Oh...the places you will go.

- or the places you will have been. We just wrapped up a whopping 10 days away from "home" with Kànaval celebrations, a 5-day trip to the D.R. with our team, and a few days lounging at the beach in Labadee/Cap Haitien in the north.

Kànaval

Nothing but the biggest celebration to hit the Catholic world each year, Kànaval is the last great splash before Lent begins. In Haiti it's a break from daily routine, a chance to fe dezòd (go a little crazy), and an amazing marketing opportunity for Haitian companies. Since this is our first year, we decided to head south to the annual parade in Jacmel (usually a week earlier than the rest), a town known for elaborate papier-mâche costumery:

Our working hypothesis is that things creative in Haiti are usually
political or religious. Yes, that is a MINUSTAH man getting mauled by a tiger.

The team's excursion
The morning after we returned from Jacmel, we loaded our team into the "bus," as Sharon likes to call it (our Toyota Landcruiser; it seats 12 Americans or about 20 Haitians) and set out on the much-anticipated trip to the D.R. For 4 of our teammates, this would be the first time they left Haiti. (Last minute maneuverings: we still didn't have Fritzner's visa – it was dropped off at the Dominican embassy for processing, and was supposed to be ready the morning of our trip. Luckily for him, it was.) Our frontier crossing went off without a hitch, even though we were stopped at SEVEN police checkpoints after we entered the country. Does the same thing happens in the U.S. along the Mexico border, or is this just really over the top? A lot of Haitians do cross the border illegally to find work, so I guess this is the Dominican way to catch them. Still. Some of these checkpoints were only a mile apart from each other.

11 hours after leaving Desarmes we arrived in Piedra Blanca, home base of Floresta, a reforestation program actually working on both halves of the island. They have had amazing success working with the Dominican government, which has made reforestation a national priority. (Tourism is booming, and tourists would much rather see trees than bare burnt earth and some cacti.) We toured eucalyptus and cacao forests, and also checked out Floresta’s agricultural work: oregano, cilantro, and pineapple fields.

Pineapple.

Jean, looking both studious and majestic.

Chocolate in the wild.

Learning about organic fertilizer with Rafael, a Floresta agriculturalist.

Our last day was spent taking in the sights of Santo Domingo. The best part for us was listening to the reactions of our Haitian co-workers:

Fritzner screaming to Frantzo, “Look! a road over our heads!” as we went under an overpass.

Nahomie whispering, Mezanmi! (“Oh my gosh!”) as the gate lifted after we dropped in our toll. (Tolls!)

Total silence as we drove past a big TV billboard; they sat enraptured.

It was a little sad for us that things that are so routine for us (and are actually nearly outmoded – who doesn’t have EZ-Pass?) were so remarkable to them. We so admire the bravery and persistence of Haitians in just living, but feel frustrated that it has to be that way – but we’ll leave the complexities of development for another post.

Labadee/Cap Haitian (Okap)

We decided to hop off the bus in Port, as we had decided to use the 5-day Kànaval weekend to take the bus south to Les Cayes to visit a friend. At the last minute, we were made an offer we couldn't refuse. Kurt (our new Country Representative – hooray!) and his girlfriend Hillary were headed north to the beach at Labadee and to check out Kànaval in Okap. The huge advantages for us: we wouldn’t have to sit on buses for hours, we could check out a place we’ve heard is unmissably great, and they could drop us off at our doorstep afterwards. We're in.

The town of Labadee is pretty much owned by Royal Caribbean; they’ve fenced off a section of the beach as a huge tropical tourist playground. Since we were not guests of Royal Caribbean (we stayed at a beautiful fort-turned-hotel with a little beach) we were not able to access this wonderland, but gawked Haitian-style at the cruise ships that arrived in the bay each day. They’re huge!

The ethereal mosquito net in our hotel room. See the greenery
outside? And the fan in the corner? That's a little slice of heaven.

Our "roommate": an intrepid hermit crab.

The next day we took the boat taxi back to Cap Haitian for Kànaval. To give you a sense of what this is like in Port-au-Prince, thousands of glitter-covered Okappers dancing in the streets to the loudest music ever is considered pretty tame. It was fun to see everyone enjoying themselves, taking one day to dance away sorrows.

Returning home was bittersweet: we love to travel, but living out of a bag gets old after a week or so. Hello, garden! Hello, home cooking! We missed you.