Today I take my
first dose of malaria medication, the beginning of a 7-week course of meds. My
trip to Haiti is just around the corner, and I’m starting to feel ready.
Yesterday I spent
an hour speaking Kreyòl with my friend Carleen, who left Haiti when she was 8
but whose parents kept speaking Kreyòl and French at home so that she would
never lose those languages. She cleared up some issues I was having, but mostly
we laughed about the phrases that had become the most important to me.
“Ede mwen pote
malèt mwen tanpri.” (Please help me carry my suitcase.)
“Mwen pale kreyòl
tou piti.” (I speak only a little Creole.)
“Tanpri pale
dousman.” (Please speak slowly.)
“Kibò mwen ka
jwenn yon moun ki pale anglè?” (Where can I find someone who speaks English?)
“Tanpri montre
mwen li ak dwèt ou.” (Please point to it.)
“Eskize mwen, ki
sa ou di?” (I'm sorry, what did you say?)
My choices don’t
show a lot of faith in my ability to communicate, even though I also know how
to say, “Bwe yon boutèy dlo chak karant-senk ak swasant minit.” (“Drink a
bottle of water every 45-60 minutes.” Safety Monitor stuff.) I’m also learning
construction terms (by “learning” I mean “printing out and taking with me”…)
and can order a glass of beer. How much more ready need I be?
I’m also prepared
for disaster, and not just because I can say, “Tanpri mennen mwen tent premye
swen.” (Please take me to the First Aid tent.) One thing that the Carter Work
Projects have done is open up my world to tattoos. See, when you get a tattoo,
you can’t donate blood for a year (despite the fact that tattoo parlours in
Buffalo are better-regulated than dentists’ offices). Giving blood is one of
the few useful things I do on this planet, so giving that up for vanity was out
of the question. Plus, I’m in the bone marrow database, and I’d hate to be a
match during that year hiatus – “Sorry ‘bout the dyin’, kid, but check out my
ink!” Since I can’t give blood for a year after travelling to a malaria
country, my first build in India allowed me to finally get the tattoo I’d
wanted for twenty years.
I asked a lot of people who had colour tattoos
where they would recommend. One particularly colourful clerk at a sporting
goods store at the Galleria asked what I planned to get. When I told her, she
said there was only one guy, and if I went someplace else, they would send me
to him, too. Made the appointment. Approved the art. Hunkered down. Then
forty-year-old me got the tattoo I’d wanted since I was in college. I had a
party at my brother’s house in Toronto to go to, and couldn’t wait to show my
brother Mark my new art project. When I told him I got a tattoo, he gave me
that big-brother-slightly-disapproving look that told me he didn’t trust me to
use good judgement in this regard. And he is so right about that! But in 20
years I had never wavered from what I wanted to get, so I was confident. I
stripped down to the tank top. I peeled off the bandage. I turned around to
show him… “Oh, you’ll never regret THAT!” he said to my brand-new puffy-red
tattoo of the Buffalo Sabres original logo. And he’s right!
That being said,
I was told that once you get a tattoo, you can’t stop. And I will admit that I
immediately thought of another tattoo that I wanted to get, but had to was for
another malaria year before I got it. I went to Guatemala in 2008, but I wanted
to mull it over more than two years. Thailand in 2009, but I was still trying
to see if it was what I really wanted. Research about safety in Haiti got me
moving: kidnappings are abundant. Carleen says the last person she knew who was
kidnapped was treated perfectly well and released unharmed as soon as they got
the money, so there’s not a lot to be afraid of (unless you’re me, and the
thought of missing your flight throws you into a tizzy). But I thought it was
probably time (now that I’ve had 5 years to think about it) to get my
hey-mister-terrorist-you’ve-got-the-wrong-girl tattoo. A Canadian maple leaf.
Something else
prompted me — Faith in Ink tattoo in Allentown was running a promotion, where
you would get a discount if you brought in items for the Church of Ascension’s
Pet Food Pantry. Getting my hey-mister-terrorist-you’ve-got-the-wrong-girl
tattoo AND helping people care for their animals? Well, that’s a beautiful
thing.
Okay, so we’ve
got malaria meds, check. Hey-mister-terrorist-you’ve-got-the-wrong-girl tattoo,
check. Four page packing list (because I have to pack for play in Atlanta, work and post-work in Haiti, and we can’t wash any clothes in Haiti),
check. Carter campaign buttons to give to my crew, check. Extensive
instructions for morning calesthenics from my trainer, check. I evem have
extras to bring down, as a few people have asked that I give their “Haiti Is
Habitat-Forming” T-shirt to someone in Haiti, and my friend Sue Campbell has
donated a couple of pairs of steel-toed boots for the build.*
Epi, koulye a, mwen pake. And now,
I pack.
*You can’t
actually bring gifts for the families themselves, because any disparity caused
by giving them gifts can cause hard feelings among the other homeowners. And in
Haiti, where things are desperate, it could actually be dangerous for them.
Everything I bring goes into the Habitat supplies for them to distribute.
