A Wedding in Haiti (4 page)

To Limbé and Ennery, and the meeting with Pablo

The first city on the Haitian side is Ouanaminthe, a name so rich in vowels that I half expect those luxuriant sounds to spill over in wide avenues, verandas with bougainvillea pouring over trellises, ladies with parasols parading their finery.

But Ouanaminthe is a hot, dusty town of wooden huts lining the road, punctuated by the occasional concrete house—not unlike any number of towns on the other side. “It looks like the Dominican Republic,” I keep saying.

The road from Ouanaminthe to Cap-Haïtien is actually a very good one. We speed along, congratulating each other on our escapade at the border, and teasing Homero on his skill at bribery.
“Lamentablemente,”
he acknowledges, this is the way business is often done in the DR. He shares a story of visiting a national park recently with his young son, a boy of ten. No one was at the entrance gate to sell them tickets, so Homero and his son drove in, parked, and began their hike. A guard came running after them. He informed them that they had to drive back to the entrance and purchase their tickets. Homero explained that no one had been at the booth to sell them tickets. Well, then, father and son would have to come back another day, the guard persisted.

Again Homero used the magic words, “Isn’t there a way we can resolve this little problem here now?” Homero ended up paying the guard less than half the amount he would have paid for their two tickets. Homero’s son was shocked. “Papi, you corrupted a guard!” My glee dissipates, imagining that moment when a child’s fairy-tale vision of the world begins to crack.

As we near Cap-Haïtien, we rely on Leonardo to tell us where to turn. The map shows there is a bypass we can take, southwest to Limbé, where we’ll pick up Route 1. But unfortunately, Leonardo has only traveled back and forth on crowded buses or packed in the flatbed of a truck with two dozen migrating Haitians. At every crossroads, we have to stop so he can ask in Kreyòl where we can pick up Route 1. But calling what we’re looking for by its official name doesn’t work as well as calling it “the road to Limbé,” though sometimes the answers go in opposite directions. We might as well be asking, “How do we get to the gas station where Pablo is waiting for us?” It would probably get us better results.

How
do
we find the gas station where Pablo is waiting? Once we’re reasonably sure we’re on Route 1 and headed for Limbé, we start worrying about our rendezvous. Leonardo actually has a phone number for Pablo; the problem is that none of our Dominican cell phones seem to work in Haiti. But just then, as if a deus ex machina had been paid under the table to intervene on our behalf, we find ourselves driving past a large gas station. Surely, they will have a phone we can use.

We pull in, but unbelievably, there is no phone at the gas station. “So how do they order their gas? By passenger pigeon?” Bill quips testily. Thank goodness none of the attendants seem to understand English.

News spreads fast, and before we know it, a young man hurries over to the pickup carrying a cordless handset with a receiver: a roving phone booth, as it were. He dials the number himself and—it seems miraculous given this setup—Pablo answers! He’s already at the gas station past Ennery, waiting for us.

Again, we’re elated. Things are going to work out, after all. And maybe it’s the fact that he is already waiting for us that leads us to think that Ennery can’t be that far away. Leonardo guesses about an hour. Try three and a half hours on very bad roads full of what Bill calls craters, not potholes. No quaint towns or roadside stands or eating places break up our tediously slow, nerve-racking progress. The mountainous road is deserted except for the occasional bus packed with travelers or huge trucks carting fuel and supplies, all coming in the opposite direction, as if they know better than to be heading where we are going.

Like a kid on a long car trip, I keep asking, “Are we almost there?” Leonardo’s answers downgrade from smirking affirmations to gee-whiz shrugs, as if the roads in Haiti have been shuffled around in the two years since he has been gone.

But finally, we arrive at the station to find Pablo standing in front, holding a hanging bag to protect the suit he will wear to the wedding. Even without the hanging bag, the tall, handsome Pablo would stand out. My older sister, who is old enough to be his grandmother and still flirts with him, says Pablo is good-looking and knows it. He’s also a sweetheart of a guy. Tall, lanky, with long ropey arms, Pablo actually reminds me of Bill—that is if Bill were forty years younger, black, and not as stubborn.

I can see why I need not have worried over which gas station we would meet up in, because this is the only station we’ve encountered since we left Limbé hours ago. The station seems to be a hub: buses stop here; motorcycle taxis wait to give travelers a ride out to their rural houses. Several businesses flank the pumps, but it’s hard to tell what transaction takes place within them, as none of them have signs. They’re also closed, though it’s well past the noon lunch hour. The only thing open is the restaurant, but it, too, is deserted. No promising centerpieces of salt and pepper, no menus posted on the wall. There is a restroom, which does the job of eliminating any desire to eat here anyway. The toilet hasn’t been flushed in ages, and there’s no water at the small sink, which explains the big barrel of standing water by the door.

Out in the restaurant, a young woman stands at a counter watching us. Behind her, there is a kitchen area with empty shelves. Perhaps all the food got cooked up at noon. There seems to be nothing to order except a Haitian beer named Prestige.

“It tastes a lot like Presidente,” Bill says, comparing it to the popular Dominican beer. The names also strike me as similar: Prestige, Presidente. Maybe both beer companies used the same advertising firm, specializing in developing markets in the Third World. A clever if cynical approach: pump up the poor with a little boost of self-importance as they gulp down their alcohol on an empty stomach.

On the road to Bassin-Bleu

We hurry our rest stop, as it’s already midafternoon. A longer road awaits us, which, according to both Pablo and Leonardo, is even worse than the one we were on, unpaved and washed out in places. And now that Pablo has joined us, we have the numbers problem I never did figure out in my sleepless travels. How are we going to get six people inside the cab?

Someone will have to ride in back on the flatbed. Leonardo out-and-out refuses, upsetting Bill, who’s already frustrated with our useless guide. But I can understand how the young man feels: after a two-year absence, he wants to arrive home in style, not coated in white dust from the unpaved road.

The gallant Pablo offers to ride in back. (No wonder the ladies fall for him!) But the road sends up such a dense cloud that we can’t even see Pablo through the back window. We stop. We’re not letting Pablo, or anybody, for that matter, ride in back. They’ll be asphyxiated, not just coated with white dust.

“This is the way to become a white man in Haiti,” Pablo jokes.

Somehow we pack four of us in that backseat, stopping only once at a roadside display where over a dozen women are selling mangoes. Each one has laid out her wares, basins and buckets overflowing with every conceivable size and color of mango, from a deep orange the size of a baseball to a yellow-green the shape of a sweet potato. Since we haven’t met many vehicles on the road, where are these women planning to find customers?

It must be their lucky day, because soon after we stop, a truck pulls over, loaded with cane chairs and women sitting on sacks of charcoal. It turns out they aren’t stopping to buy mangoes but to check us out.

The driver climbs down from his cab, taking this opportunity for a pit stop right on the road. But no one is looking at him. They’re all intrigued with us, and as the only woman, with me. Comments and calls waft down.

In response, I reach my hands to them, and then, punch-silly from the terrible road, I call up, “Oh angels from on high, send your blessings down on me!” Pablo translates. The women must think this is hilarious, because they burst into laughter. Maybe there’s a future for me as a stand-up comic in Haiti?

The stop lightens our spirits. There is something blessed about connecting with people so seemingly different with something as simple as laughter, though I suppose it would also work with tears.

From Pablo, who has been in most recent contact, we find out that we will actually be meeting up with Piti in Bassin-Bleu, an hour south of Port-de-Paix. Piti’s family lives up in the mountains, west of the city, but Pablo believes the wedding will be taking place in a church right in town. It makes sense for us to stay in a hotel in Bassin-Bleu and not head out to the countryside tonight to be introduced to Piti’s family, whom we will meet tomorrow at the wedding anyway. After nine hours on the road, it feels good to anticipate our arrival.

Bassin-Bleu, Bassin-Bleu, Bassin-Bleu,
the alliterative name becomes my mantra. The promise of a bath, supper, a night of rest . . . A Graham Greene scene begins playing in my head—the handicap of readers whose first experience of a place is often in print: expats with a past, beautiful women, a terrace, palm trees swaying under the stars, soft lights at the bar, drinks with little umbrellas, hip-swaying music. What will I order for dinner?

But after a couple of hours, the hot, gritty reality breaks in. Spirits flag. We are weary, we are hungry, cramped and cranky inside the cab. The going is rough: washed-out roads, impromptu detours through dried riverbeds. Suddenly I start wondering what would happen if it should rain? What if the rivers flood? We’ve taken the precaution of bringing a tarp to protect our luggage, but what about our lives? More immediately, what if the pickup breaks down?

Almost as if in answer, we come upon a stand, a shredded tarp thrown over four poles. Nailed to the poles are horizontal bars draped with every conceivable automotive part you can think of.

It looks like a vehicle has been disemboweled and its entrails are on display. Hanging from a nearby branch, a sign reads:

JEAN JONAS AUTOPARTS

PIECES POUR: TOYOTA-ISUZU

GROS CAMION-MOTO-BICYCLETTE

That about covers everything we’ve seen on this road. No sign, however, of Jean Jonas, though across the way, there is a church made of small river stones. It must have taken forever to build, but at least the materials were portable. The church is locked up, not a soul in sight. But perhaps Jean Jonas is inside praying for a customer as we ride by.