I. Port au Prince
        The Vocational School
II. La Gonave
        The Mountain Village
        The Seaside Well
III. Cape Haitian
        Time Travel
        Hope and Fear
        Tomb of the Unknown Haitian
IV. Home

III. Cape Haitian

After a final breakfast with our kind hosts, we prepare for our six-seat flight to Cape Haitian , the major city on the northern coast. Rising again over the island, I say good-bye and thank God that He is a local resident of La Gonave.  As we continue over the mainland once again, I sigh with dismay at the scarred terrain below. In many places, naked hills stretch for miles where forests once stood, but the immediate need for cooking fuel continues to surpass the long-term need for topsoil. The pilot tells me that one can actually see the boundary between Haiti and the neighboring Dominican Republic due to this deforestation. After seven days in Haiti , I have grown so accustomed to the constant smell of charcoal smoke that the fresh air in our small plane almost seems odd.

As we near Cape Haitian , the pilot points out a national landmark to our right, 3000 feet above the bay. It is the Citadel, an enormous castle-like fortress that has been standing atop a steep mountain since 1819. King Henri Christophe, leader of the slave rebellion (1802-1806), had it built and fitted with over 350 cannons to prevent French reoccupation. I marvel at the irony that the western world’s largest fortress resides in its poorest nation. I also mourn that the United States , less than 30 years after its own fight for freedom in 1776, initially responded to Haiti ’s declaration of independence by joining its French oppressors in banning trade with the infant nation.  

As we land and taxi on the Cape Haitian runway, I see a series of worn, wooden single-story structures. Except for the words “Departures” and “Arrivals” crudely painted by hand on these dilapidated buildings, I might have kept looking for the terminal. Exiting, we are greeted by our new hosts, missionaries with Overseas Mission Society, an organization that has served Haiti with a free medical and dental clinic, radio broadcasting, and other services for many years. Once again, our limo is a pick-up truck and I find myself standing in the back, clutching the metal rack that tops its roof. This will be my chief means of transportation in Cape Haitian .

This northern city is less densely populated than Port au Prince in the south, but poverty still carpets the landscape like a suffocating shroud. As we cross a bridge, I survey the river it spans and wonder how such a large body of moving water can remain so clogged with filth. As in Port au Prince, I sense anger hanging in the air. As we turn into the mission compound where we will stay, I am yet again thankful for surrounding walls.

Time Travel

Our next two days are spent bouncing down the ragged roads from Cape Haitian out into the countryside. Our goal is to visit many of the Lifewater well projects accomplished here over the past twenty years, primarily due to the pioneering efforts of one of Lifewater’s most senior volunteers, Les Babcock. Throughout our travels, I watch with wonder as person after person greets him with a knowing smile, and I am moved by the clear connection he has with the people. I feel as though I am accompanying someone on his first return trip home in years.  Although many of the faces are new, the hand pumps stand as stable tributes to the passage of time. I am struck that years before many of the younger persons we meet were even born, these same wells began giving safe clean water that still flows.  

Lifewater Founder Bill Ashe looks on while Director Dan Stevens helps a young girl lift her 40-pound load of water to prepare for the walk home. The walk is long but the water is clean. (Five gallons of water weighs approximately 45 pounds.)

In most locations, the rural wells we inspect are separated by a mile or two. In several areas, however, we drive along roads where hand pumps stand every quarter mile, a tribute to Les and the local Haitians he has trained. These wells have clearly made a dramatic impact, serving as the catalyst for significant improvements in the quality of life for local residents. The higher standard of living in these areas doubtless relates to the fact that those who are healthy can work much more productively than those who are sick. In such neighborhoods, streets are much cleaner and children look healthier. Fewer homes are mud and stick dwellings because accessible water also permits local manufacture of concrete blocks. Even the runoff from these wells enhances the economy. By digging a runoff ditch leading away from each pump, villagers intelligently use the otherwise wasted water to irrigate crops. Then, these crops can be sold to pay for pump maintenance.

The benefits of safe clean water and the value of a simple hand pump are nowhere more evident than at a school we tour.  Built by a local church, the school serves 600 children, all of whom use the same pump in the middle of campus. The sun shines down on their clean, vivid yellow shirts and neat trousers or skirts. We arrive before classes begin, and the little campus is a sea of children who smile and run to greet us. They are well-mannered and friendly and their smiles are infectious. Thanks to clean water, however, shaking hands with them is much less likely to involve anything infectious.

Before leaving the school, we pause for photos. I snap shots of Dan—Lifewater’s new director—surrounded by happy healthy children next to the hand pump. As I focus the camera, I try to imagine what the view through my lens would look like with no working well in the picture.  Based on my travels thus far in Haiti , this is all too easy. I envision Dan seated with fewer children, because without good water, more would have died or would be at home sick. I picture more little ones clad in rags and dust instead of clean clothes. Indeed, without the hand pump, these could very well be children whose eyes lack sparkle and whose spirits cry more from hunger and frustration than from the love of God. In my heart, I say a prayer of thanks for this school, the church that founded it, and these children who not only have safe water but also have the message of real life through Jesus Christ.

Lifewater Executive Director Dan Stevens with new friends.

Continuing on from the school to another village well, we pass a cemetery which represents some of the best housing I have seen in Haiti . Indeed, this has been generally true of every cemetery we have passed in our travels. Each one is surrounded by walls and filled with brightly painted concrete mausoleums. Many of these crypts are decorated with flowers and religious symbols, but none have doors. I learn that these final houses contain expensive caskets, costing more than surviving relatives can really afford. I also learn that the crypts lack doors as a protective measure, to prevent voodoo priests from stealing bodies for zombies. If I had heard such a thing while sitting in a restaurant in Los Angeles , I most likely would have snickered in disbelief. Having driven past a dozen witch doctor’s “offices” during the past two weeks, however, I accept it as fact and grieve for this country gripped by evil. 

Haiti's finest housing

Hope and Fear

Night falls fast in Cape Haitian where lights are few and far between.  This provides the opportunity to feast my eyes on the myriad of galaxies overhead, a sight all too rare in the electric cities of North America . Here on the OMS mission compound, a generator powers dim fluorescent lights outside several buildings to help illuminate walkways. The sight of moths drawn to these lamps reminds me of my boyhood home in New Jersey , where a bug menagerie would congregate at our porch light during sticky summer nights. In Cape Haitian , however, these lights have even more drawing power. Under each lamp, one or more Haitian teenager stands late into the evening, reading homework lessons aloud for hours. I am told the educational model in Haiti relies primarily on rote learning, and I marvel as these young men tirelessly commit their lessons to memory under the dancing moths. One young man tells me, “I studied so hard last night, I almost lost my voice!” His motivation inspires me, and I pray that he and others like him might bring more hope to Haiti . He has great drive and he will need it, for all Haitian roads to any semblance of success wind steeply uphill without guard rails.

Of course, the stars above the compound are also visible outside it. Viewing them is most safely done from within its walls, however, for anger grows in the dark here. On our second night, this point is pounded home by an assault on the silence that wakes me from sound sleep. My roommate Bill Ashe—in calm but serious tones—says softly, “That was an AK-47.” This is my first time hearing this gun’s signature sound and I will not soon forget it. In his many years of service and travel as founding director of Lifewater, Bill has apparently heard things like this before. As I pray myself back to sleep, I contemplate what it must be like to live here day in and day out, and I sense some guilt over the relief I feel, knowing that I will be returning home soon.

On our third night, anger’s presence is proved again. Dan Stevens and I accompany Les Babcock on a short walk outside the compound to visit an old friend. We each bring a flashlight to help in our journey along the main road. During the day, vehicles speed down this narrow strip, navigating pot holes like a slalom race. Unfortunately at night, this traffic pattern does not change. As such we walk carefully, ready to jump into the roadside ditch at a moment’s notice. Making our way toward the home of Les’ friend, we pass others on foot. The only glow in the blackness comes from small charcoal fires along the way, reflected in the faces of those eating the day’s final meal.  Suddenly, a sharp voice pierces the dark as three men walk past us. The words are English but the language is anger: “Don’t shine that light man! I could kill you, you know!” We keep walking without comment and thankfully note that these three men do the same. Shortly thereafter we are greeted again, this time by a naked boy who appears to be about six years old.  He darts through the beams of our flashlights and back into the darkness as he yells, “F___ you! F___ you!”  I am amazed that even a six-year-old can elicit my fear in the pitch black darkness when I cannot see who is with him. Sadly, I reflect that even “Give me one dollar” may be a preferable English phrase.

As we turn off the main road down a dirt trail to the home of Les’ friend, I meet fear again. Four or five young men—perhaps 17 to 20 years of age—fall in close behind us and match our steps with their own. One of them asks us in English, “Where are you going tonight?” All at once, I realize that I am carrying my passport and some money under my shirt, in a country where stolen passports can bring one thousand U.S. dollars on the black market. I feel the hair on the back of my neck begin to rise, but it subsides as we turn off the trail to the door of Les’ friend. As we are welcomed into this small house, the pack of young men disappears into the night.  Thankfully, we have no more greeters on our return walk to the compound, and I am once again thankful to be inside its walls.

Tomb of the Unknown Haitian

On our final full day we tour more of the legacy of wells provided by Lifewater-trained Haitians under Les’ leadership. Our trek takes us further into the open countryside over worse roads, but the views are spectacular.  We pass field after field of waving sugar cane, framed by the backdrop of Cape Haitian ’s dramatic green mountains. In several fields, rich brown soil stretches out in deep furrows behind farmers driving oxen. I am struck by the fact that I have seen only one or two tractors during my entire time in Haiti and one of those was broken down, left to rust where it died. In contrast to the scarcity of tractors, there is no shortage of garbage along these same roads.

Cape Haitian pigs have their choice of many such dumps.

Poverty knows no bounds here, but industry and entrepreneurial spirit still lives in many forms. As we cross a bridge over a shallow river, Les points to men digging dirt from the riverbed and hauling it ashore in buckets. He explains that these men will try to sell their sand for use by brick makers.  Later, we pass a small boy standing alone on a hot barren stretch of road, miles from any building.  He stands with a shovel and bucket by a string of ten or twelve large potholes, each one filled with dirt. It is clear that he hopes his efforts will be financially rewarded and we meet his expectations with several coins. I am glad to think that he will now have money for dinner, and I wonder whether he had breakfast or lunch.

After touring several more wells, we head for home along back roads to avoid the downtown traffic. For this leg of the journey, Bill Ashe and I stand together in the back of the truck, holding the truck rack and sharing conversation. As the sun prepares to set over the deep green mountains, I am overwhelmed by the scenic beauty yet again. From several miles away, the slum structures of the city fade into the splendor of the natural terrain and I can begin to imagine what drew the early French settlers here to this Pearl of the Caribbean .  

Cape Haitian is beautiful from a distance.

Even this far from the city, however, the landscape is still occasionally dotted by mounds of garbage. The dirt roads invite us to drive slowly, and as we do, Bill points to one such mound. “Look there,” he says as he directs my gaze to a mound of broken bottles, cans, and assorted litter. What I see prompts me to yell “Stop!” so I might be sure that my eyes are not playing tricks. There in the midst of the refuse lies a human skull. The upper front teeth are missing, suggesting that this might have been someone’s grandmother.  I walk over for a closer look and confirm that this is no plastic toy. Almost immediately, my mind flashes back to my senior high school class trip to Washington , D.C. , where we visited the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I remember how solemnly our class paid respects, laying a wreath and looking on in silence as uniformed guards stood watch. In contrast, the Unknown Haitian’s grave lies before me as a garbage heap. Perhaps this person was too poor to be buried. Perhaps this individual was dug up for voodoo purposes and then discarded. In either case, I know that my memory of this scene will stay with me as a permanent reminder of Haiti ’s desperate plight.