Camp Ground News

I've dropped by the camp a few times now. I turn off the dust filled street and pass through the gate, waving to women who crouch in the shade of the trees. I pass the tables of men and boys playing domino along the path (this is a new development)and onto the dirt soccer field. It's pretty nice now, with the lines drawn with white rubble and netted goals on either end. There's a tournament going on this month, with individuals from the camp putting together teams from the whole neighborhood. Matches every afternoon at 4. A few hundred people show up. The winning team gets a goat.

Beautiful Sabine is pregnant again. She's a few months along, maybe she just found out or just decided to tell me. She wants a son. She has asked me to be the godmother of her baby. I love Sabine. One afternoon a few weeks ago I was crying in the camp in the mist of some disaster, and she took my head in her hands and stroked strands of hair out of my face. She insisted on walking me home, and when we passed by a hot dog vendor she took out a few crumpled bills and bought us sausages with hot sauce. I ate it gratefully, and I have to say that hot dog, given to me with sympathy by a girl living with her two kids in a tarp shack was the best tasting street food I have ever had the pleasure of eating, and I hate hot dogs. I have agreed to be the godmother to her child. I'm sure I'm getting in over my head here, but I wade willingly into the unknown.

There was a warm welcome for me when I first navigated my way to Twenty's tent through the labyrinth of tarps, ditches, and patches of corn. Rosemead was there, along with Twenty's model-esque girlfriend Kitt and some of their friends. They turned up the the music on their new speakers when I arrived, broke out some rum, and we caught up with each other's news. How was America? You've gotten fat! You missed Twenty's show, but that's okay, there'll be another one. Your mom is well? She let you come here again? No new aid distributions have come. Keep in mind that this is all happening in Kreyol, a language I can control liked a three year old. But hey, who says you need language to be friends? I can hardly ever understand Twenty, but then I just look at Rosemead, his sister, and she patiently repeats whatever he says slowly, more simply, and I laugh and nod. Bon bagay. Every afternoon these kids set up a table at the soccer game and sell rum, beer, cigarettes spaghetti and fritay. They definitely know how to make the most of a little. I sit with them at the games, occasionally putting away bottles and passing out plates of food, all the while admiring the players as they kick theatrically above their heads and headbutt the ball back and forth across the field. When I wander off Twenty shouts out after me, wants to know where I am going, wants to make sure I am safe.

I came back to Haiti with a digital camera for Kevins, my twelve year old photographer sidekick (thanks josh!! he loves it!!). Last time I was here I would give him my camera for days at a time. Most of the photos he takes are of him and his friends looking various shades of badass in different locations around the neighborhood, but some of his photos are of life in the camp. I have to say that they are so much more insightful than any photo I could take of this place. People aren't posing for him. They aren't suspicious of him, and so his photos are small windows into the vie privee of camp life. He catches graceful moments of painful boredom : a man lounging on sheets of metal with his head in the lap of a lover; a red-haired and pot-bellied baby causally chewing on cardboard; women carrying water. People all throughout this city are just waiting for something to change.