Chloraquine #6

Dear fellow adventurers, this morning I took my 6th chloraquine (hot pink anti-malarial pill)- meaning we've been on this journey for coming on 4 weeks already.

The past few days have been filled with wonderful little moments I would like to share with you:

Friday after school got out I went home with Marika and we drove out to the Hotel Cyvadier. I had been there once before in 2009 but only to enjoy its wonderful view and then get back in the car to return to another hotel. This time we got to stay and actually go down to the water and swim! January 21st and I'm swimming in 80 degree water with two adorable kids clinging to me with every oncoming wave. The hotel is perched on a absolutely gorgeous tiny little bay and the kids and I traversed up and down rocks and through a spider-and-crab- filled terrain just to go in the water a little further down the coast. It was beautiful and also hilarious because I wound up carrying both kids across one particular section of the shore due to the sudden disappearance of a very large crab into the crashing waves.
After rinsing off, we ate as the sunset and large beetles dive-bombed the tables around us. I forgot the way fish is served here an ordered the Poisson Creole. It was on the cheaper side but came Haitian-style: head, eyes, tail, fins, skin, bones - everything but the guts. I struggled through it with guidance from Marika and felt quite accomplished an hour later to have eaten about 4 ounces of fish. It was a beautiful evening.

Saturday was fairly uneventful as I was coming down with a head cold and I spent the day reading and playing cards with kids and fighting the inevitable.

Sunday: the inevitable. Slept in, missed church and sat sleepily on the sidewalk to watch Mardi Gras celebrations around noon and then later Carnival in the evening. Mardi Gras is quite lively- people running en masse, mostly naked, covered in a mud they make out of sugar cane syrup and charcoal dust (the flies love this). Often, the mud/nudity is replaced or in addition to face paints and dressing in drag. Large groups of people will form around a few men in drag and they will parade the streets for hours with Haitian rum and song. It's during this marching about that people can do pretty much whatever they want including, covering other people in mud! Luckily, I was not covered though I did have a lovely conversation in French with a fairly large important businessman as he sat next to me, very drunk, shirtless, covered in black mud, with a long brown flowing wig and man thong intentionally exposed. Just lovely.

I had lost my braids to the Caribbean on Friday so Monday when I arrived at school Madga, one of the teachers, told me that I was no longer Haitian, I was back to being just another blan. She loves me. : )
After school and dinner (amazing chicken, a boiled plantain, iceberg lettuce and tomato slices) I went over to PP, Patrick, Carnest, and about 11 other people's house for Lekip Langle. English club! It was only PP and I for a little while laughing as he called himself Superman for jerrywiring a lightbulb and styrofoam to make an area outside bright enough for us to gather. It failed enough times for us to call it quits and go inside. All the while laughing at the not-so-super Superman. Patrick came home apologizing for being late and not too long after Mister Noel also joined us. The other members never came but we discussed titles and "have been" and our best friends. One of my favorite lines was: "My best friend, he's female." I have a growing appreciation for already being able to speak English. Creole is much easier to learn, though what it lacks in conjugations it makes up for in contractions and idioms!
After Mr. Noel went home, Carnest joined us and we began an odd circle of saying our goodbyes prematurely. I nearly cried - and for me that's saying quite a bit! Jeanette cried earlier in the day at the news of my coming departure this Friday. It would be a lie to say that I want to leave this place.

Today, I was at PAZAPA all day, with Carnest and the little little deaf kids in the morning - one of whom fell asleep within seconds when she crawled into my lap as we waited our lunch (blè e pwa franse - wheat and French beans), and then the afternoon with PP in the 5th and 6th grade class. We read in Creole/watched in Sign a story about a goat named KeKe, did some division problems and were learning geography when we had a little problem with discipline with one of the older boys. He had made an offensive sign to one of the other teachers but only PP saw it. While all of the teachers dealt with this, I was left standing in front of a class trying to explain what a baromètre is in Sign. I can hardly do this in English let alone ASL/Creole/French! But they were understanding and I used lots of colored chalk and we pretty well covered végétation, saisons, l'atmosphere, le zone tropicale, and l'equateur. All in a days work!

I am home now, sitting on the 2nd floor porch, overlooking the quiet street. A couple of cows were led past earlier and motorcycles pass every so often. The kids are studying with Marika's help and I am resisting the urge to scratch my bug bites. It's going to be hard to say goodbye to Jacmel, but the adventure must continue - I still have 6 more chloraquine to take before returning Ozetazini (to the U.S).

Love and rice and beans,
Ana