After 3 years in Haiti, I have finally had the opportunity to go to the Dominican Republic (in hopes of getting a visa to the US for my wife, we had to get her passport stamped in order to show the Haitian government that she can be trusted to leave the country and return, because she’s married to me, that means nothing to them). My good friend Alan Churchill went with us, which is wise, as traveling between third world countries on a Caribbean island is not something I would recommend (did I mention we were on motos). Thanks to my parents’ support, which covered the entire cost of the trip, we were able to make a bit of a vacation of it, about 4 days, including travel time (we put almost 750km on that moto). To say that the two countries are different would be a gross understatement, but I’ll get into that on my next post. Just let me skip to Day 3. After Day 1 of travel and Day 2 of chillin’ at the hotel while trying to get our Gouds transferred to Pesos (who would have thought they wouldn’t do that ANYWHERE in the DR, well, we found one guy who would do it for a charge of 25%, yeah right, thankfully we found an ATM). Anyways, Day 3; Steph and I decided to go to Bahia de las Aguilos, a very isolated and government protected stretch of beach. Alan decided to stay at the hotel and relax since it was another 120 km to Bahia. I don’t blame him for that, traveling on a little motos like that, the long distance is hard on the body, even for a young buck like myself, lol. Love ya, Alan. Did I mention it’s not wise to travel by yourself (or with your beautiful wife) on a moto in a third world country? Anyways we set out and the ride was beautiful. I’ve traveled over the Appalachians, the Rockies, Florida beaches, and everything in between on my motorcycles. Our country is full of beauty and diversity and I am proud to call myself an American, but this road, man, it was something special. I started wondering if the isolated beach, which was our destination, could even compare with the beauty that passed before my eyes as we sped through those curves. The road followed the contour of the coast, one minute we were cruising along 2 or 3 hundred feet above the ocean, 5 minutes later I could turn and spit on the sand beach, then we would go up again. If ya’ll look closely of the photo here with me n Steph on a small mountain with the bike n the sea in the background, look just over my right ear, what looks like a river, nope, that’s the road. Anyways, we rode like that for about 70km and then the highway cuts across the southern peninsula of the Dominican, leaving the east coast and arriving on the west side, at our destination, Bahia de las Aguilas (Eagle Bay). That’s about a 50km trek, and although not quite as breathtaking, it had a beauty of it’s own. It was a desert land scape. Butterflies were prevalent in the thousands. Cactuses (cactii?) were everywhere, as well as desert shrubs and thorn bushes. Although our concierge/manager at the hotel did tell me to fill up on gas at that last “large” town on the east coast (Enriquillo), and he did tell me it was another 50km to Bahia de las Aguilas, what he neglected to tell me was that I would be crossing a desert which is a National Park, meaning that the government protects the environment completely and there would be no houses, no stores, no villages, no other intersections or roads, in fact, the ONLY thing in the 50 km between that last town and Bahia is a gravel quarry. We’ll get to how I know that so well in just a minute. So we’re cruising along, I’m opening up the bike cuz the road is straight and there’s absolutely zero traffic. We’re running about 100km/hr with the wind in our face and the sun on our backs. I don’t even mind the butterflies slapping my face (I did regret those few dying), it was such a beautiful thing to see so, many thousands of them. Like I said, I didn’t know I was crossing a 50km desert, and I was just thinking how blessed we were from what we’d seen already that day (we haven’t even yet arrived at our destination at the isolated and protected Eagle’s Bay), and about the beautiful the works are that come from the hands of our Father. And then I had a thought, “We’ve been almost 15km and haven’t seen a village or sign of human life at all (throughout Haiti and the Dominican there are always little villages scattered about 5-10km apart). The next thought that went through my head was the realization that the tail end of my bike was swerving. Which usually means the back tire is flat…yup!!! It was about mid-day in the Caribbean and we had 1/3 of a bottle of water in our pack for the two of us. I still hadn’t realized that we were in the middle of a 50km trek across the desert of the southern peninsula of the Dominican Republic, and knowing that we hadn’t passed a village in about 15 km or so, I figured it couldn’t be far to the next village, so ahead we went, pushing the bike, not knowing it was 35km until the next semblance of civilization. Remember I said the only thing in those 50km of desert was a marble quarry? Well, thank you, Lord, and believe me we WERE praying, when we happened to have that flat tire about 1km from that quarry. Of course we still didn’t realize our true situation, so we stopped at the entrance, which was just a dirt road, and contemplated our options for several minutes. 1) We could continue and hope to find a town in the next km or so which could fix the tire (every village has someone who can fix a flat, considering the roads, it’s quite common). 2) We could wait and hope that a passerby would offer us assistance. But this would mean that we both ride with them to the nearest village (no way I’m separating with my wife at this point), leaving the bike vulnerable to theft (it’s a 125cc, 2 men can pick it up and put it in a pickup), and even then we would still need to find a hand pump to bring back, pump up the tire, and then return to the village to get the tire fixed. Also, and more importantly, we would totally be at the mercy of whomever picked us up, be it one, or two people, who knows. I didn’t bring my Taser or my pepper spray across the border, only my pocketknife. 3) I could approach the four men sitting outside a very dilapidated trailer, playing dominos, in the middle of the desert. The reason they were there still escaped us as we could not see the quarry behind them. Our choice on #3 was decided on this; if they wanted to roll us they would have to all be in on it, and we could see 4 of them, a passerby might only have one or two, which is easier for them to “keep the secret.” Evil is like that. They like to hide, “Don’t let anyone with a pure heart know what we’re doing. Let’s keep to the darkness. Avoid the light. It exposes us.” I figured since there were 4 of them, at least one might be a man of a good heart. Also, they had several Cooligan-size jugs of water, so I hoped, if nothing else, we could buy some water. As I approached them, leaving my wife with the moto by the highway, within view, it was still a mystery to me as to why four men would be playing dominos in front of a dilapidated, dirty, falling-down trailer in the middle of nowhere. Incredibly they hadn’t even seen us sitting on the side of the highway for the last 10 minutes, contemplating our decision. So as I made my approach, I kept saying “Buenas tardes” louder, and louder, and louder. Finally they heard me and all turned to look. I said, “Engilsh? Creole? French?” They all shook their heads. So I started with my charades, which I got very good at in my early months here in Haiti, and was able to communicate that we had a flat tire and needed a pump. The lighter-skinned, and bigger, of the four men, started to talk to the others in Spanish, and made his our charades towards me in order to communicate to me to bring the moto to their trailer. I had no choice but to trust them at this point. Once I arrived with the moto, and my wife in tow, the other guys took it, mounted it on a block, and started to remove the tire. I thought maybe they were going to fix it there, but once it was removed, the “leader” put it in the back of his very nice pickup, and motioned for us to get in. It surprised me when he turned back towards the last town we passed (I was still thinking there was a village around the corner). Then he and I started our very limited conversation. Turns out that that place is a government owned marble quarry and that this man is a Coronel in the Dominican Army, Coronel Bernardino Coronado Rodriguez, to be exact (he gave me his card and when I am finished with this post I intend on writing him a very sincere thank you letter). Not only did he drive the 15km back to the last town and pay for the tire to be fixed, but he absolutely refused for us to reimburse him, and went so far as to show us his house and said, if needed, we were welcome to stay the night with him (he spends 4 days there, managing the quarry in the middle of nowhere, and 3 days with his family in a town which I can’t remember the name). Once we returned, while his workers put our bike back together, he showed me the quarry and the very massive machines which they use to cut these 12’x12’x12’ blocks of marble. But not to be denied my isolated beach of the “Eagle’s Bay,” we continued on. We went the 25km remaining through the desert and then 10km down many dirt roads, stopping often to ask directions (well, “sign” directions), and although the beach was quite unique in it’s isolation and lack of tourists, and despite it’s beauty, the rest of the story goes on like many experiences that people have at the beach. We arrived, it was beautiful, we ate at the only real restaurant on the southern peninsula of the Dominican (octopus and red snapper, delicious), then we rented a boat to take us snorkeling in a protected National Park in the Caribbean. Needless to say, we saw many varieties of fish, coral, shellfish, and a 4ft barracuda seemed to a particular curiosity about me. But what made it more than all of that, was that I was able to give my wife this experience; she had never even been on a boat before, not even a john-boat. She doesn’t know how to swim. In fact, before she met me she had never traveled outside of a 50-mile radius of Port-au-Prince. But the guide and I helped her into her life vest, eased her in the water, one of us on each side, and she left the first boat she’d ever ridden, in waters above her head, not knowing how to swim, and discovered the mystery of the ocean, and it’s creator, in the thousands of brilliantly-colored fish that absolutely covered a very large rock. The look on her face when she came out of the water and onto the boat reminded me of the look I see on my son’s face when he realized how to use his walker, or was able to crawl up on the bed for the first time. There really is no better gift that one can give another than the experience which opens their eyes, broadens their horizons, and puts the kind of self-confidence in them that says to themselves, “Hey, I can do this!” Looking back on the life I’ve lived, I could write many such stories as such, however, I never realized they could be so enhanced by another, as is the case with my wife, Fafane (Stephanie), or my son Miller (Kalens). As I write this I ask myself which is more rewarding, to see my son’s excitement and fascination with life as he grows from an infant and this world unfolds itself before him, or to see the same excitement and fascination of life in the eyes of my wife as a new, and foreign world to her unfolds itself and she is exposed to the many wonders that God created for us to explore. I will suffice to say this: Thank you, Lord, for my family, both here and in the States. Thank you, Lord, for the beauty in your creations here on this planet (I can’t wait to see what You have in store for me when my work here is finished), and lastly, and more important, thank You for trusting me to do your work in a land which is harsh and unforgiving. In my next post, ya’ll will see the other side of life in Haiti, in which I live my life, not in the confines of a security protected mission, but in the poverty stricken hoods of the country. A place in which I have seen machete duels in the street in front of my house, in which I have had to take children who have been raped, by other children, to the hospital, a hood in which filth and pestilence, producing disease, are rampant in the streets, something I see each day when I open my steel-bolted door. I thank you, Lord, for trusting me with this responsibility and I ask that you will continue to give me and my wife the strength and endurance to continue your work here, sharing Your word and Your love with those who have been misled by their circumstances and their leaders in whom they have put their trust, knowing that You have compassion and love for all of Your children, and a plan for them to prosper if they turn to You and forsake the foolishness which is in the world, realizing that You know our hearts better than ourselves and you will continue to bless our lives and theirs’ in ways we never could have imagined. To You goes all the credit and all the glory forever. Thank you for considering me your servant, despite all my faults. Kevin
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 00:45:16 +0000
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