Significant Steps
My initial blogpost after arriving in Haiti made my outlook on life here seem pretty grim. Even now, less than 3 weeks later, I reread it and feel like it was written by a different person in a very different place. Beginning life in Haiti is still not without its challenges, which come almost daily, but the beauty and abundance of godly love I have seen in this place makes these challenges seem much easier to overcome. Being a very goal-oriented person, I decided after my first week here I needed to set some tasks for myself to constantly work through this adjustment phase.
Two weeks ago I took a moto taxi by myself for the first time to meet some friends for dinner. I asked three different taxi drivers and none knew the restaurant I was trying to get to(I’m assuming it was that and not my horrible accent and broken Creole). A friend came with me to try again and gave the driver directions to the restaurant. He clearly still didn’t understand and after driving around in circles for a bit we stopped on a small bridge to call Katie and have her explain to him in Creole where to go. Meanwhile, there was a goat standing to my right on the bridge and a man trying hard to get me to speak Creole on my left. We finally started off again and stopped at a different restaurant, which I knew wasn’t right, and called Katie a second time. This time, after making several more right hand turns, he dropped me off in front of a street bar and said “you go” in creole loudly until I got off. Thinking it might be the right place and I didn’t realize it, I tried to walk to the seating out back, realized I’d walked into the kitchen, and finally got my friend to find me and bring me to dinner. BUT, I did ride a taxi by myself for the first time, so it’s probably all uphill from here. (Edit: this week I rode on a taxi with a purse, duffel bag, and three kittens in a backpack, so it has gotten significantly easier.)
Two days later I decided to venture to the market alone, and I never in my life thought I would be so proud to successfully buy some carrots and bananas. Our food market here is crowded, small, tented, and very hot. Pretty overwhelming when you cannot speak the language and are clearly the minority. I didn’t buy much, and got greatly overpaid at least once, but the feeling of achievement that came with just going to the market alone was indescribable.
There are still challenges. The language barrier is still a constant obstacle, especially because I generally love talking with people, but it's gotten easier to speak the little Creole I do know without worrying about how wrong it sounds. I honestly still find cockroaches pretty disgusting and don't see that changing soon. And each time I walk or drive through Jubilee to go to school I still feel a little mix of shock, heartbreak, and admiration at the way the community lives. The shockingly small houses, mostly naked children, trash covered roads, and pigs just roaming around, it still affects me everyday. But I am falling more deeply in love with this city, the people, and all the beauty in this place every single day. I’m still adjusting and will be for awhile, but I’m making some significant steps and loving every minute of it.
