I had to respond to a job question while looking for jobs this summer. One question asked about my most memorable outdoor experience. Here is what I wrote. I ended up writing about Haiti. So here you go. Long and not really as detailed as I would like.
That is an extremely hard question. The first two thoughts that came to my head are: Rafting the Grand Canyon and flipping a raft two times within 15 minutes on the Illinois River in the middle of nowhere. Both of those have been unbelievable experiences that I will never forget.
To answer the question, one experience stands out more than any other. It did not take place in the Pacific Northwest but it is my most memorable outdoor experience. I took a trip to Haiti three weeks ago. Despite multiple warnings from the U.S. Embassy in Haiti three friends and I decided to make it happen. Perhaps this trip is most memorable to me because it is fresh on my mind and because it was life changing. Sometimes I feel like living in the Dominican Republic is living in a “third world country.” Haiti made the Dominican Republic look like the cleanest most sophisticated country in the world. Little did I know what an extreme case could look like.
The best way I can try and describe Haiti to a Pacific Northwest audience would be to compare it to Tijuana, except on a much larger scale and much worse. Forget plumbing, fast food, supermarkets, clean water, bathrooms, and more.
Porto-Prince, the capital is very tough to swallow. There is poverty everywhere and it is in your face constantly. Two of our members had volunteered for the peace corp. previously in their lives and both spent time in Kenya and Uganda. They said that if they were placed in Haiti without knowing where they were they would guess Africa.
In most struggling countries they still have an area where you can go to get a pizza or a Big Mac, not Haiti. The food was one of the hardest things for me to get use to. It is real hard to order any type of meat when you are driving down the street seeing pigs, goats, dogs, chickens all rummaging through piles of garbage and human waste. I did manage to eat a lot of rice and beans and prepackaged cookies.
Porto-Prince was now behind us and things started to shape up. We first caught a ride in a Tap-Tap (public transportation in the back of a truck) three hours south to the coast town of Jacmel. Jacmel is supposed to be a tourist town but I did not see any tourism at all. In fact everywhere we went in the entire country the children would yell “Blanc.” This means white in Creole in case you did not catch onto that. While in Jacmel we hiked into this beautiful set of waterfalls called Basin Blue. The water was bright blue and the waterfalls made for great rock climbing and cliff jumping.
When returning to town one of our crew said,” I have to get out of Haiti.” He enjoyed it but it was a little too much for him at this point in his life. The only way to leave the country realistically was to go back to Porto-Prince, the place we all dreaded. We did not feel safe leaving him on his own until he was on the bus headed back to Santo Domingo.
We got up at 4:00 a.m. to make sure he was able to catch the one bus for the day leaving from Porto-Prince. We made it just in time and then faced our own decisions. We knew we wanted to see more of Haiti and had to get out of the dreadful city. Immediately we went to the local bus stop. Our goal was to take one bus the entire 9 hours to the north coast town of Cape Haitian. The school bus was full of sixty or more Haitians, half of which were standing. This gave us three decisions. We could wait for another bus in the blazing sun for many hours with sewage everywhere, push our way onto the crowded bus, or ride on top. Riding on top won after careful debate. Okay, not really. We had to move on and that was that. It turned out to be one of the most memorable experiences of my life. We experienced the entire country side riding 9 hours on top of a school bus in the beating sun. We did have a few people join us on top and a lot of luggage. We drove through extreme dessert, lush crops, irrigated fields and large mountains with rivers. The bus did stop a couple times for a bathroom break which was an unusual occurrence in itself. When the bus stopped people got out to go to the bathroom immediately. Men and woman, boys and girls all together on the side of the road with no trees or rocks to hide behind. We just let it all go with no worries.
Eventually we made it to the north coast and spent two days in a hotel with no running water. We had to take bucket baths and use the bucket for the bathroom. During our time on the north coast we visited the Citadel and Sansouci. The Citadel is an enormous fortress from the 1700’s with 12 feet thick walls. It was built to fend off the French while Haiti fought for there independence. No battles were ever fought here. The Citadel was pristine in a country with so little. It had old preserved cannons with engravings from the 1700’s. It looked like a castle in the middle of Scotland. Sansouci was very impressive in itself although an earthquake had done its damage. Sansouci was the oldest palace of the country. At one time in the world it was regarded as one of the nicest palaces in the world. In fact, Haiti was at one time the richest country in the world according to them.
In closing, there are no words to describe my most memorable trip to Haiti. Pictures probably do the best job of telling the story. Perhaps a quote from a Haitian friend may help, " I can not believe you did some of the stuff you did." It is a simple quote that has little meaning behind it unless you know the environment within Haiti. We experienced poverty first hand but more importantly we experienced the Haitian people. If I was to give advice on this country I would definitely recommend it. I think every person should experience something like this in there lifetime to really appreciate what we have. I experienced beautiful waterfalls, mountains, culture, language, and most of all people. We never felt at risk and loved our time with the Haitian people. I would only suggest avoiding Porto Prince and be prepared for an eye opener.
To answer the question, one experience stands out more than any other. It did not take place in the Pacific Northwest but it is my most memorable outdoor experience. I took a trip to Haiti three weeks ago. Despite multiple warnings from the U.S. Embassy in Haiti three friends and I decided to make it happen. Perhaps this trip is most memorable to me because it is fresh on my mind and because it was life changing. Sometimes I feel like living in the Dominican Republic is living in a “third world country.” Haiti made the Dominican Republic look like the cleanest most sophisticated country in the world. Little did I know what an extreme case could look like.
The best way I can try and describe Haiti to a Pacific Northwest audience would be to compare it to Tijuana, except on a much larger scale and much worse. Forget plumbing, fast food, supermarkets, clean water, bathrooms, and more.
Porto-Prince, the capital is very tough to swallow. There is poverty everywhere and it is in your face constantly. Two of our members had volunteered for the peace corp. previously in their lives and both spent time in Kenya and Uganda. They said that if they were placed in Haiti without knowing where they were they would guess Africa.
In most struggling countries they still have an area where you can go to get a pizza or a Big Mac, not Haiti. The food was one of the hardest things for me to get use to. It is real hard to order any type of meat when you are driving down the street seeing pigs, goats, dogs, chickens all rummaging through piles of garbage and human waste. I did manage to eat a lot of rice and beans and prepackaged cookies.
Porto-Prince was now behind us and things started to shape up. We first caught a ride in a Tap-Tap (public transportation in the back of a truck) three hours south to the coast town of Jacmel. Jacmel is supposed to be a tourist town but I did not see any tourism at all. In fact everywhere we went in the entire country the children would yell “Blanc.” This means white in Creole in case you did not catch onto that. While in Jacmel we hiked into this beautiful set of waterfalls called Basin Blue. The water was bright blue and the waterfalls made for great rock climbing and cliff jumping.
When returning to town one of our crew said,” I have to get out of Haiti.” He enjoyed it but it was a little too much for him at this point in his life. The only way to leave the country realistically was to go back to Porto-Prince, the place we all dreaded. We did not feel safe leaving him on his own until he was on the bus headed back to Santo Domingo.
We got up at 4:00 a.m. to make sure he was able to catch the one bus for the day leaving from Porto-Prince. We made it just in time and then faced our own decisions. We knew we wanted to see more of Haiti and had to get out of the dreadful city. Immediately we went to the local bus stop. Our goal was to take one bus the entire 9 hours to the north coast town of Cape Haitian. The school bus was full of sixty or more Haitians, half of which were standing. This gave us three decisions. We could wait for another bus in the blazing sun for many hours with sewage everywhere, push our way onto the crowded bus, or ride on top. Riding on top won after careful debate. Okay, not really. We had to move on and that was that. It turned out to be one of the most memorable experiences of my life. We experienced the entire country side riding 9 hours on top of a school bus in the beating sun. We did have a few people join us on top and a lot of luggage. We drove through extreme dessert, lush crops, irrigated fields and large mountains with rivers. The bus did stop a couple times for a bathroom break which was an unusual occurrence in itself. When the bus stopped people got out to go to the bathroom immediately. Men and woman, boys and girls all together on the side of the road with no trees or rocks to hide behind. We just let it all go with no worries.
Eventually we made it to the north coast and spent two days in a hotel with no running water. We had to take bucket baths and use the bucket for the bathroom. During our time on the north coast we visited the Citadel and Sansouci. The Citadel is an enormous fortress from the 1700’s with 12 feet thick walls. It was built to fend off the French while Haiti fought for there independence. No battles were ever fought here. The Citadel was pristine in a country with so little. It had old preserved cannons with engravings from the 1700’s. It looked like a castle in the middle of Scotland. Sansouci was very impressive in itself although an earthquake had done its damage. Sansouci was the oldest palace of the country. At one time in the world it was regarded as one of the nicest palaces in the world. In fact, Haiti was at one time the richest country in the world according to them.
In closing, there are no words to describe my most memorable trip to Haiti. Pictures probably do the best job of telling the story. Perhaps a quote from a Haitian friend may help, " I can not believe you did some of the stuff you did." It is a simple quote that has little meaning behind it unless you know the environment within Haiti. We experienced poverty first hand but more importantly we experienced the Haitian people. If I was to give advice on this country I would definitely recommend it. I think every person should experience something like this in there lifetime to really appreciate what we have. I experienced beautiful waterfalls, mountains, culture, language, and most of all people. We never felt at risk and loved our time with the Haitian people. I would only suggest avoiding Porto Prince and be prepared for an eye opener.
2 comments:
Ryan,
You did a great job writing about Haiti. I'm sure it was hard to put in to words all you experienced but you described it well. I'm sure you'll never forget this trip! What I like the most about what you wrote is how you came to love the people. I'm sure they fell in love with you too!
Glad you're home safe now! Thanks for writing such a great story of your time in Haiti.
Love you, Mom
WOW! I've just taken a few minutes to look over your blog...its been a while! Amazing pictures and incredible stories!! I'm so happy you are truely living your dream. I am also glad you "found the words". It's a great reminder to be thankful for what we have even if I'm not in Haiti, your words helped me do so.
Renee
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