1) Privacy: Privacy takes second place to ventilation and airflow, in regards to being able to shut oneself off completely from anyone else. In the house where we stayed, every door had a three- to five-foot open area above it. So even though you could close and lock the door to the bathroom, for instance, whatever you did in there was plainly heard by everyone else in the house. Even the upstairs bathroom, because the upstairs was open by a courtyard atrium to the bottom floor. I won't tell anything too personal or embarrassing, except to say that one member of our travel team reacted quite vocally to the cold water of the shower. It made me smile, and I'm extremely glad that he didn't hold back.
The same held true in the public restrooms. Door for privacy, but there was still an opening on top. Also, our bedrooms. The "honeymoon suite" had the opening slightly "boarded up," but it was a thin piece of frosted plastic similar to plexiglass, and we could hear everything going on in the rest of the house, so I can only assume that they could hear us, too.
2) Showers: Speaking of showers: the majority of our showers were cold, although the family with whom we stayed does have one of those awesome on-demand water heaters in the upstairs bathroom. However, often when we got home in the afternoon, city power would be off and there wasn't really any justification for turning on the generator until it was later and darker and almost time for dinner. Also, sometimes the city power was still on, but only powering minimal things like lights and wi-fi, but not the freezer or the water heater.
Whether the shower was hot or cold, it went like this: get wet, turn off the water, soap up, then rinse off. Jean Alix said that even when he visits the US, he takes "Haiti showers," because he cannot bear to waste water, regardless of where he is.
Sometimes, the plumbing would peter out during our afternoon shower sessions, and then it was necessary to take a "bucket shower." This is what your mom did to you when you were a baby: Collect water in a container, then use a cup to pour the water over you, recollecting it and reusing it to rinse off. This happened once in the middle of Rachel's shower, after the conditioner application. So she got to have the beauty parlor treatment while Julia rinsed her hair out with the "bucket."
As I mentioned, the woman in Guibert with whom we had the privilege of helping with her house took a full-out (but clothed) shower when it was raining. She was very efficient and it made sense to take advantage of the pouring down on our heads.
3) Religious phrases. There were a lot of religious phrases everywhere. Many vehicles had personalized messages applied to the front windshield, a la this one:
Many, however, would say Exodus 12:12-14, Grace of God, or Jesus Saves. The tap-taps had a lot of this, as did, inexplicably, the lottery kiosks. There were many lotto shops called Fils de Jah or Fiels de Dieu, or Grace Eternelle, etc. The motorcycles had vanity plates mounted long-ways on the fender of the front tire. Many of these had religious messages, such as Merci, Jezi or even headlight appliques like this one:
There was one beauty parlor called "Blood of Jesus Boutique." Someone pointed out that it might have been a voodoo shop. My thought is just that it's in English, and maybe the cultural significance of what the blood of Jesus represents versus getting ones hair did simply does not translate.
4) Singing. We heard lots of it. I played you the mid-day church service and the lady in the garden. Here's another, taken from the courtyard of the place where we were staying. We heard them singing a few times during the week.
5) English T-shirts. There were lots of Christmas-themed and "Let It Snow" type shirts sported in the upper-80s weather, though seasonal appropriateness is probably not on the average villager's list of important priorities. One boy had on a shirt that said, "Brownies can do anything," which I totally wanted to steal for my nieces and nephews, but beyond that, I wasn't sure what it was supposed to have meant. Another little boy had on a bright pink shirt that said, "Broncos cheerleading." I also saw a lady with a shirt that said something like "Whale kiss ocean love," and it reminded me of Engrish.com.
6) Friendliness! Everyone we passed when we were walking either greeted us, or, if they didn't get to it first, responded very brightly to our "bonjou!" Else they'd snicker and reply with "bonswa," letting us know that, to them, morning was over and we needed to check our expression. I will say that several people greeted me in the evening with, "Good morning!" but I thought it was awesome that they were trying out their English, so I just "Good morning"ed them back. :)
One lady went so far as to greet me with, "Bonjou, cherie," which I found charming and motherly, even though she was probably my age (although she could have been 60; Haitians seem to age slowly and well).
A couple of times when James and I were walking off to ourselves (we always stayed togetherish, but because of the accordion effect would occasionally be on our own at the middle of the pack), we attracted groups of boys who were probably 10-13 and who were very tickled about trying out every single English phrase that they knew. They'd walk with us for ten minutes, saying, "Good morning... How are you?... Let's go!" and other random phrases. They'd giggle, which is something I got used to and stopped wondering if they were mocking us (sometimes they definitely were, but it was never mean-spirited). We would answer, "Good morning! We are fine; how are you?" and compliment their wonderful English.
When we were in the van, travelling en masse, especially through marketplaces or in narrow streets where there were a lot of pedestrians, people would stare... until one of us smiled and waved. Then the entire aspect changed, and we'd get big smiles and waves.
When I was working on the bricks at the build site, I felt something on my hat and leaned up. A lady was just trying to get a good look at me, so when I stopped what I was doing and smiled, she hugged me and went on her way.
We pass a lot of people walking around here in downtown Austin. I'm trying to keep this openness and friendly outreach in my heart strongly enough to be cordial to everyone, even if they ignore me.
7) Animals. When we met Gene St. Cyr, Junior, he asked us if any of us liked animals and mentioned that there was no such thing as PETA in Haiti. Now, I think PETA is an organization with largely wacko ideas (though I feel that ethically treating animals is our responsibility as humans; PETA and I just differ on what "ethical" entails), I cringed a little to watch the village women throw rocks at the wild dogs to get them away from their houses. The wild dogs are clearly not pets. They were very well-behaved, though. They might beg with their eyes, but they did not try to steal our food from us. When we'd throw them (mostly the obviously prolific mamas) a few scraps, they'd happily take them. If we approached them, though, they were uncertain.
I was sitting there petting one of the sand-colored dogs when a little girl walked around the corner and watched me as though I were trying to kiss a frog. This was clearly an oddity for her, watching a human give affection to this animal.
There were a few dogs and cats at the Yahve Shamma orphanage. They very smartly hung out around the kitchen while the women were preparing chicken. James observed one of the cats begging and one of the women in the kitchen finally dripping some water onto the floor for the cat to drink. When she did that, a tiny baby came out of hiding and lapped a bunch of it up.
I never saw overt cruelty, but it seems like the animals are just there and largely ignored, though I suspect that in the village, some of them probably end up as dinner. They were good guard dogs, too, though. I saw them barking at someone they didn't think looked "right" coming down the walk toward the build site. I guess they thought we were okay, though, because they never gave us a hard time.
One of Jean Alix's dogs often ran out of the gate when there was traffic and would end up spending most of the day sitting outside of the walls until we got home. I suppose he's a deterrent to would-be thieves, too, but, again, it's difficult to imagine why. He's not vicious at all. According to this blog, a past president told the Haitians that he would come back as a dog and kill them. Here's an entry about Haitian dogs by a person who lives there.
8) Dress code. Almost without exception, everyone we saw was dressed nicely. That guy throwing concrete up onto a wall to reinforce the rebar? Well, he took his dress shirt off, but he's still wearing his khaki slacks. The lady whose house we were working on? The first day, she wore a denim shirt and nice blouse the whole day, while she shoveled and carried and ran around. Ladies walking down impossible hills from the market, carrying a laden basket on their heads, were doing so in dresses and three inch heels! Some of the people had clothes that were torn, but they were very clean and very dressy, as a whole.
I'll probably think of more later, but those were some of the interesting ones that stand out in my brain. :)
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