Michael - A New Divide

-Part 1-

     The first three days of sun and work were a welcome break from the monotony of Floridian life. Yesterday’s beach excursion was a bitter-sweet break from our new Haitian life. Sweet in the sense that ‘hey, I’m on a crystal clear beach in Haiti’ and bitter in the sense that ‘hey, I’m enjoying this nice hotel and beautiful beach while just up the coast so many people don’t even have access to clean water and, in my very limited time here to help these people, I’ve decided to spend the day at the beach.’

    This morning we awoke to a new scene entirely. Rolling clouds, chilled air, and humidity greeted us. Today we’re going to Baihaha for another clinic day. Baihaha had never had medical personnel visit it’s community, and was eagerly awaiting our arrival. We’re up at 6:30am and ready by 6:50, like always, for Carwyn to pick us up. However, instead of the usual Haiti Hospital Appeal ambulance, Carwyn comes into the compound on the back of a red motorcycle. Apparently there had been an emergency and the ambulance, being the only one on this side of Cap Haitian, was needed. We were to make our one hour journey in a four door truck owned by Lifewater International, the organization whose facilities we were shacked up in. As Reninca puts it, “You just kind of go with the flow here in Haiti.” And that’s exactly what we did.

    Inside the cab squeezed the driver, Kortni, Lori, Dony, Dr. Macklin, and Yusevel. Dennrik, Logan, Martin, Carwyn, and myself all jumped in the back, letting the girls have the comfy truck cab like true gentlemen should. We had covered up the big box of medication and our backpacks with a blue tarp and a deflated kiddy pool to protect them from the elements.

Luckily, our hour drive to the remote village was mostly on paved road, making our journey a great deal more comfortable than it could have been. Unluckily, the weather was not in our favor and it soon began to rain. The rain, combined with the wind and already chilly morning, made our ride a great deal more uncomfortable than it could have been. Luckily, before we left Fort Lauderdale a few of us had checked the forecast and decided to go to Walmart to pick up 88cent ponchos. Martin, Kortni, and myself all bought one, which received a “whatevah” from Dennrik (Logan was sleeping). Unluckily, we only had two of the ponchos to share between the five of us in the back of the truck. Logan and I promptly fit into a single poncho, thanking America for the ‘one size fits all’ mentality. Dennrik pulled the kiddy pool over himself while Carwyn slipped out of sight under the blue tarp with the backpacks. Martin quickly threw on his blue poncho after having failed to fit Carwyn in, the wind being too great to handle the poncho effectively.

So there we were, a group of undergraduate somethings in the poorest country in the western hemisphere, on our winter break, speeding down a lawless road in the back of a truck, huddled together under flimsy plastic while being pelted by relentless wind and rain. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Its times like these you know when you’re alive. Little did we know just how alive we were about to find ourselves.