the following four days were the most intensely frustrating, and ultimately rewarding days we've ever spent. i'm trying to document this now while it's raw and present not only to try and remember things as they happened, but to honestly get rid of some of it.
the crew:
me
g: my wife
nadia: g's friend, haitian born and bred, american as an adult
wilguens: driver, translator, lady killer
toto: driver, sometime translator, funniest dude on the planet
the others:
madame: leader of the camp
#2: her second in command
R: madame's daughter
D: the baby's mother
day four (part I):
… i shared in an earlier post that we learned about D and the baby in stages, sometimes from pointed questions, sometimes from random asides. one stage i have not mentioned is learning in the past couple months that D and the baby aren't in the camp by happenstance. D is madame's younger sister …
today is our son's 4th birthday. it's a big one. the first he's really understood, and we're 1500 miles away. this doesn't sit well with me. yeah, he's surrounded by grandparents, cousins and total love, but this goes against a pact we made when i first held him alone in a hospital room waiting for g to emerge. we'd booked the tickets completely unaware. it's the mad quest we're involved in, but why does he have to suffer for it … or is it just me?
#2 arrived at our hotel while we were having breakfast. ordering food has been one of our great challenges since arriving at our "world-class dining" hotel (according to their myspace page … note to self, why don't all hotels use myspace?). the language barrier is exacerbated by dead-eyed stare waiters, and generally, no matter what you order, something else comes out … a really long time after you ordered it. our friends had gotten into the habit of calling in orders 45 minutes ahead of time. we had finally set up a code with the waiters. g would order eggs and bread. i swear they used 6 eggs. it's was literally a pile of eggs and french bread. fine, she was happy. it's not like you're ordering takeout in tabarre, haiti, or taking a walk to suss the food situation. i ordered, as always, the fromage sandwich. as i've mentioned before, fromage doesn't mean cheese, it means HAM and cheese. they watched day after day and meal after meal as i removed the meat in front of them, but i couldn't get through and spare the pig in the backyard. the sandwich was soaked with onions and ketchup. i just plowed through. it was sustenance. oddly, it tasted almost identical to a whopper. #2 sat, and i asked if he would like to order. he said yes.
g went back to the room to get things ready for our drive. our entourage was still on its way. i decided to use this time to get as much information out of #2 as i could. he was definitely in cahoots with madame, but he had something in his eyes that she didn't. a tinge that he had life left in him for good (as i kept repeating to myself). it was mixed with a world weariness, but i would take that. miraculously, his food arrived within minutes. before i could ask him my next question, he looked at me and said, 'you are a great man'. i readily assured him i was not a great man, that i was a lucky man, lucky not to be in such a place with no options. he referred to french translations of our bios we had given them yesterday at the camp. as they gave us documents, he asked if they could see some of ours to let them get a feel for the two of us. we readily agreed. it was standard stuff, well, when you are asked to provide a living history of yourself to now … born, schooled, traveled a bit, wrote some newspaper articles, wrote some songs, moved here, met a girl, used to do this, now does this, had a kid … to me, it was a clumsily prepared study of mismanagement. a concise look at a threadbare line connecting the random dots of my life. however, through his words, i had lived a life of wonderment. i was a rich man. but at that moment i wanted him to read a dossier of the random stupid destructive shit i've done in my life. the days i've wasted, the mindless detours i've followed cause i could ... cause in the back of my mind i knew i had safety nets ... i know, life isn't fair, it's drilled into us every day. i get it. i just don't have to agree with it. but, i had to focus. he had answers to questions i needed to know.
tell me about madame … 'she started bringing orphans into her father's home at 16 and never looked back. mother theresa type stuff. this camp has run for 22 years'. does she own the camp? … 'yes, but not the property where the tents are across the way. the children were moved there after the earthquake destroyed much of the camp'. why isn't your camp sanctioned by the government? ... 'well, we've submitted all the paperwork, but in haiti, you must know someone'. in 22 years, you don't know someone??? what's your long-range goal with the kids? … 'madame has bought an acre of land on the other side of cabaret'. really? can we see it? … 'of course, we'll see it today. on the way to meet the father'. this was big news. we'd been involved with the camp for months now, but had never gotten wind of this. as we wound down, he looked at me and said, 'she is your baby now, but the children at the camp are all of your children'. i assured him that we would continue to aid the kids.
nadia and crew arrived and we fashioned a crude custody release document for the father to sign. we were set to go.
i could drive the route to cabaret in my sleep at this point. the sidewalks and the roads through tabarre were packed this sunday morning. g and i exchanged occasional glances reminding each other to breathe. toto blared the radio and blasted the air conditioning as we broke through to the countryside.
we took a right shortly before entering cabaret. suddenly it dawned of me that this was either the father we were meeting or the new camp. i really wish i knew which. all in the know were in the lead car. we drove up a rocky hill and stopped the car. i exhaled, it was the new camp. the property was impressive. a nice piece of land with a cinderblock house under construction ('madame's house'). the children would stay in tents in the yard. there was a river behind the house, ocean in the distance, and several occupied smaller houses scattered across the hills. we hurried back to our cars for the next stop.
we approached a man fitting the description sitting on a fence beside the road. #2 jumped out first and presented documents. i made eye contact with the young man and took his picture. i felt like a complete asshole as i held the camera, but this will mean everything to her one day. he sat back on the fence and looked at the document. #2 pointed 'sign here'. g and i gritted and stared at one another as pen erased blood. within a minute, we were back in the car, and he walked back into the woods. silence.
we anticipated madame would have one last play before the day was over. we had all agreed to stay as calm as possible. not ask the questions that we had animatedly batted around the evening before, where we concocted our own versions of where money and food was going, and our own versions of justice. stay just as long as we needed. we had to meet the lawyer back at the hotel later that afternoon to give him the documents and receive his blessing that the transfer could occur. time was ticking.
the kids … the kids rushed us as we entered. we knew it would be our last chance with them for months, so we led them with us to the meeting spot. D and the baby were there. D looked settled, and we all took turns helping the baby take her steps around the camp. i asked nadia to accompany me to meet with madame. we met her and i explained we had been told of the neediness of the camp. i explained to her that we didn't come with much cash, but i would help her out. i gave her some money and gave her my word that we would be in contact in the coming week about new supplies. i walked out feeling confident. wilguens, g, D and the baby were walking out of the camp and to the cars. i joined them. we were getting out.
we sat around the car and joked. one thing about this trip, as stressful as it was, it seemed we were laughing 90% of the time. the crew that we'd assembled had grown into a family. our drivers who started doing this as a job had grown so completely invested that they took key negotiations into their own hands before translating, and we were comfortable with it. they were our guys. wilguens was flirting with camp girls, toto was trying to nap … but we noticed nadir had been missing for about 20 minutes. we asked wilguens to go find her. 10 minutes passes and he doesn't come back. finally nadia emerges stone faced and asks that g and i come with her to talk to madame. as we walk forward a simple thought is proffered silently, 'do what i do, say what i say'. we meet madame. she echoes #2 from the breakfast, 'you must take these as your children' … yes, yes, we assure her, we're sending doctors next month-- these kids are sick, and we will continue to send doctors … and abruptly, almost comically abruptly, it ends. she asks that all return so that we can pray.
a group consisting of myself, g, D, baby, madame, nadia, #2 and wilguens convened in her 12 x 12 room. it was humid and hot as blazes. out of nowhere, the kids started streaming in. soon we numbered 25-30. madame began a long prayer. it was in turns beautiful and guilt ridden. a celebration of a send-off shared with kids we'd grown to adore, many of whom who would never leave a mile of this place. slowly we filed out, and said goodbyes. as we got into our cars, the sky turned black. within half a minute of our leaving the camp, it was pouring rain ... poetry.
we'd decided it would be best if D and the baby traveled with the haitians. i don't know, maybe a last ride alone with your daughter without us getting in the way? mainly, let her be surrounded by people with which she can converse. i'd grown comfortable around D. i was no longer sneaking pictures of her and the baby when she wasn't looking, but we were the people taking her baby. wilguens was an amazing go between. they were both 26, and while they lived on opposite ends of the haitian spectrum, she seemed to trust him. she needed that. driving through cabaret the rain broke as quickly as it had started and we sat in silence.
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