Preface
To the romantic traveler, I would advise curbing any form of a special occasion while in Haiti. This includes wedding proposals, religious sermons, and declarations of candidacies. For all of these will indubitably and soundly be interrupted by a dog. A Haitian dog has a quota of barks to fulfill throughout the hour—and it will do so on the order of every five minutes, it seems. And never alone. No, of course not. Like the Haitian people, the dogs embrace the old world sense of community—if one barks, they all bark. I remember distinctly one evening, as I was unwinding after a long day’s work, I heard a dog crying a way off in the distance—I figured a man must have stepped on its toe in the dark. Well, that crying inspired a dog a few paces off to join in, and then another dog a furlong distanced to do the same, so on and so forth until the crying reached the front porch. This happened several times throughout the course of the night, waking me up each time. It was tiring, to say the least. And so it was that I laid in bed at 4:25 in the morning, not tossing and nor turning, nor covering my ears but trying to decide whether I should shoot the dogs or the buffoon who stepped on the toe.
Tale
Several months ago, on the recommendation of a friend, I took a week off from my practice in Tennesee to perform some missionary dental work in Haiti. It was a delightful trip. It was an enlightening trip. It was a lovely trip. I ended up with forty mosquito bites. I ended up with three wooden carvings of Jesus washing feet. And a case of, what I believe was, amoebic dysentery.
At about 11AM on the third day of the trip, after extracting three wisdom teeth in a row—a rather ambitious undertaking in 95 degree heat—I decided to rest for a few minutes. I took a seat next to our translator (Haitians speak a Creol French), a man by the name of Pastor Martinique. Pastor was not his first name, of course, but his vocation. I never learned his first name—or last, if by chance Martinique was his given name—because he was always just Pastor to me.
Pastor Martinique was of middling height and build and bore a close resemblance to Bill Cosby. He wore frameless glasses and carried a look of the deepest contemplation on his face at all times. Whether he was pondering God or lunch, I never knew because Pastor was always full of surprises.
Perhaps the most endearing quality about him was his innocent sense of humor. He liked a good joke, especially about the Catholics, and he would tell them all day, first in English, and then in Creol, so that the patient could get a laugh, too (unless he was a known Catholic, then Pastor would tell a blonde joke). This turned out to be a rather effective way of pulling teeth. He’d tell a joke, causing the patient to laugh and open their mouth and I would swoop in with my forceps, at just the right moment, and yank the sucker(s) out. We made a great team.
As I sat there next to him I let out a long sigh. “Pastor, I’m exhausted. Haiti is wearing on me.”
“It is?” He said, “Well, I’m sorry. It is probably the heat. Americans don’t usually handle the heat well.”
He knew full well about Americans because he was one. In fact, he had a house in Florida that he frequented often. Somewhere in Naples, I think. But he and Madame spent most of their time in Haiti, housing missionary groups.
“No, it isn’t the heat. I’m from Tennessee. This is nothing. It’s those dogs—they bark incessantly. I’m surprised a man ever gets sleep on this island.”
“We stick grass in our ears,” he said. “An old Haitian trick.”
I tried this later, rolling some grass into a ball and sticking it in my ear. I felt only slightly ridiculous. So, in order to alleviate my discomfort, I told the other members of our group about the noise-damping effects of grass and they followed suit. I was a hero for nineteen minutes until Madame Louise saw our experiment, grew a bit red, and cried, “That Pastor!” She explained that this was a favorite joke of his and he had told the same thing to some British missionaries a few months prior. Several of them developed ear infections as a result.
“Well, I think the next time I come, I am just going to bring my shot gun,” I responded.
“And shoot my pets?!”
“Your pets?”
“Yes, my pets! I once told a group of Canadian missionaries—they are very gullible, you know—that the spiders on the island were my pets, and not to kill any of them. All week they screamed and yelled and cowered, but did not injure a single one. It was not until my wife grew so weary of their crying, that she took an old newspaper to every spider in the house. The missionaries tried to stop her, of course, believing that the spiders were my pets and that I would be very sad if any of them died. Well, as you can imagine, I was comfortably reading in my parlor when I heard, ‘THAT PASTOR!’ And decided to go for a walk.”
“So the dogs aren’t your pets?”
“No, they are.”
I was confused. He elaborated.
“You see, dogs are revered in Haiti, much the same way cats were revered in ancient Egypt. Especially the strays, we Haitians love our strays.”
“Is that because dogs have some special voodoo power?”
Voodoo is largely practiced in Haiti, but most only on chickens.
“Nooo,” he answered with a scowl, “no, no, no. Dogs will have nothing to do with that superstition. They are too pious. No, the reason we love our dogs follows a tale that will take much longer than a short break to tell.”
I told the nurse to give me another twenty minutes. I was very tired.
“Go ahead, Pastor,” I said. “I am eager to hear.”
“Well,” he shifted in his seat to a more comfortable position, “ok.”
“About fifteen years ago, in the summer of 1994, Haiti was under great political turmoil. So much so, that the U.S. military was threatening to invade the island. Out of supreme desperation, our General Cedras called upon your President Jimmy Carter to keep the U.S. from doing this—to lead talks with our leaders and resolve the problems. President Carter relayed this cry to your, then, President Clinton, who was busy, I suppose, with his female White House aides and asked President Carter to administer aid to Haiti himself. So, he assembled a diplomatic team consisting of Senator Sam Nunn, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell, and Senator Strom Thurmond. Senator Thurmond was a late addition and is still, to this day, a complete mystery because he was so old. I remember seeing him for the first time and thinking he was going to die any minute. But, well, he didn’t.
“Anyways, only a few days after Senator Thurmond joined the other delegates, Senator Nunn backed out, claiming he had private issues that needed to be taken care of. Chairman Powell followed suit a few days later, claiming for health reasons instead. This left President Carter with only Senator Thurmond as a companion on the mission—as all other members of the U.S. government provided legitimate excuses for their inability to join the two men in Haiti. Then, a week before they were scheduled to leave, President Carter backed out saying that his interests had become conflicted by a chance at economic gain. He said that General Cedras had offered him a monetary reward if the U.S. was successful in negotiating a non-militaristic invasion. With the welfare of the Haitian people at stake, President Carter said, he had to remove himself from the mission.
“At this point, I knew something was strange because this made no sense to me. What politician would not accept money? And what politician would think the Haitian government has money? The Haitian government has no money! How could we offer a reward? We would probably ask a reward from the U.S. for a peaceful negotiation. Of course I couldn’t do anything with a strange feeling so I prayed and waited to see the real reason, if there was one, as to why Senator Thurmond was making the trip by himself.
“He arrived in early August with an aide, a personal chef, and a two Secret Service agents. Our two reporters on the island were there as he walked off the plane, and anxiously prodded him with questions. But all he did was just wave his hands at them and tell them he was too tired for the press. The Secret Service quickly pushed them back, and he walked quietly into the terminal.
“Of course, we were eager to hear from Senator Thurmond, as our fate rested solely in his hands, but for two days all he did was sleep. We knew this because most of the employees in the embassy were Haitian and, as you may have already figured out doctor, we Haitians are like a great family. One person tells another, and another tells another, and so on. Pretty soon the whole island knows what happened. It keeps a man honest, doctor. You want to kiss a woman other than your wife? Ha! Good luck. Good, good luck.
“I should also add, before I go further, that I had a particularly good vantage point during this whole escapade—as my congregation was right down the street from the U.S. Embassy. In fact, people came by my office every day and to talk to me about Senator Thurmond. Did I think he was going to get the job done? When did I think it would be over? Why was he sleeping so long? All of these questions and no answers. It was rather bothersome, actually, but it kept me invested in what was happening the entire time.”
Pastor was distracted by some boys making noise in the yard. He leaned out the window and yelled at them in Creole. They ran off screaming something over and over again and the dogs started to bark. This brought him back to the story.
“Well, on the third day, he finally rose. On a Sunday, nonetheless! Service that morning was very energetic—I could barely keep my congregation in their seats. His rising on the third day was a sign, people said, a sign that we would all be saved. Haitians are very superstitious, doctor, very, very superstitious. And we love signs! I was flooded with questions after service—Did I think this man was Jesus? Did I think he could save us? I was not sure how to respond; I was not sure because I knew he was just an old man who needed rest. Hope was such a rare thing in those times, though, that I was afraid to speak against it.
“That afternoon, Senator Thurmond held a press conference, and talked for five hours. He mentioned the political affairs of Haiti only once in that amount of time, then spoke of the heat, the humidity in Georgia, the shading effects of pine trees, the way a person can tell the difference between a red and white pine—something about counting the needles—his grandmother’s insistence upon pine tea for an upset stomach, and how he didn’t generally care for the taste of pine tea—he’d rather have a Coke. A reporter asked him one question, which Senator Thurmond answered for nearly two hours. And when he started discussing his mother’s biscuit recipe, the reporter stood up and left.
“The Haitian people didn’t really know how to take that first day. There was still a sense of optimism in the air, but there was also uncertainty. The Senator could certainly talk—yes, yes, he could. And this was endearing to Haitians, because, well, we can talk, too. But our fate was in this man’s hands and he was talking about biscuits and pine trees. It was nerve-racking to say the least.
“It didn’t get any better, either. The Senator spent most of his time in the embassy walking around and talking to the staff. It didn’t matter if they spoke English or not—as this was one way Haitian workers tried to avoid his stories—he would just call in his translator—who grew frustrated as well, always having not only to listen, but speak for him, too. His maid staff tried over and over again to tell the Senator that they could not speak English, but he called the translator every time. As they made his bed, he would check the tag on the sheets, commenting on the quality of the cotton. As they brought him towels, he would look at the tag and comment on the quality of the cotton. He said they were Egyptian cotton—soft but inferior to South Carolinian cotton. He told them how Haiti needed to import American made products and not Egyptian or Chinese. South Carolinian products, in particular. They were the best.
“After about a week of this, every one in Port Au Prince was trying to figure out ways to avoid conversation with this man. Pretending not to be able to speak English had not worked. A few even tried pretending to be deaf, but this only invoked Senator Thurmond to yell and mouth every word he was saying, keep a constant gaze with the listener, follow them everywhere, wave his hands in the air, and cause quite a scene. Nobody knew what to do. We were more desperate than when General Cedras originally begged for aide from President Carter. Senator Thurmond could not be stopped! Our own leaders cancelled meetings with him. It was then that we realized there was only one thing to do: Avoid Senator Thurmond at all costs. We were on the lookout wherever we went—as it was the tendency of the Senator to go on daily walks through the city—and if we saw him in the distance—if we were lucky—then we quickly turned down an alley or ran in the other direction. This worked rather well for most of the population. But Port Au Prince is a big city with a lot of people, doctor, and Senator Thurmond usually ran into someone.
“We had just about given up when God finally answered our prayers. One day at noon, Senator Thurmond went for a walk down to the fill-up station with two security guards and his translator to get a Coke—it was a Friday. We in the area had grown quite used to this routine, and were well aware to stay off the street at this time. In fact, the street was basically empty that day except for a blind man and his dog—a stray that he used as protection against thieves—who were sharing an ice cream bar. The Senator saw him and was intrigued by his sharing ice cream with a dog. He went over to the man and asked him if he did not see what he was doing. The man said that he could not see because he was blind. With this, Senator Thurmond began telling the story about his uncle who had lost his eye at the battle of San Juan Hill when Theodore Roosevelt’s horse kicked him in the face. But before he could get further than that, the dog started barking. No one knows why it did—whether or not it was spooked because Senator Thurmond was the first white man that dog had ever seen or because there was something about his voice that drove the dog crazy—but that dog barked and barked. Senator Thurmond was flustered by the barking and unable to return to his train of thought. Discouraged, he walked away from the blind man, bought his Coke, and headed back to the Embassy.
“The translator, who at this point was desperate for a way to quiet the Senator, saw what had happened and was pleasantly surprised. That night after work, he caught a stray dog and put it on a leash. The next morning, he showed up to work with the dog, claiming he had been blinded the night before by a large sneeze and he needed the dog for protection. The Senator said he had never heard of anyone becoming blind from a sneeze before but he had had a sister-in-law who went deaf from an ear infection. Before he could get any further, though, the stray began to bark. And it barked every time Senator Thurmond attempted to speak. Well, he couldn’t have this problem with a translator so he fired him—much to the translator’s delight.
“Within a few hours, everyone in Port Au Prince had heard about what happened and rejoiced—we had been given our answer! People were hoarding dogs and selling them on the street. For the first time in the history of Haiti, there was not a single stray dog in the city. Each one had a home! The entire Embassy staff had become blind and required dogs. Even our president—who often was asked to have diplomatic conferences with the Senator—had a terrible accident on his motorbike that left him blind. Senator Thurmond was thwarted on every occasion for conversation. He became so discouraged that he resigned his post and headed back to the U.S.
“On his last day on the island he held a press conference to say farewell to Haiti. He was met by an audience of ten people and twenty dogs. Before he could even finish saying, ‘Good day to my friends of Haiti,’ the dogs started barking. The senator grew red in the face, slammed his fists on the pedestal, and spread his arms out, shouting, ‘E-NOUGH already, D—n it!’ Then he walked off stage and was never seen in Haiti again.”
“So, did he have anything to do with the eventual peaceful invasion of Haiti?” I asked.
“Oh no, no. President Clinton arranged something after Senator Thurmond left. It was really no big deal,” responded Pastor.
“Oh,” I said. I wasn’t sure whether or not he was joking about it being easy, but I also didn’t have the energy to argue. It was too hot. And the dogs had started barking. So, instead I said, “Hey, Pastor, you hear the one about the nun who wanted to become a prostitute?”
“A what?”
“A prostitute.”
“Oh, prostitute! I thought you said Protestant. Now, that would have been a good one.”
As I ascended the jagged rise of Cape Point (in quite an out-of-shape manner), I began to hum the Rocky theme song. There is something about the golden horns in it that sing of the heart of kings and it made me really anxious to reach the zenith (yes, mom and dad, my college tuition is buying me an array of new words). In a moment that seemed to pause all of time, I triumphantly raised my fists to the sky as I gazed upon the 360 degree view warranted by the final vantage point. This was the place that I had always heard about in New England sailing lore; the place where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet in a tumultuous love affair. The words of Dr. Smith (or Bon-Bons as we have so titled her) seemed to describe the whole scene perfectly. "We are on top of the world, at the end of the world."