Torbeck, December 15th - Sarah

This morning we visit the children’s ward of the general hospital in Les Cayes. The term “ward” is kind of an exaggeration - the entire hospital is one long T-shaped room, and the children’s area is the short top of the T. There are about eight crib-like beds lining each wall, close together. Most of the beds contain very small, sick children, and next to the beds are a lot of mothers, one or two fathers, a bunch of siblings and a few nurses.

In Haiti, many people are afraid of going to hospitals because they associate them with death. Often, because of this fear or from lack of money or a combination of these things, people put off going to the hospital until their illness progresses to a point at which it’s difficult to treat. And even if you go to a hospital, you have to pay for all of your own food and medical supplies, so there are people in hospitals who are starving, not being treated because they cannot buy the medicine.

Everywhere we go in Haiti, people ask us for food, money, dolls, games, presents. Partly because they are hungry and have very little. Partly because white visitors in Haiti often do hand out food, money and presents. Partly because of millions of complicated reasons I don’t fully understand and can’t fit in a reasonably-lengthed blog entry. As we travel through Haiti I feel like many people we meet have some resentment towards us (because we come from such a privileged country? Because of all our country and our ancestors have done to put Haiti in the state it’s in today? Or is the resentment an illusion created by my white privileged guilt?) I feel the need to be constantly “on” and playful in order to redirect these interactions of asking and refusing, turning them into exchanges of culture and laughter, winning people over. There is sometimes a big barrier to cross in order for the interaction to be mainly person to person, and not all American to Haitian, rich to poor, white to black …

We are visiting the hospital to bring people a little laughter and relief, and want to avoid as much as possible having to say no to requests for food, money, the clothes we are wearing. In preparation for the visit we tone down our costumes: people we meet might ask us to give them any extra layers we are wearing, or any item of clothing that looks fancy, like the fluffy blue skirt I usually wear in the shows. We carry no money, and only props that can fit in our pockets, plus some quiet musical instruments. What we are prepared to give today is music, and play, and funny – that’s all. It is a weird process. We are steeling ourselves in preparation for encountering intense suffering and need.

We enter the room very quietly blowing bubbles, Moshe strumming the ukelele. We move down the room in pairs, playing softly, watching for a smile or a nod, waiting to be invited in to play more. Some of the mothers start to laugh and ask us to dance. Brendon and I try our hand at a popular Haitian style of dance, the konpa. More laughs. A tiny child in a bed waves a fist and Brendon waves back at it, plays peek-a-boo. The baby has light skin and reddish hair, signs of malnutrition. Moshe and Brendon team up playing chords on mandolin and ukelele while Elisa and I do a comic dance. The room is friendly – a crowd starts to gather at the joint of the T. Moshe and I do a couple of magic tricks. Elisa and Brendon sing to a quiet child at the end of the room, whose mother says is going to die. A woman tells Moshe a dirty joke in French and all of the adults laugh.

We exit with a song and dance, waving good-bye at the door. Two women did ask me for money. It seemed like a common problem right now is that no one can afford soap, and they want to wash. But there has been some joy, laughter and relief in the room. It feels like on the whole we were received not so much as rich Americans as as silly human beings.

In the afternoon we have a show for a youth group in Les Cayes. We have been finding time every day between shows and workshops to rehearse and re-rehearse, and each time we do the show we find more in our character relationships that make the moments really pop. Brendon’s character has turned into a cool hipster who plays well with Elisa’s firecracker enthusiasm … I am sharp and nasal in contrast to Moshe’s soft goofiness. This is our best show yet, and what starts as a modest audience grows into a crowd as more and more people come into the courtyard from the street to watch throughout the show. Although we are dusty, hot and tired, the mood is high as we ride home through the darkening streets.

Sarah Liane Foster