Shannon's Queerest Space
Promoting Genderqueer, Transgender, Youth Rights, Social Justice, and Other Radicalness Since 1999
En Route to Fon-dwa, Haïti, December 1990
During my winter breaks in 1990/1991 (senior year in high school) and 1992/1993 (sophomore year in college), i had the incredible fortune of going to Haïti along with my best friend Bridget and lots of other people. We were organized by a college professor from St. Louis who took folks down twice a year expressly to do service work while learning about Haïti's culture, economy, and history. Both trips, i worked primarily in a home for sick and dying children run by the Sisters of Charity. I spent my mornings changing diapers and feeding, holding, hugging, kissing, and laughing and playing with those beautiful kids who had everything from tuberculosis to HIV/AIDS. The afternoons and evenings were spent returning to work, playing with the children in our residence, resting, or doing other things in and around Port-au-Prince. To say that going to Haïti was life-changing is an understatement. It was my first experience in a developing country and my first time seeing dire poverty. What i encountered there forced me to reevaluate the role of material things in my life, and it still influences my environmentalism and my attempts to consume as little as possible today.
The photo above was taken during my first trip to Haïti, when a group of us went one Sunday to the village of Fon-dwa to deliver school supplies and attend a mass. As the journal entry excerpt below will show, it was not my most positive experience in the country. That day was a very hard one, mostly because i got so sick. Heat exhaustion really sucks. However, the difficulty of making it through that trip is also, in retrospect, what makes that experience stand out in my mind.
[Initials are substituted for the names of everyone who has not given me express permission to talk about them on my website.]
Tuesday, January 1, 1991 (Bonne Année! ["Happy New Year"])
Well, I guess I have some catching up to do. […]
Sunday [December 30, 1990] was hell. We left at 6:20am after I ran to take some logen [sic -- anti-diarrheal medicine] because I was feeling nauseous (bad omen). I felt kind of sick until about 8:15 when I suddenly recovered, sitting in the back of the tap-tap [a small truck used as mass transit into which are crowded many, many people] (too good to be true). I ate two pieces of my croissant and no more. When we finally got to the top of the mountain, we got out and started our long trek to Fon-dwa. It was only two miles but it was up and down steep hills. By the time we finally arrived (an hour after we'd started), I felt so sick and had to leave church because I could hardly stay awake. I sat outside for a while and then made myself go back in. A., the guy who took us, gave a speech and asked us [the US Americans] if we wanted to say anything. Bridget and I went up and she said how we loved Haiti and how all the people are so nice, etc. I couldn't think of anything to add, so I just seconded her comments. We sat back down and somehow, the liturgy turned into a 2 1/2 hour town meeting over something none of us could discern. There was no priest so there wasn't communion either.
After that, we had to go to the teacher's house to eat because we had brought school supplies with us. By this time, I was feeling so miserable that the thought of walking back [to the tap-tap] -- almost always uphill -- put me close to tears. I started back as soon as I could and ended up being the last to the top, even though I was the first to leave. It was so hard. I rested so much [so often]. When we got to the top, I bought a Haitian cola and drank it -- pretty good, but sugary. The tap-tap ride back was hard too. I felt so sick. We had to stop once because D. threw up. I think I slept part of the way because I opened my eyes and the sea was behind me.
That trip was definitely the hardest physical thing I've ever done -- and ever wish to do. I wouldn't do it again, not even for all the lottery monies in the world.
When we finally arrived, I went to bed immediately and basically slept thru the day, [sic] and night and most of yesterday. [...]
