48.6

On my google maps search, it says that I traveled 48.6 kilometers from Port-au-Prince to Arcahaie on Wednesday.  It sounds innocent enough.  Just under 50 kilometers is a piece of cake and I make a trip over 10x that far on a semi-regular basis when I make a one-way trip between Iowa City and McLeansboro.  So it didn't seem like a big deal when I made the decision to return to Port-au-Prince with the rest of the medical team on Sunday night, completely understanding that I would be traveling back by myself.  I'd just get a moto and tell them to take me to the "Eternity Clinic."  After all, that's the name the interpreter told me that the Haitians called the place where I would be staying and where we were hosting clinic.  Eternity Clinic.  Check.  Mohalia.  Check.  Surely they'll know who she is.  Phone, I'll get that in Port-au-Prince and it'll be super easy.  I'll just make sure I pack everything I need in my hiking pack so I can sit on the back of a moto.  It may cost like 20 bucks, but that's fine.
Then I thought it would be a good idea to celebrate the end of the medical mission with the rest of the group.  We had a blast playing cards, drinking prestige, and creating a ruckus in PAP.  Upon returning to the mission compound, Chris greeted me by handing me a big wad of cash and instructions about how to dole it out and get receipts.  Got it.  Maybe.  Went to bed and woke up at 0600 not feeling great.  Get up, eat breakfast, say my goodbyes and wave as everyone else heads to the airport.  I go back in and talk to the guest house manager about how to get to Arcahaie.  "Do you have a car?"  "No."  "Do you know where you're going?"  "The Eternity Clinic?"  "Okay, how do you want to get there?"  "Well, I was thinking moto, but then someone said the buses might be a better option."  "Yeah, that would probably be good."  Do you know how to do that?"  "No."  "Do you speak Creole?"  "...No."  "Well, let me talk with one of the workers and see what they say..."
So they give me a ride to the "bus station" and  offer some pointers about how to navigate the trip, "Let our driver tell the bus driver exactly where to take you and then don't get out of the bus until you're there.  You should be the last one."  "Okay" I say, my head still heavy and my stomach gradually getting more distressed.  So I load up my stuff and get in the car.  Pierre, or Pi as everyone calls him, dutifully drives me to the "bus station."  And by bus station it is a dirt patch not even the size of a McDonald's parking lot.  He offers this bit of wisdom for me, "We won't put you on a long bus.  They're too slow so people break into them and rob everyone on there."  Sweet.  I'll take the short bus and any helmet that you can offer me.  No big deal.  White guy.  Pa parle creole.  With just short of three grand in his pack and pocket.
We get out of the car.  Luckily enough for me there is a short "bus" (a bus is like one of those small vans that your Division A high school cross country team would take to a meet).  I want to take this moment again to remind you that I was hungover and it was hitting me harder by the sun beam.  I was like a piece of low-hanging fruit for anyone wanting to pick on a blan.  So my house driver articulates to the van driver that I need to go to Arcahaie, I don't speak Creole very well, and that my final destination is the 'Eternity Clinic'.  "That's the morgue, right?"  The bus driver asks back in Creole.  Nope.  Not quite.  "What's the name of the lady you said?"  "Mohalia."  Crickets.  Oh well, we can figure it out on the way, right?  So I climb in back, over 8 other people with my giant pack and a small grocery bag of leftovers from the others.  "Just keep your head down and headphones in" I tell myself.  It's hot.  I'm crammed.  I really wish I would've counted just how many people were packed into this tiny van, but I wasn't really in the mathematical mind frame.
We depart.  Please Lord, Baby Jesus let this be the van that gets me remotely close to my final destination.  Did I mention I'd have a phone?  Yeah I did, but the only numbers I had were Dr. Buresh's which was about to board an airplane and three people still in Port-au-Prince who did not know where I was going.  No big deal.  I speak bad French.
The ride is rough.  Other people fall asleep.  The teenager next to me listens to his own music and occasionally glances over at me either in disbelief or distrust.  Or maybe he can tell that I'm nervous and struggling.  I fish around in my grocery sack and empty out a Ziploc bag... just in case this gets messy.  The older dude next to me falls asleep in minutes and is perfectly comfortable using me as a prop.  I'm cool with it.  I can't see the road very well and have very little inclination of appropriate landmarks.  "I think this tent city looks like one we passed to and from Port-au-Prince before."  As opposed to the other hundreds of thousands of Haitians still living in tent cities all around PAP since the 'quake?  Great, construction site that looks like it's going to be a fish farm.  That is familiar.  I'm heading in the right general direction.  I made the mistake to bust out my dictionary.  Ugh, doesn't take long for my head and stomach to reject that notion.  I rest my forehead on my hands, my bad and the seat in front of me.  I know I have a big forehead, but this was tight quarters.  Luckily enough for me I had the trusty 'Hangover Cure' playlist on my iPod.
We go over a speed bump.  Looks like we're passing our first small community.  I think it's familiar?  My stomach prays that that is the last speed bump of the journey, but we both know that the smart bet is the 'over.'  We drop off somebody in this town.  Is this Arcahaie?  That was pretty quick if it is.  And none of this looks familiar...
It's not.  We continue through the town and I think I recognize some of the paintings.  But then again, they often reuse the same painting design.  And 'Digicell' is plastered everywhere.  More speed bumps and more, confusing Creole banter between street-side vendors, the driver and the passengers.  Oh yeah, there is no side door to the van.  It's just open.  At least it was well ventilated I guess. I may or may not have dosed off.  I can't say for sure.
I'll fast forward to our arrival in Arcahaie because I'm sure you can only read so many sentences about my mental and physical state before you start thinking less of me.  I didn't know where we were until an abundance of people started getting out.  There was no Arcahaie equivalent of a "bus station,"  we simply turned into a local tap-tap.  Apparently everyone else had told the driver where they wanted dropped off cause he buzzed all over the area and people got out.  At one point everyone looked at me and the word blan kept getting thrown around.  I had no idea where I was.  Luckily the bus driver got out, came to the no-side-door-side-door and gave me the international sign for 'just chill.'  Gladly.  Nearly everyone had vacated the van and paid for the trip.  No idea what the cost was.  Finally it came my turn to get out.  He comes to the door and with a big grin points to me.  He found the 'Eternity Clinic'.  He had me get out.  That was a hilarious mess I'm sure.  Even without people in the van it was tough to navigate the lack of a passageway between the seats with a large pack.  I emerge back into the sunlight.  Rough.  He points down the street, "Eternity".  "Deux cent Goude."  I had a 5 spot American ready cause I guessed that it would be a little less than that.  Hand it over.  I'm in Arcahaie, I think.
I start walking in the general direction he pointed me in.  Nothing looks terribly familiar.  I start to replay the building fronts I had seen in my few trips to and from the compound at dusk, in the back of a track with 30 people, heading to the beach after a long clinic.  Yeah.  People had said that there was a police station near by but I had never seen it.  The only thing I remembered was a Digicell hut and a funky looking intersection of what seemed like a T of two major roadways.  Surely there can't be too many of those in a town of 100,000 people, right?  I mean, we had passed one that shared a structure about 5 minutes earlier in the bus, so that could technically be it.  Which would mean that my inkling that I was walking in the wrong direction would be perfectly correct.
All of a sudden the van returns.  The driver motions to get in.  He probably says it too, but heck if I know.  There is another guy in the van who actually speaks a little English.  Still not in a condition to do a whole lot of communicating.  Again, we stop.  The passenger with me points across the street and says, "Eternity".  I try and argue.  "That's not where I'm going, though."  Nothing is getting through.  The bus driver comes back to the side door, still beeming with pride that he got his blan safely to his destination.  I struggle out again.  On our side of the street is a gated building, "ecole et eglise."  He says.  And sure enough the Eternity Morgue was right across the street.  I had told my driver earlier that the facility I was staying at was also used as a church and a school.  It was kind of a guess, but eventually that will be true.
This is where the trip just gets funny.  The driver ushers me up to the gate and negotiates our entrance into the small compound.  He speaks with someone else and then leaves with a handshake.  God Bless that man and never let him know that this was not my final destination.  He was too happy.  A business-clad Haitian with bad ass lunettes du soleil (sunglasses) met me at the foot of some steps separating what I can only assume were the church and the school building.  He greeted me in English, but then stumped me in Creole after that.  I waited for someone else.  He arrived and also greeted me in English, shook my hand, but then reverted to Creole.  I shrugged my shoulders and offered a smile.  Finally, a third man came down the steps from an upstairs classroom.  He greeted me and introduced himself as a social sciences teacher.  He asked me about myself, where I was from, what I was doing in Haiti, etc.  So I answered him.  At this point I wasn't sure if the driver thought that these people would know how to get me to Mohalia, so that's why I went with it.  Holding out hope that this was the case.
It wasn't.  The conversation slowly shifted to the man asking me what I was expecting to do with 'only one person'.  And when his question of, "what are you doing here?" returned an answer of, "trying to get home" for a third straight time he slowly realized that we were on different planes.  "So do you want to say something to the children?"  "Uh, I guess I can."  "You have the principal here and the director here, do you want to say something to them?"  "Not sure what you'd like me to say."  "It was a pleasure to meet you.  Please come back soon."  The conversation was at least 15 minutes.  After 5 it was clear to me that these gentlemen were not aware that I was actually trying to get somewhere else.  But it was kinda funny.  I may have to pay them a visit and 'say something to the children' later in the trip.
So I left the compound and turned back towards where I thought the intersection might be.  I'm sure I was a sight to be held.  I was hungry.  It was passed lunch time and I had eaten breakfast, but my blood sugar was all out of whack because of, well we've talked about that ad nauseum.  I was hot.  My Cardinals hat on backwards and probably wet with perspiration.
"Hey, I think I've seen that building before on our way to the beach!"  That means I'm heading in the right general direction.  The walk is long and tortuous.  I have to dodge animals, animal poo, cars, motos and people as I move from dirt "sidewalk" to dirt road.  "Hey, large group of woodworkers carving up furniture. I'm pretty sure that those are familiar."  "Because only one small section of people in Haiti carve furniture."  Ugh.  "Come on brain, let me try and find solace in vague familiarity."  I press forward.  I see the intersection.  Fits the bill.  Motos all around.  Basically a three-way intersection.  Don't really see a Digicell building or the bar that I thought was close to the mouth of the road either.  "Hmmm, there's a blue and white building, could that be the police station?"
I make a commitment and turn left down the road that leads towards the mountains and away from the sea.  The aqueduct is running parallel to the street.  That's a good sign, because I know where the dam is and that's the source of the water.  "I can just follow the water home!"  So I walk.  It seems a lot farther than the previous trips in the truck.  People stare.  Some offer up the usual cat call of "Ey blan!"  Some try and sell me things.  One asks me to just give him a handout while his friends are laughing.  The sit behind a table with unpackaged cell phones out for sale.  They certainly didn't look like they were in need.  But I'm sure they found me entertaining.  Kids run to the gates of their yards to see the white man.  Most of them with bright smiles on their faces even while they were missing the all or parts of their wardrobe.  A couple decide to follow me on my trek up the hill.  I pass some Loto booths that also look familiar.  But they all look the same.  Still seems like a long way.  Then i see the building with the painted seashells in the wall as decoration.  Boom!  Nailed it.  I trek forward.  Only to realize that this walk was really far in this heat and with this large pack.  I tear open some Disney's gummies and share them with my two buddies following me.
Two miles later I see the hollowed out church that marks the turn to get to the compound.  I make my left turn and my buddies continue on.  We wave as we depart.  I'm sure I'll see them again.  I have arrived, Arcahaie.  Let's get busy.