Traveling to Pestel

Last week was busy, but who am I kidding? Most weeks feel busy here.  Last week felt extra busy as a few friends and I revamped the birth room between program days. Every night I went to bed praying we wouldn’t have a birth until the chaotic uproar of that room was put back in order. The prepared midwife side of me went to bed each night mentally checking off the last place I saw the pitocin, the ambu bag, and the chucks pads.

Sunday afternoon, in the middle of birth room messes, Beth M. asked if I would like to join her to travel to Pestel, a village in the south of Haiti. She was headed there to take a, now grown, adopted child there to meet her birth family. I looked around the room and thought, “There is no way I can leave with this room in such a mess.” As the afternoon went on and few more people came to help bring organization to the chaos, I decided maybe I needed to get out of Port-au-Prince and the birth room for the day.  

Early Monday morning, before the sunrise, a group of seven of us climbed into Beth’s truck and headed south. Beth M, Rosie (the adult adoptee), and I rode in the back of the truck. The still dark sky was filled with stars…stars always seem more abundant here with the lack of electricity and street lights. Riding through dark, empty, Port-au-Prince streets always feels a little eerie. During the day the streets are filled with too many cars, people everywhere- going places, selling things, washing cars, sweeping streets, etc. It seems impossible that all that activity ceases in the dark of night and the streets are empty.

We quickly made it out of the city, thanks to no traffic, but by the time we arrived in the next town, Haiti was awake.  The sun was up, markets were open, music was blaring and the road was blocked. Our detour, thanks to a bank robber and demonstrations, added about two hours onto our trip, but it didn’t so much matter as we took in the beauty outside of the city we are so accustomed to. We traveled over paved mountain roads until the mountain roads became unpaved, uneven and filled with red clay potholes.  We kept on until we arrived in what felt like, the middle of nowhere. Eight hours after leaving PAP, a few pop-a-squat pee breaks, and two detours later, we arrived at the village pastor’s house where Rosie’s family had gathered to meet her. 

The anticipation had been building as Rosie was anxious to meet her family. Her story is hers to tell, so I’ll leave out all the details. It was sweet to get to watch her connect with family she wasn’t even sure she had. Shortly after meeting her family, Rosie asked if the house she was born in, twenty-two years ago, was still standing. Her family said that it was and her brother and his wife had been living there. We were assured the house was only an hour walk up the mountain.  Beth M. and I both assumed that meant more like two hours, but everyone in our group was on board and excited to see where Rosie took her first breath. We started up the rocky, mountainous path and joked along the way that we’d have to take it slow for us Americans who aren’t used to such climbing. The Haitians laughed and agreed that we were indeed not experts at this climbing thing. About two hours into the hike…straight.up.the.mountain. we asked, “How much further?”  Their reply, “Just 30 more minutes.” We kept on for another hour, stopping to only to snap a few pictures and take in the beauty around us, a great disguise for taking a moment to catch our breath. As we started up an even steeper incline of mountain with more unsteady rocks, it started to look like it might rain, so again we asked, “How much further?”  Again their reply, “Just 30 more minutes.”  It was like the Haiti version of “are we there yet” that I endlessly bugged my parents with on long road trips between Texas and Illinois while growing up. At that point we decided it would be best to split up. Half us would continue on and half of us would head back down, hoping the half that headed back down the mountain would be able to find a road for the truck to meet those of us who continued on our way up the mountain.  We said goodbye, hoped nobody got rained on, and went our separate ways. Because it looked like rain, those of us who decided to go up the mountain speed climbed up, up, up for another hour before FINALLY arriving at the house where Rosie was born. It was a simple little hut, with a tin roof, red clay-stained rock walls, and a dirt floor. We were far beyond any place that had running water or electricity.  

As I stood in the middle of this little house, in the room where Rosie’s mother had given birth to her along with five other siblings, I was in awe of Rosie’s story, amazed that she was getting to put the pieces of the beginning of her life together, and struck by the strength of the Haitian people. I felt like we midwives usually do…honored to be watching stories unfold and witnessing the strength of the people we are with.  

We didn’t stay in the village where Rosie was born for long because it still looked like it would pour rain at any point. Someone said we should hurry because they could smell rain and I kept thinking there was no way me and my birkenstock sandals were getting back down that mountain if it was raining. The rocks were giant and I almost face planted 50 times. Every time my foot would slip, the guy behind me would remind me, “we are in hurry. This is meant to say you must go slow or we will not be getting back down the mountain.”  Yes, thank you. I just didn’t verbally need to be reminded 50 times that climbing or descending a mountain in birkenstocks was not exactly what I had planned for the day. My bleeding feet were a sure reminder, but regardless I was high with the joy and amazement of our little adventure.  We hurried half way down the mountain where we were met by the other half of our group and the truck! We piled in and head back to the village pastor’s house. It was almost dark by the time we arrived and it was decided we should stay there for the night instead of driving 6-ish hours in the dark. 

The village pastor and his wife graciously fed us dinner and gave us a bed in a small concrete room with a tin roof. We could just imagine our Port-au-Prince peers laughing at the Haiti adventures we were experiencing as we made the short trek through the trees to the outhouse, and shined the flashlight in to make sure there were no tarantulas hiding before entering. As Beth and I pulled back the covers on our bed and climbed in, she said, “We forgot to check for bugs.” In one swift movement we threw back the covers and shined the flashlight to check for any other living thing to trying to share a bed with us. There was lots of laughter all around as we were all aware of how ridiculous the comforts of our own lives seemed in the poverty of this rural place.  

There’s an element of simplicity, peace, and minimalist living that rural Haiti seems to show off for visitors, but there are so many things that feel complicated for the people who live there. There is very little access to schools, no access to running water, electricity, jobs, or healthcare. The people of rural Haiti show their strength in their day to day lives. Having access to life’s basics like a place to sleep, water to drink, and food to eat seem to consume all their time. These people work hard for what they have. They are strong and they are relentless. It’s that midwife thing again…I’m just here and I feel so honored to get a view into their lives…different, hard, filled with superstition, pain, and imperfection. For all that feels sad and hopeless here at times, there is still beauty and I loved drinking it in this week.