I have lived here before. So I keep having little flashback moments. We landed in Cap-Haïtien (CH) this afternoon after a longer-than-usual commute from Montreal and I’m pretty tired. Seeing Pasteur Voltaire again after so many years was a very welcome first sight. But what really hit me was, when driving through the city to get to the hotel, we passed by the bicycle repair corner - the bicycle repair corner – and I almost gasped because at that very moment, that very sight was exactly as I remembered it from 11 years ago. And it gave me a comforting feeling, like I wasn’t in a brand new place, and I began to find my bearings.
There’s something about how Haiti smells that will always be familiar as well. I’m not enough of a wordsmith (I’m a Brakesmith, remember?) to describe the smell but immediately after deplaning in Port-au-Prince (PaP), my nose knew exactly where I was. And being here is making me remember a lot of things about 1999 that I’d forgotten or hadn’t thought about in years.
My day can be described by one word with many meanings: chaos. Beautiful chaos. Unsettling chaos. I need to stay out of the way chaos. Keeping the many taxi drivers away from our luggage. Finding the right person to get us to our connecting flight from PaP to CH. Declining to tip the many “helpers” who had a hand on a suitcase while it was put in the car, even though they are very good at guilting you into tipping. (Being idealistic is so much easier from the comfort of my cush Montreal life.)
If there is one thing I learned today it’s that even though between being in Haiti 11 years ago and now I have travelled and studied a lot, I still have a lot to learn. I hope I keep remembering that.
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