So here I am. Finally bringing myself to write about my most recent time in Haiti. I could kid myself, lie to you, and say that I was busy (which I guess I was) but a lesson I’m learning is that busyness is often an illusion. We can always make time. The truth is that I’ve been avoiding pounding these keys for quite some time. In the weeks since I’ve been back, I’ve been searching for a way to communicate my thoughts on the adjustment period. By “adjustment period” I mean the whirling dervish of emotions that a Westerner typically feels after staying in a rural area in a “developing” country. Though I despise the use of this term because of the distance it creates and dismissal it permits, there is a reason someone came up with this whole “third world-first world” analogy. It’s only an hour and a half flight but the distance that is described in the term I Just mentioned is not to be taken lightly. I would love to pretend I’m strong and experienced and I’ve perfected moving between those “worlds” with ease. But if I were peachy-keen and if “Haiti was great” it would mean that I’d lost the reason I were travelling there in the first place.
And while this transition is decidedly difficult, there is an intangible beauty in this process that must be respected. A few months after returning from Haiti the first time in 2007, I remember scribbling “and again I am an enlightened soul” next to a quote at the start of one of the chapters of Dr. Paul Farmer’s “The Uses of Haiti.” It seemed the childish note of a first time traveler but I realize now I was paying tribute to Farmer’s ability to describe this phenomenon. Upon return there is a feeling of negative enlightenment, like you know something everyone else around you does not. Though you might try hard to fall back into routine, you have to be prepared that at any moment the reality of the other side of the water can gut you raw. This reality is heavy and strong and rude, but walks quietly on soft feet, saving its sick sense of humor for the most inopportune moments. It might jump out of your cup of coffee or hit you as you overhear conversations while walking to work. You’ll never outsmart it or pull it out of hiding, all you can do is appreciate it—and one more thing, avoid grocery stores.
More to come.
