La Sous

While the rest of the crew has been out in the community for the first days of work I have been on base fabricating various components for school 7. Today I got to venture out into the community with a project at La Sous.

La Sous is the communal bathing area. Through an alley and down concrete steps there is a trough of running water from a spring. In the morning it is clear with minnows swimming against the current. As the day carries on adults and children come to bathe in the spring. Women sing songs while they wash laundry against the stone banks. Kids splash around and play games and men brush their teeth.

We walked through Leogane to get there, pushing wheel barrows full of tools and wood. In the morning the streets are busy with Trucks and motos occasionally stopping in the road to converse. Calls of "hey you," the standard greeting for internationals, come from the street side. We don't generally draw too much attention from the locals as they are used to the various NGO's that are present in there town.

At La Sous the people were interested in our activity. We were putting up form boards to repair a cinder block wall surrounding the spring. Locals helped with mixing concrete and fetching water. I went outside to nail up forms.

Behind the walls were chickens and a pig mulling around and clotheslines with lundry out to dry. I met two children back there. A girl with her hair in braids, wearing a green dress and a shirtless boy with a cone shaped protrusion at his naval.

"Hey you," the girl said.

"Komen ou e?'" I replied.

"Pas mal"

They started pointing at my nail bags and speaking creole until one grabbed my carpenters pencil and declared, " crayon."

"Oui, crayon."

I drew pictures on the form boards for them and they called out the names. First an eye, "je." Then a nose, "nen." Then lips, "bouch." The girl grabbed my pencil and drew a man with a frowning face and pointed at me. I motioned "why do I have a frown," and she motioned under her nose the shape of a moustache and said "bab." Beard.

By now the crowd of children had grown and my creole had reached it's limit. I turned around to continue to work but the "hey you's" continued. I used the only word I knew in creole to express what I needed to do, "travay." Work. I must have said it too melodically because the children began to sing in chorus "travay".For the rest of the day I had a group of children following me around singing "hey you, travay".

One boy in particular, Jameson, who was no more than 10 was helpful . Whenever nails would fall he would collect them . If I needed a tool he would get it. I nicknamed him Bon Travay. He is never far behind and always eager. At the end of the day he carried a wheel barrow back to base. Unlike the other children who asked "hey you man, give me a dollar," Bon Travay never asked for money so I rewarded him at the end of the day with a Twix and a Propel drink mix.

At the end of the day we walked back through town carrying our tools. I heard a familiar "yip" and turned to se a tap-tap carrying the school 7 crew and the rest of the group covered in concrete dust. They offered me a ride but ahead was funeral procession of Haitians wearing clean suits and fedoras, well dressed woman crowded behind a hurse, led down the road by brass band. I decided to walk.

-Eric