowded - it's nice. Leogane was actually the epicentre of the earthquake, and I was surprised that there were still a lot of people living in tents - proportionally as much as PAP maybe. There were also a lot of transitional shelters - buildings meant to last 3-5 years as people save money to rebuild their own homes. It will be interesting to see how it develops in the next five years as many shelter projects draw down in Leogane, but health and education programming goes up. 

I got out to that side of the country again this weekend, as we spent today at the beach. There aren't any beaches (or at least ones you want to go to) directly in PAP, it takes about an hour outside of the city either north or south to get somewhere that you have a chance to relax. There are basically three types of beaches in Haiti:

1. Public beaches that we call "MINUSTAH beaches" (MINUSTAH is the peacekeeping force here), because inevitably a couple truckloads of soldiers show up, have the tunes blasting, have lots of beer to go around and are generally making a commotion. Depending on the nationality of these guys, they may also be staring at me. Not so ideal when one wants to relax. 

2. Beach resorts. These are very nice classy places, Club Med standard. But they charge an entrance fee to get in, and $20 entry or $40 with a buffet is standard. Pricy!

3. Smaller hotels that don't charge an entrance fee, you just buy lunch or drinks or whatever. This has been my preferred option since being back, I've been going to this great little place called Villa Taina near Grand Goave. 

Yes, those are bits of tomato on my neck. I guess my freckles mask the swelling but it's there!

So we went to the beach today, which was really nice and relaxing. There were definitely people there but it wasn't overcrowded, the water was warm and the sun was out. Everything was very idyllic, down to the Haitian man in a canoe (aka hollowed out tree) paddling to get the lobster in the traps for lunch. Ian had a couple pairs of goggles and we were able to check out some of the coral and fish below, although it was only a small reef. You can imagine after a morning of swimming, a lunch of lobster and then a last swim where I was alongside the fishes in the reef, I was pretty relaxed. I was! And then a jellyfish stung me in the face! I'm serious, it got my whole face and part of my neck! I'm still not sure how it happened, as I was wearing the goggles and should have seen it, but I guess jellyfishes are clear. 

I immediately got out of the water as the stinging was starting, then I splashed cold water on my face then the owner of the place took me into the kitchen where he gave me his home remedy: first he soaked a rag in vinegar and ran it all over my face and then cut a tomato in two and ran both sides over it. It didn't smell the loveliest and it attracted a lot of flies, but it worked! The stinging subsided and I was just left with a swollen face. It took about three hours for the swelling to fade, but that's gone now too. I don't think that episode took all of the relaxation out of me, so the trip to the beach was still worth it... 

Celebrities in Haiti

Haiti seems to still be one of the top spots for celebrities that have a charitable inclination and want to do some good in the world. It's close to the States, so it's an easy flight down, it's a tropical island so it's much more pleasant to visit than say Pakistan, and there are lots of cute kids to take photos with. Everyone from Oprah to Pamela Anderson has been for a visit. Some celebrities have taken it further and have charitable foundations that work here, most notably Sean Penn, who started an NGO after the January 2010 earthquake. His NGO runs a camp for displaced people in a hard-hit area of town and also provides services to eventually get everyone moved back in to the communities where they came from. I find it funny that everyone seems to have "Sean" story (he is not Sean Penn to these people). The people who work for his NGO seem him often enough and it's fair they're on a first name basis. Others people will tell you about how they handed Sean a beer at a party or how they took the same flight into Port-au-Prince as Sean.

I had my first celebrity encounter last week, though it wasn't with Sean. My organization is part of the Clinton Global Initiative, which basically means we've made a commitment to some global good (in our case, training block makers to make stronger blocks). The Haiti meetings are held every 6-8 weeks, and Bill Clinton himself happened to be in town to open this meeting up. I didn't get a chance to speak with him (nor did anyone else), as he was ushered into the room when we were all seated and left after giving opening remarks, but it was cool nonetheless. What I found particularly funny was that people had dressed up for the occasion, there were lots of nice blouses and dresses and even a few suits, but Bill himself had dressed quite casually - he was wearing pink pants and a lemon-lime coloured button down shirt! More appropriate on the golf course than at the meeting table, but he had just flown in at 2am so I guess I couldn't fault him. He spoke well and looks much slimmer than he did in his presidential days. I have to admit that I didn't see him crystal clear, as I was about 20 feet away and my eyes can only see clearly to about 10 feet [ :( ] but I'm sure I entertained his secret service dudes with all my squinting.

Ian has been here a week and is settling in well - he's already got a couple leads on potential interviews and apartments, which arguably may have been more productive than my week! There's definitely something to be said for showing up somewhere and networking - he's gotten a few good leads that way. He's also had the Euro cup games to keep him busy, and is still fully appreciating the 101 ways why PAP is better than Kabul. We watched the final at a bar this afternoon, which had a pretty awesome sign at the door - no firearms allowed, no prostitutes allowed. I mean it is not so awesome that there are Haitian prostitutes around (this bar turns into a club at night and there is definitely a market for 'lady of the night' services here, unfortunately), but kind of awesome that that's the kind of bar signage we're getting.

And speaking of signage, I leave you with snapshots from some of my favorite advertisements. Almost all advertisements here are hand-painted, which is pretty cool, and the office for a local security company (Ange Gardien S.A.) is very well done. It's double funny because all security companies do here is provide a guard posted at the gate of an office or house (with or without shotgun), but Ange Gardien S.A. showcases that they can do so much more...

For the "Tru" Professional

Yes, that does say "Trusted by U.S. Marines"