Drawn and Driven: My Haiti Adventure

By Rod Ellis

         He was 61 years old. He had a secure position as a tenured associate professor at a major university. He had a bustling mental health practice. His home was loaded with equity. He drove and rode his dream vehicles, a Jeep Wrangler and a Victory Cross Country motorcycle. His son was set for college. Life was good. He could work for a few more years, then retire comfortably in his secluded country home.  

          One day everything changed. Sitting in a crowded bus jammed between stalled vehicles in a classic Port-au-Prince traffic jam, Rod Ellis decided to chuck it all. Surrounded by the blare of horns and the cries of street vendors, he resolved to close his practice, resign his university position, and move to Haiti.

          What possessed him to do such a thing? How could he leave behind everything familiar for a world he knew only a little?  Haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. There would be no air conditioning or running water. He would drive a 20-year-old vehicle. He would reside in an unfinished house, at the mercy of tropical winds and weather. Light-skinned, he would live in a world of almost exclusively dark-skinned people. Whatever was he thinking? Drawn and Driven: My Haiti Adventure tells the tale. In it, Ellis describes his physical, emotional, and spiritual journey into a country he had visited only a handful of times. He talks about preparing for the move, the people he interacted with after arrival, and the challenges he has faced trying to help the wonderful people of this struggling country. From cultural conflicts to renegade priests to building his own off-the-grid house to the development of a vocational school, Ellis weaves the tale of his great, ongoing adventure: Drawn and Driven

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rod Ellis
• Release date: May 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393641629

Book preview

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It’s a little bit scary to publish a list of people you want to thank for the numerous ways they may have contributed to the publication of a book. The fear is, however, that looking back over the months or years it took you to compile the experiences into written form, you may forget to mention some folks. The experience about which I’m writing spans more the five years, a retirement, three geographical moves (one between countries), a myriad of goodbyes and hellos, and a lot of anxiety-filled days and nights. If I have forgotten to include you in the list below, please forgive me. I know God had not forgotten and sends God’s thanks to you from heaven.

The Folks Who Started It All

I think the first thanks needs to go to my Facebook friends. Social media may seem a very unusual place to begin, but without their support, encouragement, and persistent prodding my fingers would never have touched the keyboard. When I originally posted to Facebook that I was going to retire and move to Haiti I intended only that people know so they would not wonder what had happened to me. I was astounded when they expressed asked me to report on my experiences and was even more astounded when the number of people reading my posts grew and grew. My friends read my story, conversed with me about it digitally, and encouraged me to write this book. Some agreed to serve as alpha readers: Patricia Shely Mahaney, Mary Lee Dorough, and Laura Parks all read and commented. Patricia, a friend of nearly 50 years (gasp), read repeatedly, commented extensively, and edited profusely. To my friends from high school, college, graduate school, assorted cities and jobs, churches, communities, countries, and even Facebook itself, thank you.

I am also very grateful to my daughter who, despite being in the midst of her own process of identifying herself in and to the world, supported my decision and encouraged me to follow God’s leading. Thank you, Cynthia Allen-Ellis Morningstar, for your consistent love, selflessness, and encouragement.

The folks at Crossroads Community Church in Baxter, TN have been amazing in their ongoing prayer and assistance to my work in Haiti. They have supported me financially, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Rick and Becky Burnett, the pastor and ninja pastor, lead this band of the faithful who, last I heard have sent 17 missionaries into an assortment of fields in just over 10 years of existence. They are an incredible group of people. Thank you, Crossroads, for holding the ropes.

I jokingly tell Jack Davidson, the director of the American Haitian Foundation, that it is his fault that I am in Haiti. Truth be told, Jack was God’s instrument. Had I not met him I would not be writing this while swatting mosquitos that are targeting my thighs. Whatever God has been able to accomplish through me in Haiti, began with a conversation with Jack. Through AHF I also met Joanne Denise. Joanne helped me learn my way around Petite Riviere on my early trips and remains my friends during the roughly six months per year she spends here.

The Folks Who Helped Get the Book Published

When I posted on Facebook that the book was nearing an end and I was going to look for an agent my high school classmate, Patricia Laffoon, sent me a Private Message. She said she knew someone who might be able to help. Within a couple of weeks, I had signed a contract with J.T. Ward at Ink-N-Flow Management, and we were off and running, OK, maybe off and editing

J. T. Ward, Lori Greis, Janie Vinson, Amy Queau, Barb Schuler, Grant Alter, and Courtney Shockey have walked me through the process every step of the way. I had published several books as either author or complier/editor. The leap from academic author to popular market author was, however, substantial. These folks guided me gently but firmly, allowing me to know what I knew and helping me learn what I did not know. You guys rock.

The People Who Have Supported St Patrick

The story of my initial meeting with Mr. John Kerry, the former US Congressman from Maine, is told later in this book. John offered me a volunteer position teaching English at St Patrick Community Center. Since then St Patrick has grown, as has my friendship with John. He understands Haiti and its culture. He has been a valuable listening ear and source of advice on several occasions. He was managing the funding for St Patrick when I first met him. He also arranged for the funding to continue when the founder could not continue. John introduced me to the folks at the Cap Mona Angel Fund..

The Cap Mona Angel Fund has provided the financial support that has kept St Patrick operational for almost two years now. Because of the help they provide literally hundreds of Haitians study English or learn one of several vocations that will allow them to earn a living in Haiti’s impoverished world. Our thanks to you and your family, Vincent Cap Mona. Special thanks to Andrew Mona and Holly Mona who have dealt with the quirks and difficulties of international money transfer in seeing that St Patrick could go on.

My Friends in Haiti

Maybe I should have listed my Haitian friends first, but I tried to think in terms of chronological order. They have also made this transition, and therefore this book, possible. It would be impossible to lest every way they have helped me without writing another book. Yet you will see each of them mentioned in this one.

To Joseph Destouche (T-Joe), Abenaguel Cambrone (Guel), Thelus Wilken, Michena Giraud Delerme, Jimmy Delerme, Donelson Giraud, Eddy Giraud, Maude Giraud, Manolo Pressoir, Cereste Cadet Pressoir, George Sylvain, Jethro, Natant Noel, Frant Offin, Manno Bisserth, Yves Marie Laurent, Charlens Denson Calixte, Sherby Bruce, Sophonie Casimir, Evens Laurent, Frantz Sufrin, Vallet Cleeford, Pierre Jack Destouche, and Roubens Laurore.

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to the people of Haiti. It is for the gentle people who were cruelly swept from their homeland and subjected to savage slavery. It is for the brave men and women who led the revolution that tottered Napoleon Bonaparte and set the nation free. It is for the people who have lived lives since that time, both public and private. It is for Haitians today: friends I have met, friends I have yet to meet, and friends I likely will never meet. May God grant you the peace, prosperity, and opportunity that you so richly deserve.

In the spirit of the Haitian Revolution: Libète, Egalite, Fratènite!

FOREWARD

By: Cynthia Rocha

Dr Cynthia Rocha is former Associate Dean and Professor Emerita at the College of Social Work, The University of Tennessee. She is herself an accomplished and highly published author, having published numerous books and articles on working families, policy practice, and international development. Dr. Rocha retired a few years ago to Costa Rica, where she currently resides somewhere in the jungle with her feet propped up.

Rod and I had been colleagues on community and economic development endeavors for almost 20 years. Working in the same academic setting, we developed curriculum together, consulted with each other on policy issues and brainstormed ways to help our students experience community and economic development strategies at local, state, and international levels. We had similar areas of expertise and published in the areas of policy practice and international community/economic development. Rod also published in the areas of diversity and cultural sensitivity and eventually came full circle to his clinical roots with his passion for mindfulness practice later in his career.

I moved to the Costa Rican jungle about a year and a half before Rod moved to Haiti, so we kept up through Facebook. When he began community work in Haiti, eventually moving there, I wondered, will he write about these experiences? I was fascinated as I read his posts on Facebook about his adventures and gained new insights into this poor developing nation. I was also intrigued by his economic development ventures that he started along the way.

As much as I liked following him on Facebook, Rod’s Facebook posts pale in comparison to this book. After having spent so many years in academia learning to write dry, technical jargon, I was drawn to Rod’s prose. I could picture myself where he was, I saw the mountains, the ocean, the traffic jams, and the demonstrations as if I were there. His descriptive style of writing is both humorous and sobering.

I was glued to the manuscript like a novel that you can’t put down and lose a night’s sleep just to finish it. It’s not just an old white man’s journey to Haiti, as he likes to say, but also his own personal quest, working through his own trauma, and how he came out on the other side.

INTRODUCTION

Nearly 2 ½ years ago I moved to Haiti, where I still live. But it was five years ago that I first visited, landing at Toussaint Louverture International Airport. I was a visitor then. There’s no doubt, I was drawn to this beautiful, wonderful troubled country. Yes, initially I was drawn, but ultimately I was also driven, drawn by God and driven by circumstances. That’s why I’m writing from my desk in the Haitian mountains this morning, rather than from a secluded mini farm in central Tennessee. As a matter of fact, if I still lived on that farm, I wouldn’t be writing this at all.

My initial visit to Haiti was as one of several volunteers for the American Haitian Foundation. The foundation built a school here, College Educacion Saint Antoine (CESA), more than 25 years ago. It has been educating children and serving the community ever since. CESA was the instrument for my drawing. Surely, I reasoned, in an impoverished country where violence and death are common, there is a need for mental health services. With a little research, I discovered that virtually no mental health services aside from inpatient psychiatric care were available on the western side of the island. After I visited a couple times, I realized that eating, finding shelter, and preserving a modicum of physical health consume virtually everyone’s full time and attention. Mental health takes a back seat, maybe a seat all the way back on the rear bumper. I was a university associate professor also running a part-time private practice as a licensed clinical social worker. I had the knowledge, skill, and experience to bring such services to at least one corner of Haiti. That’s what I thought I was going to do; volunteer mental health work and perhaps assemble a team of students and professionals who would volunteer a couple times per year. Armed with my mental health expertise and a lot of good intentions I set out to help Haitian people with emotional and psychological healing. Nothing has gone as I had expected. I have not done 10 minutes’ worth of mental health work (aside from teaching a few mindfulness classes) since that initial visit. In the beginning I had no intention of coming more often than once or twice per year. Had you told me then that within a couple of years, I would retire from my job, close my practice, and move to western Haiti, I would have told you to slow down on the kleren (Haitian homemade cane rum). Turns out, you would have been a prophet.

My job as an Associate Professor in the College of Social Work at The University of Tennessee (UT) would never have made me rich but it had made me comfortable. My part-time practice as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker both gave me the sense that I was helping people and had allowed me to put a little bit of money away for my teenage son’s education. I was 59. Within a few short years, probably at 65, I would retire from the university, continuing my counseling practice. This would allow me to maintain what I saw as a reasonable standard of living and continue to support my son as he pursued degrees in post-secondary education. It had never occurred to me to do otherwise.

So why would I do such a ridiculous, radical thing as chuck it all and move to the economically poorest country in the western hemisphere? By most folks’ accounts I was pretty well set. Pondering that decision in retrospect, I would say that I was both drawn and driven. God led me to sit down beside Jack Davidson, director of the American Haitian Foundation, at a university event in May 2015. His wife, Victoria had been my DSW student. The event was a luncheon held to honor her and her classmates. That’s when God began to draw me. A couple years later, my world fell apart. Forces conspired to make both my university position and my private practice untenable. Circumstances, or God, or people, or some combination thereof, began to drive me. I’ll talk more about that in a future chapter.

The room that hosted the DSW luncheon was plush, one of the nicer rooms available for gatherings at the University. Long white tablecloths were draped across a sea of tables, all set with immaculate dinnerware. An expansive buffet table was set at each end of the room. Jack and I headed together to the closest buffet. We exchanged pleasantries as we piled our plates full of ribs, cutlets, rolls, and a menagerie of vegetables. We had hardly returned to our seats when God dropped a bomb on me, disguised as a handful of sentences. The first was mine; one of those remarkably brilliant, insightful questions that you sit up late at night attempting to craft.

So, what do you do, Jack? I asked.

I’m the director of the American Haitian Foundation, he responded.

How interesting that Jack did not identify himself with his source of income, a graphics and printing business he and his brothers own near Chattanooga. I learned about his job months later. He identified with his vocation (a God’s calling kind of vocation). He operates a foundation that funds a school of more than 1200 students in rural Haiti.

Tell me, Jack, how does the foundation work? Is your school like American schools? What is the community like? I was fascinated and Jack was eager to fill me in. By the time he had finished, I was hooked. I don’t remember saying this, but Jack swears I did. He remembers me saying, God wants me to help you.

The rabbit hole beckoned, and I took a few tentative steps toward it. The drawing had begun. The driving was still a couple years away. Within a few weeks, I would make my first visit to Haiti. A couple years later, I would retire and move there.

BEING DRAWN: HOW I WOUND UP IN HAITI

Ifirst set foot on Haitian soil with a team of volunteers from the American Haitian Foundation (AHF) in June 2015. Now, nearly five years later in the spring of 2020, pretty much every portion of my anatomy is firmly planted there. As I sit here writing this, my last remaining US property (house and a little furniture) will be sold and virtually everything I own will be in Haiti. And that won’t be much. There are things I remember distinctly about that first trip and, of course, things I have forgotten. Some things run together like buckets of spilled paint, blending with people and events from other trips. I made a total of 4 trips before January 28 2017, the day I relocated to Petite Riviere de Nippes, Haiti.

TO PORT-AU-PRINCE AND BEYOND

One of my distinct memories from that first trip is getting off the plane and navigating passport control, immigration, baggage pickup, and customs at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince. Although I had done considerable international travel prior to this trip, I felt like a raw noob going through the process in Port-au-Prince. Back then, AHF folks traveled on American Airlines. They still do as far as I know. I, on the other hand, am a Delta Airlines dude. (Since I originally wrote this, Delta has stopped flying to Port-au-Prince. I am currently a Spirit Airlines dude.) Oddly, the flight schedule works better with American if you book a round-trip flight from the States and better with Delta if you book round-trip from Haiti. The Foundation booked the tickets and the 14 of us team members reimbursed it. On that first trip, there were people coming from Tennessee and California on a smattering of flights, converging at a predesignated restaurant in the Miami airport for a late breakfast. I left home at 4 AM, blearily stumbling to the coffeemaker to punch the on button. The coffee brewed while I showered, and after throwing a few last-minute things into my bag, I sucked down Yeti-encased steaming hot coffee as I drove. The flight to Miami took maybe a couple of hours. It took way less time to find the restaurant. Jack greeted me and everyone else with a hug. The rest of the folks on the team trickled in over the course of 45 minutes. Each of us ordered individually and dined between hugs and handshakes. After a table repeatedly replenished with sausage, bacon, eggs, grits, toast, and coffee had been drained and cleared we headed for the gate. We boarded together and settled in for the two-hour long flight to Port-au-Prince. The time passed quickly, filled with some reading, some conversation with the Haitian banker whose seat was beside mine, and the completion of immigration and customs forms.

Back to my noobness. Not many airlines fly directly into Port-au-Prince from the US. That’s actually very good, because there aren’t a lot of gates to accommodate them. There’s apparently some kind of magic in Haitian airspace as well, because no matter how arrivals are scheduled, a bunch of planes always manage to show up at the same time. In a small airport, this makes for an invigorating crowd experience. A couple of the arriving planes use traditional enclosed, carpeted airline walkways to disembark. Others park some distance from the terminal and passengers are ferried to the building on small buses. I’d love to have a bird’s eye picture of the runway area when several flights arrive simultaneously in such a small area. It must look like someone kicked a nest of foumi fou (crazy ants), Haitian Kreyol for the little black ants that run about recklessly and randomly when they are excited or disturbed.

The airport has changed since those days. Every time I am there, I see little improvements. I understand it is a vastly improved facility over the airport that existed prior to the 2010 earthquake.

Imagine for a moment, those crazy ants being corralled and herded into a funnel. That’s what the path to passport control was like. Temporary barriers directed us in a narrowing V, eventually straightening into a short tube. The tube was big enough to allow one, maybe two people to pass. We emerged from the bottom of the tube one by one, arriving at last at the tourist fee booth. There was no signage whatsoever. Fortunately, folks at the front of the line seemed to know where they were going. The rest of us just followed along.

The walls were painted a kind of off-white, broken by a series of long windows looking out over the tarmac. Almost at the edge of the furthest airstrip, we could see the mountains of one of the many ranges in Haiti. A well-used Haitian proverb declares, Dèye mon, gen mon. (Beyond mountains, there are mountains.) Haitians will tell you that the phrase has many meanings. One is the obvious. Haiti is a land largely composed of mountain ranges situated one after the other. On the southern peninsula where I live, for example, there’s a short flat plane between the beach and the foothills. Maybe I should say foothill because there aren’t many. In a lot of places, you just start walking uphill whereas you were walking on flat land seconds earlier. An extended series of huffs and puffs later, you are at the top of the first mountain. From the top of the first range, you can see the second. There’s also a large plateau in the central part of Haiti. It is legendarily hot and despairingly poor. To this day, the airport doesn’t have clear signage in any language to direct folks to the tourist fee booth, the first stop on the path to Haitian soil. There’s a four or five-piece band that plays Haitian kompa (compas) and racine at the top of an escalator along the way. The band is a nice touch. It helps to sooth the nerves frayed when the line from the runway flights collides with the line from the bus transportation coming up the escalator. Actually, there’s usually plenty of human help not necessarily employed by the airport if you don’t know your way. For instance, on my first flight, colored t-shirts were plentiful. Red and blue and yellow and green, the shirts and their logos heralded the church or charitable organization sponsoring the wearers. A batch of bird’s egg blue t-shirts led the way that day.

I hung with the guys without t-shirts, meaning Jack’s crew. AHF doesn’t use them, never has. I’ve never asked why. We negotiated the funnel as a group, standing at long last at the tourist fee booth.

Haiti charges every non-Haitian citizen ten dollars (US) to get past the booth and to passport control. In those days, they didn’t have change at the booth, although I’ve seen them change a twenty by handing back a ten on each of my last two trips. There’s no credit card reader, so I’m not sure what happens if you don’t have the requisite ten bucks. Maybe they give you a colored t-shirt and put you to work.

The tourist fee booth turned out to be a wonderful crowd control device. Past it, the mass of people narrowed into a single line. The rest was very airportesque. The line looped from one end of the long room to the other, contained and directed by typical airport strap dividers. The dividers, composed of some invulnerable mesh webbing that would have done Batman proud, were moved from time to time by an airport employee, redirecting the traffic. Several bat-turns later, we reached the line of maybe ten passport control booths. We stood, each waiting our turn, toes obediently overlapping a bright yellow strip on the floor. At the booth, we surrendered the immigration papers we had completed on the plane, answered a few questions (What is the purpose of your visit? Are you bringing in any agricultural products?), and had our passports stamped.

Jack had led everyone through the line and waited for us at the exit to the passport control area. We huddled like ducklings with their momma, waiting for the last folks through the line to catch up. I half-expected a head count like elementary school teachers do on the bus on a field trip, but none was forthcoming. I guess after 25 years of trips through possibly thousands of airport modifications, Jack was pretty comfortable with the process.

A word about heroes. I think Jack is one. He’s a hero for the work he has done in Haiti for more than twenty-five years. He has helped literally thousands of people change their lives for the better. The community of Petite Riviere, the Department of Nippes (A department is like a state or province), and the country as a whole are better because he has been there. I’ve traveled much of the southern part of Haiti. On virtually every trip, I have met someone who graduated from CESA. Every one of them was in some position of authority they would not have occupied without that education. The school has educated thousands of Haitian children. Jack has helped build roads in areas where none previously existed. He and his wife, Victoria cashed in their personal retirement account to build a functional power system for Petite Riviere de Nippes. It lasted for several years before it collapsed under the strain of lots of demand with little ability to pay. Jack has been in Haiti through presidents, dictators, and revolutions. He has had his life threatened, suffered malaria and other tropical diseases, and has made both friends and enemies. Guys like Jack paved the way for guys like me to come along later. What they have done is simply astounding. I am convinced that their work has been an act of God.

When I say guys like Jack, I also mean guys like Dr. Paul Farmer. If you’ve never read Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, I encourage you to do so (after you have finished this remarkable volume, of course). Kidder relates the story of Farmer’s pioneering medical work that began in the central Haitian plateau and extended around the world. I not only stand on the shoulders of guys like these, I needed them to boost me up. Jack never suggested that I move to Haiti, but his example shouted it to me. I’ve never met Dr. Farmer, but Kidder’s book was an undeniable influence.

OK, now back to the airport. Jack led us out of the tourist fee/passport control room and around the corner to a down-escalator. At the top of the elevator was the requisite 4- or 5-piece band, playing kompa and collecting tips. At the bottom, we were inundated by a flood of attendants, all vying for the opportunity to retrieve our luggage and receive our tips. The veteran of many such encounters, Jack turned them away in Kreyol, a surprise to those among us who had just met him. We gathered our bags and the stack of maybe 20 duffle bags Jack had paid to bring on the flight. A few US dollars smoothed our passage through the customs station and we emerged into the intense light and heat of the Haitian day. The rules have changed for luggage since my first trip to Haiti. Back then, you could bring virtually as many bags as you wanted. All you had to do was pay. Overweight baggage? No problem. Just pay. Since then, both the Haitian government and the airlines have imposed restrictions. Now you get two stowed bags, neither to exceed 50 pounds. You also get a carry on and a personal item. (Other airlines, including Spirit, have even stronger restrictions.) Bringing things in your luggage was once a major source of aid to the Haitian people. Between government mandates and airline policies, the ability to bring in major necessities and minor luxuries has been severely restricted. Another thing that has changed since my first venture to this Caribbean island is the area where you exit the building. That first day, it was like walking out of a relatively peaceful room and into an Indiana Jones movie. A flood of people assailed us. Some wanted to carry our luggage. Others hawked their wares: colorful Haiti caps and shirts, chunks of almost blackened fried pork stacked with boiled plantains on disposable plates, hand-carved figurines, and hand-beaded jewelry. It was a bit of a struggle to get through the crowd and make it to the parking lot with our group intact. The vendors no longer have access to that area, so the exit is substantially less adventurous than it used to be. One wonders how Indiana would react to the changes.

On the way to the cars, we met Father Herve Granjean, Jack’s co-founder at CESA, and another driver whose name was Jean. We somehow managed to pack 15 people and a huge pile of baggage into two SUVs and a small truck. The driver strapped luggage and duffels into the back of the pickup and onto the top of the SUVs, covering them with a tarp. Jack then pointed to people and vehicles, assigning us each to a mode of transportation.

The luck of the draw or rather providence of Jack’s selection put three rather ample people (I was one of them), plus Joanne, plus the driver into a 20ish-year-old undersized pickup overloaded with luggage and a sporting a semi-functional air conditioning system. The ample among us overflowed into not only the front and rear seats, but also unto one another. Joanne (who would later decide to spend about six months of the year in Haiti) and I got to know one another way better than we had ever intended. She spent most of the trip crushed against my side under my rather sweaty right arm. I was twisted to one side with my arm across the back of the rear seat because there was simply no shoulder space. Both front and back were all crunched up with virtually no room to move any bodily part. How bad can it be, I thought. It’s only 58 miles from Port-au-Prince to Petite Riviere. Those were famous last thoughts indeed.

ON THE ROAD

It took five and one-half hours to traverse the 58 or so miles from the airport to Le Manolo Inn, the hotel where we would stay. Suffice it to say that National Route 2 was not a pristine interstate. It’s better these days, but still an adventure. The trip out of Port-au-Prince was grueling. We had come on a Saturday, a big market day for many parts of Haiti (more on big and little markets in a later chapter). Our plane had arrived at 2:35. It took us maybe an hour and a half to get out of the airport and into the vehicles. By then, the vendors from the markets were packing up their wares and heading for home. The roads would have been clogged at that hour any day of the week. On big market day, particularly at that time of day, they were often at an absolute standstill. Haitians have a word for that unmoving mass of snarled metal. They call it blokis. Blokis is an almost daily reality on many of the roads leading out into more rural areas. Some days, it is worse than others. That day it was very bad. Traffic in Port-au-Prince is nothing like traffic in the US or any other developed nation I have visited. I’ve been to developing nations in central America. It can be bad there, but Haiti beats any other place I’ve ever been. Traffic includes cars, motorcycles, small trucks, big trucks, gravel trucks, buses, and vehicles of assorted sizes called tap taps (more on tap taps later). It also includes people, chickens, cattle, horses, donkeys, pigs, goats, sheep, and assorted other farm critters.

National Route 2 roughly follows the coast. In a few places, the coast swings northward, little humps of land protruding into the blue of the sea. Route 2 continues its direct path and is eventually rejoined by the receding coastline. It passes through communities like City Soleil, Carrefour, Martissant, and Gressier before emerging into a less congested rural setting. Somewhere between Gressier and Leogane, the traffic average speeds go from maybe 25 mph to 70 mph within the course of a couple of miles. I’m not quite sure where all the traffic goes. Back in City Soleil, Carrefour, and Martissant, the streets are lined with vendors, their wares crowding forward from the faces of decaying concrete block buildings and spilling onto the edge of the street. Motorcycles, tiny 125 and 150cc models, zoom in and out of the other traffic. Some are laden with passengers (motos are central to the taxi system) or goods, often loaded well beyond what might reasonably considered safe. I have seen these tiny vehicles carry such loads as five 80-pound bags of cement, a dining room set, and six five-gallon containers of water. Passengers frequently accompany the transported materials, sometimes riding backwards to facilitate the placement of the payload. A few days ago, the vehicle I was driving was clipped by a full-sized coffin strapped across the back of a 150cc Dayun.

I was a biker in the States and have ridden a little in Haiti. Observing moto drivers in Haiti, I have thought that every Haitian male must have a computer chip installed in his haunch at birth. The function of the chip is to disengage the brain when the haunch touches a motorcycle seat. Haitian motorcyclists are every off-roader’s hero and every certification instructor’s nightmare. Sleep is, of course, not an issue for motorcycle certification instructors in Haiti because there are no instructors. There is no certification. Kids just hop on a bike as soon as they can swindle someone into allowing them to use one and take off. There are also very few traffic laws. Though perhaps it is more accurate to say that the laws that do exist are usually ignored and unenforced. There are almost no road signs and very few traffic lights. I have seen none outside the major cities. Part of the road through the Port-au-Prince suburbs is approximately three or four lanes wide but leaves the division of lanes to the imagination. There are no lane markers. Morning traffic spontaneously arranges itself into a pattern of two or three lanes incoming and one outgoing. In the late afternoon, the pattern reverses. At all times of the day, intersections, unmarked by signs and devoid of traffic lights, are tests of will. Drivers inch forward (and sometimes backward), bullying their way around greater and smaller vehicles to win their way through.

Road conditions vary between good and deplorable. Many stretches have improved since my first trip, though. Jack tells me that deplorable was a fitting word for the entire stretch between Port-au-Prince and Petite Riviere 25 years ago. Sections of National Route 2 are nothing but bare rock and dirt to this day. Where the rock is exposed, deep rivulets have often been carved by years of vehicular passage and erosion. On sections of paved road, there are often unmarked speed bumps, barely visible, but very substantial, waiting to provide the unwary motorist with a tooth-rattling bounce.

We made our way from Port-au-Prince with only two stops. The first was for hydration, the second for disposing of that hydration. The first was in the late afternoon as soon as we had cleared the more dangerous parts of Port-au-Prince. Jack asked everyone to stay in the car and took drink orders. It was well past dark by the second stop. There were no restrooms on the bus, so we all piled out and hobbled around the parking lot of the gas station, stretching our cramped muscles. One by one, we made our way across the unlit lot into the unlit building, using our cell phones to facilitate our activities.

We arrived in Petite Riviere late, the drivers pulling into the parking area of Le Manolo Inn. Jack supervised the unloading and distribution of luggage. Joanne, a veteran of many such trips, gratefully extracted herself from my armpit and handled room assignments. The rooms were comfortably spartan, most with multiple beds and a small dresser that doubled as a desk. I had a room to myself for that trip, but in the later trips, I would share a room with another group member.

Dinner had been ready for