First Field Trip

Today was a very exciting day for Respire Haiti Christian School – the students went on their very first FIELD TRIP! It made me think back to when I was a kid in school, some of the most memorable days I had were field trips. And its so important for kids to get out and see their world. My mom shared some horrific story with me the other day about impoverished kids in north Baton Rouge, a place that is plagued with poverty and violence. A group working with youth there asked a group of about 40 kids or so to raise their hand if they have ever seen the Mississippi River (> 5 miles away). About 5 kids raised their hands. Five. That horrified me and made so much sense at the same time. You can’t be aware of what else there is, of what possibilities are out there, unless you go see! So needless to say, I was SO excited for this little trip.

So this morning the buses are supposed to pick us up at 10 am. They of course don’t show until 10:45 since we’re way on island time here. But by 11 we have 131 kids, 4 teachers, the director of discipline, the assistant principal, the principal and several white people chaperones piled onto two buses. Destination: the National Museum of Haiti in Port au Prince. I get on a normal looking old school bus then look over back up the mountain and realize the other bus is one of those party bus extended tap-tap things, hah. I am a bit jealous. Especially after I hear that something is wrong with this bus and we will have to stop in Carrefour and switch to a different bus… Hm, it seems quite possible this bus might explode in between here and there. Before we leave, the school disciplinarian (who wears these great Men in Black shades) leads the kids in a song and prayer. That makes me feel a little bit better about the defective bus trip. I keep praying for it not to explode anyway after this prayer is finished…

And off we go! Occasionally the other bus passes us and I hear loud dance music playing and see kids laughing and waving out the window at us – they’re totally having a party on the extended tap-tap party bus. Still a little jealous. Somewhere in Mariani we have to pull over and buy water for the driver to pour under the hood of the bus, presumably to keep it from exploding. One of the kids asks Megan where we are and when she replies, “Mariani,” the kid exclaims, “Oooh! Miami!” A little further down the road we get into Carrefour and shuffle all the kids out of the potentially explosive bus onto a white and blue school bus. We take off again at a much faster clip and end up in PAP in no time. Unfortunately, in the new bus I get stuck sitting in a seat directly behind the back wheel; and soon the incredibly bad roads mixed with the incredibly bad stench of Haiti and motor oil has me feeling a bit queasy. I apologize to the kid I’m sitting with and run up towards the front of the bus and squish into a seat with some girls who are probably wondering what they did to deserve having me come sit almost on top of them. But everyone is a good sport, I don’t barf, and we make it to the museum all in one piece!

Bernard and I in front of the entrance to the museum.

Once we get there, Megan goes in to pay for everyone and I potter about the street with some of the other adults. We’re on Champ de Mars: the big street with the palace, this funky monument that looks like a space ship, and other various government buildings. Great place for sight seeing. Its after noon and I figure now is a good time for some lunch so I pull out my granola bar. Many of the kids brought lunch from home as well and happily share their spaghetti, chicken, fired plantains, picklies, etc. with one another. I try to ask a kid if he’ll share one of his fried potatoes with me, and this creeps him out. So instead I walk over to Alex and bum some plantains off him that he just bought from a street vendor.

Finally the museum is ready for us! We commence the arduous task of making the kids line up two-by-two, Noah style!, in an attempt at a buddy system. We have everyone good to go and lined up outside the door waiting for another group to exit when the OCD museum security guard comes over and tells us to line up our pairs in height order. And he means EXACT height order. So we scramble the kids around and have everyone looking sharp in an ascending line. Then! Drum role please… We ENTER.

I run to the front of the line and lead them in because I’m probably more excited than half of them. The museum is actually much nicer than I expect inside with marble floors, nice lighting, and, get this, air conditioning. Several kids are very confused as to why its so cold in here and keep asking the chaperones. The OCD security guard catches up with us inside and literally grabs each child to line them up exactly as he sees fit. And after taking several minutes to do so, we are met by our lovely tour guide. She obviously speaks Creole to the kids and all of the plaques are in French, so I really don’t know what’s going on. I follow Bernard around and try to get him to summarize everything she is saying for me. Once I learn that the giant thing we’re standing in front of is actually the tomb of Toussaint L’overture and Jean Jacque Dessalines, I am SO excited! Apparently Haiti went over to France and had to ask for Toussaint’s bones back… and France was like, “Uh, sure. You can have him.” So now you can see his tomb at Haiti’s museum. COOL.

The museum tells the story of Haiti’s history. The exhibit following the tomb is of all sorts of artifacts from the Indians that inhabited Hispaniola before the Spanish showed up and wrecked everything. Speaking of Spaniards, the next exhibit was about Christopher Columbus, and get this yo, they had the ACTUAL anchor from the SANTA MARIA in the museum!! I flip out! THE Santa Maria, as in the Nina, the Pinta, and Santa Maria. (The Nina was always my favorite as a child because I thought it had the prettiest name). Next was an exhibit on the slave ships that brought over Africans to harvest sugar cane. Then came exhibits on the revolution. They had Petion’s (as in Petionville) drum on display, which I think is super cool but then learn it was his voodoo drum to summon spirits with. This creeps me out a little bit. They say the revolutionaries made a deal with the devil to gain Haiti’s independence. The country was founded on slavery and voodoo and you can still see the ugly scars of these things today – violence, cruelty, darkness, death, spiritual bondage. The nation’s dark history helps to make so much sense of its current situation. I am given so much to think about at the museum and learn a lot! And I have to say, the kids are so, so well behaved on this trip. We were all extremely proud of them!!

After our tour wraps up, we head back out to the street. Bernard, one of the interns Amanda, and I walk over to the palace to take some pictures while we wait for the other group to finish their tour. The palace is such an eerie reminder of the total destruction of the earthquake touching every part of this place from the bottom to the very top.

Once everyone is back on the street, we pile back into the buses. I make a beeline for the very front seat determined not to get carsick this time. I settle into my seat and before you know it, am totally passed out with my mouth open. Probably caught some flies and ate a lot of dust…  I wake up somewhere on the edge of PAP going into Carrefour to the sound of our driver obnoxiously blaring the horn which sounds like some big rig honking. We’ve gotten into some sort of traffic jam, big surprise (not). I look down and realize the bus horn sounds when he mashes these two bare-ended wires together that shoot sparks out when they touch. I stare at him doing this for awhile, totally entertained by the way people rig things up on cars here and the fact that he’s probably shocking himself every time he honks at someone. Oh Haiti.

We get home sometime later all in one piece, and by the grace of God, with no missing children! Woohoo! Respire Haiti Christian School’s first field trip was a smashing success indeed.