Through mountains and memories

I wake up at 430. I start packing up the few things I have left into my backpack. Everyone is still asleep. I am late and unfed when someone comes to the gate. G comes to get me and take me to the mountains, more than three hours away. Everyone is asleep. One of the boys is awake D. He gives me a hug and the assistance director waves to me from his mattress on the countryard. This is it. I like silent goodbyes. I walk out it’s over. There’s not time to stop and reflect.

Although I have taken tap-tap to Portauprince before and this trip is just a bit further I also feel like vomiting, just as first morning when we went from Fermathe to Jacmel. After having nothing in my stomach i’m only offered what I specifically asked to not get, anything acidic. After gulping the juice with motion sickness medication time passes slow. I try to sit closest to the open air, most forward on the middle bench that moves as we turn. I feel really sick. Many many times I am tempted to ask the bus to stop and just like on the mountains that we’re winding around. I keep thinking this and feel if we just stopped and rested we’d find another bus to take us back. I see other people stop and do this. We pick up a lady from the road. She is lifted up completely onto the truck by a man. She sits right next to me with her belongings. I start feeling really sick. I question if I will even make it alive to any stop. I tell them I am sick but communication is difficult and there are no options. Eventually I vomit off the back of the truck. All the people grab onto me thinking I will fall off. They tell G to wipe my head with a towel. The truck gets even tighter. I sit very close to the lady. After leaning all over people I start to see a bag shake. I think I have lost my mind and am starting to get delirous. I move back in shock. From inside the bag the lady rearranges a live chicken. I start praying things get better. As we get closer to the city and more people get on and off and transfer I see another Haitian boy vomit. I realize the motion sickness isn’t just for foreigners. I keep thinking we’re closer as we see more development and less greenery but it’s still far. When we get to the first stop my energy is low. We then take a car to another tap tap stop and then take a last taptap. I have to sit closest to open air so I don’t get claustrophobic and sick in congested covered pick up trucks. There are no more chickens after we get to the city. We finally arrive. We have to walk a couple miles. I walk without my travel pack and just by handbag. I am still very slow and careful. I am happy to be off the bus and am well but I cannot keep pace with G who walks ahead with my travel pack. I try not to lose sight of him. Finally we make it.