Back to Cap Haitien Again.

I ended up leaving Sacre Coeur a day early to relish the American comforts of an air conditioned room, a soft bed and no midnight roosters before heading back to the USA.  I’m staying at a charming little hotel in Cap Haitien called Mont Joli.  I highly recommend it to anyone who is coming down this way.  My wife asked me to describe Cap Haitien, the (I believe ) second largest city in Haiti.

Cap Haitien Harbor

Cap Haitien, is very, very dirty.  Piles of trash line the streets as well as the drainage ditches which run alongside the streets. The drainage ditches have become backed up from all the trash obstructing them filling them with a gooey, mossy, green sludge.   The roads are unpaved and very dusty.  Dog feces, flies and mosquitoes are everywhere.  It is very loud.  Humans unashamedly relieve themselves right in the middle of the street.  Most of the buildings are crumbling and disintegrating.  

Everywhere you walk 4 or 5 guys tag along beside you and tell you how hungry they are .  They ask why can’t you just spare a few dollars for them.   I had two young men follow me all the way up to the hotel entrance before the staff shooed them off. Not that I blame them, after all, the average Haitian wage amounts to about $20 a month!     

I haven’t been able to take many pictures because if you take your camera out on the streets here, you might as well put a big, red bullseye on your chest.

That being said, for reasons I can’t explain, I really like it here!  There is so much color and personality!  There is a vibrancy you just don’t see in US cities!  

People who have worked in Africa tell me this area is a lot like Nigeria.  They also say most of Africa has much better sanitation than Haiti does.  Although that does surprise me, I suppose it would not be hard to do!  Sanitation is clearly, as I see it, the major challenge for this country.

Tomorrow I head home.  I will be very excited to see my family, but I will miss it here.  For all its shortcomings,  Haiti really grew on me.  I have never met a tougher, more resilient people in all my years of traveling. I never once heard a Haitian complain about anything during my time here.  

It will be a few days before my next post.  It will take a few days to reflect and ingest this whole experience.  I do wish to send a thank you to York Hospital.  Hundreds of dollars of drugs and equipment were donated by the hospital and my colleagues were quick  to cover my calls and late-shifts in my absence.  THANK YOU!