Archive for May, 2000

I am currently reading James Michener’s “Alaska,” and it has brought several thoughts to my head. Some of what Michener speaks about is based on fictional characters while some are real. It has made me evaluate if I want to be a fictional or a historical character. Am I one or the other now? What does it take to be such a character? It always seems these characters, whether fictional or historical, are on great adventures. The question is: Do these characters realize that what they are doing is adventurous or has profound historical significance? Or is it possible that their lives move along the same way as people of this time do but are eventually immortalized by the glorification of their life story which seemingly generally happens by the passage of time? Does and adventurous story of our time have the same effect as a story of the past?

In some ways I [feel] am presently being immortalized. Many people I pass in my community know my name even though it may be the first time they’ve seen me. Children of remote communities know of my biking expeditions witin a day of my return. Children of 5 or 6 will remember as long as they live “the foreigner who could fly on his bike.” But will I be remembered in history books or recognized as a pioneer in a historical fiction novel of 2100? I doubt it. But why? Is it because most of the great human adventures of our planet have already been accomplished? Are there really any great adventures left for people of my generation? And is something like a continuous balloon flight around the world going to be considered a great adventure like 100 years from now? It seems like an adventure like that carries a tone of falseness with it.

What kind of likfe will you have to live now in order to be considered a historically significant human? Wil you have to accomplish a great athletic feat? Be part of a political revolution? Make a huge scientific discover? Where will the next heroes come from? And what will be the next great adventure.

Dear Friends and Family,

I’m going to keep this one short and sweet since I’m tired of writing now. Not that I have anything better to do, I’m just lazy. I hope you are all doing well there and enjoying the warm weather I hear you have been having (for those of you who live in Indiana). The weather here is kind of frustrating right now. Since it is the rainy season life slows down even more than usual. And since the roads and footpaths are so muddy, I can’t occupy myself by riding around and visiting people. There are also more mosquitoes and flies now than ever.

I am still hanging in here. The elections have gone fairly well so far. I think there were only two people killed on election day. They are not over however. For some reason the province where I live did not hold the elections. I haven’t yet found out why as while the international media has reported on the elections they have said nothing about the fact that a whole province hasn’t voted yet. The opposition party has also claimed that over 1 million votes are missing but they haven’t yet called for the elections to be annulled. We’ll wait and see what happens but it looks as though everything is going to pass peacefully.

I had a very interesting experience earlier this week. I won’t explain it in detail now because I am going to try to write a story about it for the local volunteer publication called Krik?Krak!. If I ever get it written I will send a copy to my Dad to send out. Anyway, they story is that mid-Sunday morning a woman in labor was brought into my yard. Evidently, she had been in labor for some time and so they came to my house looking for a Machin or car to take here to the hospital. Since I have no Machin she went right ahead and had a baby girl in the grass in my front yard. Luckily, Nikol was here and we helped her have the baby. After the placenta wouldn’t come out after some time I pushed it out of the uterus after consulting the book “Where There Is No Doctor.” So Nikol delivered a beautiful baby girl and I delivered a placenta. I guess I did a good job too because it all came out in one piece so we didn’t have to go digging around for the rest of it. You will get to hear the whole story after I write the article. Quite a few funny things happened so hopefully, I will be able to make the article funny.

I will be moving to a different house shortly. I have already made arrangements with Patou to rent a house of his close to Latiboliere. By the time you receive this I will probably be living there. I am moving because the house I’m living in now doesn’t have enough people around so I am spending too much time by myself. My new house has more neighbors, is close to Latiboliere where there is a larger community and more activities and of course there are more attractive young ladies nearby. I am planning on teaching an English class one or two times a week when I get there. I am excited but it is going to be a pain to move everything again.

Well, I’ll stop there for now. Take care everyone.

Mason

Well, the last two days have quite possibly been the worst tow days for me since I’ve been in Haiti. I’m not exactly sure why but I have been very depressed. I have even had some thoughts of going home. There are several reason why I think I have been so depressed. One of the major reasons is that I don’t feel like I have anyone to communicate with on a close, personal level. For a long time I relied on Nicole (my host family sister) to share my problems with but I hesitate to rely on her anymore because I feel, in some ways, she has begun to rely on our friendship too much. I think this has come about basically because Nicole herself doesn’t have any close friendships of her own. I also feel that she would like our friendship to move on to the next level and I certainly don’t want that. I guess I just feel really lonely. I have had virtually no physical contact with anyone since I’ve been here and I think that is getting to me. I know I haven’t hugged anyone since I went back home in January. I think I am a person that needs some physical contact from time to time. Along with the physical contact I need to have someone to share problems with. This person also needs to be able to understand what it is that I’m feeling. This is a quality that I would definitely have a problem finding in a Haitian. That raises another problem because on a general basis I mainly interact with other Haitians. Another problem I have been having which ma seem like a constant problem to others in stomach trouble I self-diagnosed myself with giardia and have been taking medicine for it. However, yesterday and today I have had very large stools and some stomach cramping. Right now I don’t know whether it is the medicine that’s doing this or something else. Anyway, when I am not feeling well it makes it hard to be confident and outgoing – tow properties need for making friend and interacting with other people. I also was very depressed after a visit from tow of my friends from Latiboliere. I was returing form a party in Provert in celebration of the Haitan flag when I met them on the road. They had been waiting at my house and were returning to Latiboliere when I met them. After Seeing me they decided to return to my house to visit with me some more. Almost immediately upon arrival at my house they started asking for me to give them things. For example, I have many breadfruit trees at my house so they basically told me to find someone to pick them some breadfruit. I told them the guy who picks or me wasn’t around and that most of them weren’t ripe yet. I forgot to mention they asked for the fruit bfore we even got to my house. They then asked or rather complained about not getting any breadfruit later after we had been visiting for some time. While I know these people are incredibly poor I con’t just go around giving out stuff all of the time. They just don’t ever seem to understand this. Also, every time they do this it always makes me wonder what it is that they are after. For example, I know think the only reason my two ‘friends’ from Latiboliere came to see me is because they wanted breadfruit. It makes it very hard to make friends this way. It’s very strange. It’s as if they just assume that I am going to give them gifts all of the time. This also reminds me that one fo the two friends that came to see me ahead already borrowed 250 gourdes from me. She had made friends with another foreigner with whom I was also. This mutual friend had promised to send Vista (the friend) $20 for her son’s baptism. However, Vista needed the money and it hadn’t hyet arrived so I loaned her the money. I also took photos for her at the party for her son. Anyway, when the money arrived instead of paying me back she spent the money on something else. I knew that I would probably never see the money again when I loaned it but she acts like it’s no big deal that she is not going to pay me back and she keeps asking me for stuff. It is just so depressing to deal with this kind of thing all of the time.