A Wedding in Haiti (5 page)

Arrival at Bassin-Bleu

For the dangling carrot at the end of a nine-hour stick of bad roads, Bassin-Bleu turns out to be a disappointment. This is not the Bassin-Bleu you will get among the top hits if you Google
Bassin-Bleu, Haiti
. Instead, you’ll be directed to the beautiful waterfalls, also known as Bassin-Bleu, frequented by visitors in the hills west of Jacmel in the lusher, more prosperous south. This Bassin-Bleu is a dry, dusty city of empty streets and deserted-looking wooden houses. The few concrete residences have iron grilles in front, the doors locked, the windows closed, the shutters shut.

We park on the main thoroughfare, looking around for Piti. It occurs to me: where exactly in this city of thirty thousand are we to meet him? “Meet you in Bassin-Bleu” is not exactly like saying, “Meet you in the only gas station on the road between Limbé and Ennery.”

But by now, I’ve surrendered to the rhythms of this adventure, albeit with periodic attacks of anxiety, when the road washes out or the possibility of flash floods or other misadventures occur to me. I’m trusting in angels from on high to shed their blessings down on all of us. And this approach seems to be working: Pablo and Leonardo go in one of the houses and return with good news. They’ve called Piti, who is setting out right now from the countryside and should be here very soon. “Very soon” turns out to be another of those flexible terms, like “almost there.” We will wait for over an hour before Piti arrives.

“It seems the wedding will not be in Bassin-Bleu,” Pablo adds, as if this is an insignificant detail.

My heart sinks. Have we come so far for nothing? “So where is the wedding going to be?”

“Where the bride lives.”

“Where is that?”

“Just beyond where Piti’s family lives.”

I decide not to ask how far that is.

What’s surprising is that Pablo has found out this information, not from Piti himself, but from the inhabitants of the house where he made the phone call. According to them, there are no weddings scheduled in any of the Bassin-Bleu churches tomorrow.

How do they know? The city is sizable enough to merit its name on maps. But this is not the first time I’ve been astonished by the capacity of oral cultures in our so-called underdeveloped little countries to get the news out. By now, all of Bassin-Bleu must know about the arrival of three whites, one brown Dominican, and two Haitians, looking for a wedding that will not be taking place in any Bassin-Bleu church tomorrow.

In front of where we are parked, a couple of girls sit on a concrete stoop leading up to one of the locked houses. They watch us with sidelong glances, but continue with their work: one is braiding the other’s hair.

A young man in a sky-blue shirt with a Lacoste logo and a notebook approaches us. He looks professional, perhaps because of the notebook, the logo shirt, the folded arms of someone sizing us up. He knows a little English. “Hello, my friend, can I help you?” he asks me.

I smile, uneasily. Something about him reminds me of pushy salesladies following me around in a store. “No thank you. We are just waiting for a friend.”

The girl who was having her hair combed joins him, her front braiding still unfinished, so she has a wild Afro on the aft part of her head like the mane of a lion. As the pair examines me, their glances change from curiosity to a look of blatant appraisal that disappears me and sees only what of value I am wearing.

The girl starts in, pointing to a little medallion on a gold chain around my neck, and then to herself. I shake my head. Although she can’t understand me, I explain that it’s my Virgencita. She protects me. The girl points to my left hand. How about the rings? I explain: this is my wedding ring, this is my engagement ring. On my right hand are my high school graduation ring and a garnet ring that belonged to Bill’s mother. Suddenly, I see myself through this girl’s eyes: a white woman wearing a watch, a medallion, earrings, and
four
rings. I am a rich woman in Haiti and flaunting it.

“I am hungry,” the young man takes up the petitioning. “Give me something.” The plea becomes more and more insistent. The girl joins in. If the roadside encounter with the truckload of women early this afternoon was a moment of grace, all differences obliterated as we joined in laughter, this encounter is its opposite. A gulf has opened between us, one that cannot be bridged by humor or friendship or courtesy. I turn away, reduced to my possessions, feeling the insult of my presence in this place.

Meeting no success with me, they turn to the men in my party. The young woman asks the man in the blue shirt to translate a phrase for her. “Come to me,” she repeats, addressing Homero, who grins and shrugs. She gets the same response from Eli and Bill. Leonardo and Pablo have been hanging back, not fully understanding that this is not a friendly encounter. But now they come forward and extricate us.

Accommodations?

While we are waiting for Piti, we decide to check out the hotels. We ride down to the corner gas station, and a discussion ensues in Kreyòl. We finally get the translation: it turns out there are only two hotels in Bassin-Bleu, and one is not completed; in fact, construction stopped a while ago. The other hotel is a deserted-looking building beside the gas station with a dangling sign in front that reads
HOTEL & RESTAURANT.
The door is locked. We peer through the dirty windows at the abandoned lobby. No trace of a restaurant within. The word goes out to the owner that he might have some customers.

A large man appears in a ripped T-shirt and cutoffs, a bandana around his head. He has the build of a football player and an impressive keychain, which marks him as an important man around town. Someone who owns things that have to be kept under lock and key. It takes him a while to locate the key that will open the hotel door. Not a good sign. When was the last time there was a guest in this town? It turns out that the restaurant is not presently operating, but the owner can provide a meal if we’d like one. As for water and electricity, unfortunately, the generator for the city has been broken for months.

We pick our way through the trash heaped in the hallways inside. Even in the waning light, the tour confirms our suspicion: every room is filthy, the beds unmade, a coating of dust everywhere. The closed-up rooms are like saunas without air conditioning, ventilation, or fans.

But even if we decide to stay here—because what other options are there?—where would we put our vehicle overnight? The hotel has no secure parking area. “I’m not leaving the pickup out here,” Bill declares, shaking his head at me as if I’ve suggested any such thing. I can guess what he’s thinking. If he leaves the pickup on the street, by tomorrow its disassembled parts will be part of Jean Jonas’s inventory.

As we are conferring outside about what to do, Piti appears, walking briskly down the road that leads into town, flanked by two young men who turn out to be his brothers, Jimmy and Willy. They might as well be angels coming from on high, we are so pleased to see them. Piti rushes toward us, his arms spread in welcome, his face radiant. We hug him, we hug his brothers.

“Little Piti is getting married!” we half-tease, half-congratulate him. He grins from ear to ear, and the years fall away. For the moment, the problem with accommodations is forgotten.

When he hears our predicament, Piti explains that his family will put us up. All along, this has been his plan. As for a meal, there is also food. “But we are poor,” Piti adds apologetically. “There is not much food. But there is food.” We decide to visit a supermarket before we leave town and buy some supplies to contribute to the meal. This turns out to be harder than we think. There seems to be no supermarket in Bassin-Bleu, and the market is not opened at this hour. But an onlooker points to the station. There is a minimarket inside. We walk over to check it out.

It is interesting to consider what consumer food products have found their way to this remote corner of Haiti: ten bottles of Del Monte ketchup, half a dozen big boxes of cornflakes, four cans of Pringles, some cartons of fruit juices, five jars of mayonnaise, a stack of evaporated milk cans, and some jars with red lids whose beige contents might be peanut butter. There is also a whole top shelf of wine bottles and hard liquor. In short, nothing to make a supper out of, although we could just clean out the alcohol and the chips and make a wedding rehearsal bash out of it! But that wouldn’t work. As devout evangelicals, Piti and his family will not touch alcohol.

The proprietor, who has been out at the pumps filling up motorcycles with small amounts of gas, comes in to find out what he can sell us. We shake our heads bashfully. We are not proving to be very good patrons of what Bassin-Bleu has to offer.

As we come out of the gas station store, I spot a truck parked across the street. Scrawled on the dusty cab in red graffiti, this message:

LIKA OBAMA

VOTE #
1

I recall the day in January when our new president was inaugurated. I happened to be visiting my parents in Santiago, and after watching the ceremony on cable TV, I ran down to the grocery store, still wearing my
Sí Se Puede
Obama T-shirt. Boys stocking shelves and cashiers ringing up purchases came forward to high-five me. Eight months later, reading Obama’s name on the side of a dirty truck in this desolate spot in Haiti, I feel a kindred surge of hope. Here, too, people are waiting for their miracle to happen.

To Moustique, Charlie’s house, a big-hearted welcome

I
t’s close to dark and we still have a ways to go. “The roads are very bad,” Piti says, apologetically, as if he were responsible.

How bad can a bad road get to best the worst we have already traveled? We soon find out. So far, we have at least been on discernible roads, and the rivers we’ve forded have been dry. But now we must cross Trois Rivières. From my long forgotten but suddenly resuscitating high school French I recall that
trois
means three. We will have to ford a river that’s a confluence of three?

Deftly, Piti navigates us over the shallow spots.
(Over to the left! Straight ahead! No, no, no, over to the right some more!)
The rest of us in the cab echo his instructions, as if our beleaguered driver, Bill, can’t comprehend Piti’s injunctions but needs a Greek chorus to enlighten him.

Once on the other side, we drive along a path the pickup helps widen. We are headed for Moustique, Piti explains, the name of the countryside where his family and his bride live. “Moustique, moustique.” Homero keeps repeating the word. He is almost sure
moustique
is the Kreyòl word for mosquito. Bill and I glance at each other, recalling a discussion in Vermont about whether to bring mosquito nets on our trip. Thank goodness we agreed it was a sensible measure given the widespread occurrence of malaria in rural Haiti.

Forty minutes later, we arrive at the house where we will be staying. To think that Piti and his brothers actually walked this distance earlier this afternoon! No wonder we waited over an hour for them to come. Now I know why they were mopping their foreheads and necks with facecloths as they entered Bassin-Bleu.

The house where we will spend the night belongs to Charlie, whose sister is married to Piti’s brother Jimmy, whom we just met. Piti’s own house is farther in, not accessible by road, so this is a more convenient spot for us to spend the night. It’s unclear if these arrangements were made beforehand or on the spot, as Piti disembarks first and pulls Charlie to one side. No matter. Charlie welcomes us as if his whole extended family has been preparing for days for our arrival.

Perhaps Charlie’s sense of hospitality comes from having worked several years in a resort in the Bahamas. That’s where he picked up a little English, heavily accented and disconcertingly British. The family seems relatively well-off. Though the house is small, four rooms, it is made of concrete with a zinc roof, in contrast to the mud-and-wattle constructions with thatched roofs we’ve seen along the way, which I actually find more beautiful.

Each room has a bed, the front room also accommodating a table with a paisley tablecloth, several chairs, and two cabinets with glasses and dishes. But where will they all sleep if we take the three beds they are offering us? I’ve counted four grown sisters, two with husbands (one of these being Piti’s brother Jimmy); two little girls and a toddler; as well as an old man with startling blue eyes whom Charlie introduces sweetly as “my daddy.”