16 days of bon bagay

my introduction to haiti was a bumpy ride in the middle of the night, dodging unpredictable traffic and potential protest, headed to a city called tomazo for a quick cafe et pan break before hoping on a moto for a two-hour scenic route through the mountains to st. pierre, a small town in gran bois. i spent seven days in St. Pierre; paying close attention to nature, learning about the history of @beastmodeberc's family, fetching my own water, climbing mountaintops, taking creole lessons from 13-year-old samael and becoming very familiar with the latrine. in that remote space, i also admittedly burnt trash i helped to accumulate. i'm no proud about it but waste management is non existent, and haitians would rather burn trash than see it mess up their landscape, and so i let it burn. after that, i blasted back down the mountain during the sunrise, watching the sunlight illuminate pieces of the landscape hill by hill. with my haitian family, we thrusted ourselves through port-a-prince morning traffic to a distant family members house for a quick meal, and then another 30 minutes to leogane, a southern town with a mix of city bussle and coastal chill. there i caught up with @beastmodeberc on all tings: planning for the rest of the trip, financial commitments, relationships, etc. we slept on the porch that night and the next day took care of some errands and headed straight to fayette, her father's hometown for a night in the country. we forcefully crossed le rivierre gran and hung with the locals at bercy beach, where they conveniently played migos to welcome us to their wonderful natural splash park. next, there were a couple of days of airport pick ups, service projects, and dinners cooked by tati carol. the last stop for the trip was the opportunity to relax on the beach, talk to le sirens de mere and train people for the beach bum olympics.

haiti was life changing; another coming of age.