Preparing for Haiti

Tomorrow I go to Haiti.  I’ve been looking forward to it for a while, but now that it’s upon me, I’m nervous.  I tend to get like that before trips that I know will stretch me.  And usually those are trips to very poor countries. 

The first time I went to Mexico, I was excited but afraid of everything.  When we drove through downtown Ensenada that night, on our way to the camp we were staying at in the hills outside of the city, I was afraid to eat the food at Burger King.  Yes, Burger King.  Not some street-side taco stand, but a reputable, international restaurant chain.  My stomach was in knots that only untied slowly, over the course of a few days.

Before I went to Bolivia, I was similarly anxious.  I had to visit the doctor in Argentina, where I was living at the time, and get a tetanus shot, a hepatitis shot, and a yellow fever vaccination.  It all seemed like a big deal.  I was nervous about eating the food in Bolivia, nervous about accidentally contracting something and ending up in a hospital or wrapped around a toilet.  And yet, the only place I got sick during my seven months in South America that year was in Argentina, one of the wealthiest, most comfortable countries on the continent.  I guess that’s what I get for trusting the quality of meat at “the end of the world” in Tierra del Fuego.

Now, like the first time I went to Mexico and the first time I went to Bolivia, I’m going to a country that’s poorer than any other I’ve been to.  “The poorest country in the Western Hemisphere,” is the oft-quoted phrase that follows Haiti like a voodoo curse.  I’m uneasy any time I’m entering a place that’s poorer than any other I’ve been to.  Bolivia is still holds the title of the poorest place I’ve been.  But after tomorrow, that label will belong to Haiti. 

I talked briefly with Mark—one of the people joining me for the trip—about my nervousness.  And it helped.  Just like writing this helps.  Now, maybe the only thing I really have to dread is the 4+ hour drive from here in the Dominican Republic to Gressier, just west of Port-au-Prince.