Back in Haiti

Nearly seven months post-quake, I find myself sitting in my apartment at Quisqueya, looking down at the streets of Port-au-Prince, enjoying the relative cool of an early morning breeze. "Welcome back" and "welcome home" have been the greetings offered to me since I've arrived. I'm one of the first to come back, for only two other continuing teachers are have returned, though the three new couples came this week for orientation. Also, several people who I knew were returning are here, only to pack their things. They're leaving. I find myself far more traumatized than I would have imagined, unable to imagine Quisqueya without Carol Heath, the student activities director who became the unofficial social director for the dozen new, single teachers that came in last year timid and uncertain. She was a crucial part of transforming us from a collection of lonely individuals into a team, tightly united and ready to adapt to anything, even a quake. I will equally miss Sean Blesh, the technologies director, with his acerbic wit and off-beat sense of humor that made us all shake our heads at just the right times, with his unflagging determination and drive in everything from the most simple tasks to huge, semester long projects. He was the most dependable person on campus. His family has the highest respect in my eyes. His children were more help during the post-earthquake and relief times than most of the adults on campus. They are a wonderful family. Sean and Denise are two of the people here I look up to most. I will sorely miss them. Nobody can ever fill these shoes. Yet, as I also am reunited with so many of the people I have missed. To sit at dinner with Randall and Anita Chabot, my very dear friends, was to feel at home. I even saw and spoke with a homeless woman I see often. To greet and say a simple "I missed you; it's good to see you again" to the guards and staff of the school, to ride through the familiar streets, it evokes strange emotions. This place has a lot of good memories and horrific memories. It has been a place of adventure and sorrow. I realized in the airport that, in several senses, I'm not a visitor here anymore.

Well, with that melancholy introduction out of the way (but how could any re-introduction to Haiti be anything but melancholy right now?), I will give a review of where I'm at right now. For those of you who didn't know, I spent a month and a half this summer in Cochrane, AB, enjoying a lot of peace and quiet and cold. I feel wonderfully rejuvenated. While I knew how bad the five months or so after the earthquake were, I don't think I truly knew the extent of it until I had been gone for about a month. I had a lot of recuperating to do! I had a marvelous time with friends, hiking in the mountains, walking through the parks, swimming in rivers and lakes (which were still covered with ice floes), camping and backpacking, writing, and beating people with sticks (ask me and I'll clarify).

I spent the last part of my vacation in Florida with my family. It was a very good visit. I got to see my new nephew for the first time and he really does look like a Kulpa. I went camping with my family, swimming in Florida's wonderful springs, canoeing with my little sisters (You're a great paddler, Abby!) and spending plenty of time just talking with my mom or going for walks with my siblings. I even managed to drive around with my dad in his semi for a couple days.

I arrived in Haiti the day before yesterday. That's Thursday, August 5th. Randall picked me up from the airport and we got straight to work. One of the major changes that was already well begun when I left was relocating the library. The secondary library had been completely upturned by the quake. And when we moved everything when the army took over our high school/middle school building, most of the books were literally piled in the basement. Many of us thought the library could never be resurrected from that morass. But slowly and steadily it happened. The director, the principle, and the Bible teacher pulled things together a book at a time for several months and when school ended, it was decided that the library would be relocated to the second floor of the admin building and combined with the elementary library. The administration had been working in the elementary library since the quake, surrounded by picture books. Well, that project is now almost finished. Having seen the mess things were in before, it is little short of miraculous, if short at all! Also, the room where the library was has been converted into two classroom-sized rooms, one of which is being used as the resource room for the time being. So all the textbooks that we spend the week after school moving into the basement science rooms had to be moved upstairs to the new resource room. That and moving occupied most of my first day here.

One of the consequences of the earthquake has been a serious housing shortage. As a result, many more of the teachers, especially new ones coming in, are going to be living on campus. In order to make more room, several of the larger apartments were restructured into several smaller apartments. Mine was given to a couple with a young child, so when I left here in June, I had no idea where I was going to be living when I got back. But things shaped up and I now have a very fine place directly above where I was living before. It really isn't any smaller and is considerably more bright and airy, so I'm quite pleased with it. Also, it has a spare bedroom, so I expect lots of you to come visit me! * hint, hint * Seriously, though, anyone is welcome. I already have a house guest and I've only been here one full day!

Yesterday the new high school principle took the new teachers on a tour and I went along to assist. We visited the lookout at Boutillie. For me, it was the first time I'd seen Port-au-Prince from above like that since the earthquake. The differences, and the apparent improvements since that time, are...moving. This morning I took Aaron Hendrick, the new high school Bible teacher and my housemate until Tuesday, to Epi Dor for croissants. What a familiar and pleasant breakfast. I think that has been the overwhelming feeling I've had since I re-arrived in Haiti. This place is full of memories but, all in all, taken as a package, it is where I belong.