April 2002

Okipe

Okipe—the Haitian Creole word meaning busy—it’s the way the people of the City of Leogane seem to us. Haiti, the western third of the Carribean island of Hispaniola, sometimes called the basket case of the Western hemisphere, the country forgotten but not-to-be-forgotten. We’re on our first-ever visit to this nation about the size of the state of Maryland in which 5½ million people of West African and French descent reside. We’re a green-as-grass new missionary couple doing in-country orientation before heading to our assignment in the more remote northeastern mountains. Passing through the gate of our cocoon, the hospital compound in Leogane, we venture into the dusty bustling street timidly at first, then each day with more confidence and enthusiasm. Of course we are greeted with a few curious stares—we expected that, being about the only blan (a Creole word for white foreigner) in town, but the stares literally melt to smiles and animation as the mango sellers by the roadside or the furniture craftsman in an open-air work yard respond in kind to a wave and a friendly "Bonjou!"

Life is lived outdoors in Haiti—everyone’s on the street—everyone’s doing something, going somewhere. Giggly, gawky pre-teens in school uniforms walk home through the rocks and puddles. A wiry man in cut-off pants, a brimmed straw hat, and flip-flops pulls a seemingly impossible load of cane on a long wooden wheelbarrow mounted on truck tires. Stately women with beautifully erect posture walk briskly beneath baskets of fruit, housewares, or laundry carried on their heads. Somehow they manage to turn side to side to watch for traffic or children, yet never miss a step or shift their burdens. Young businessmen clad in crisp white shirts navigate ancient bicycles around the pot-holes and rocks that make up the road. With a bell or a curious sucking noise that sounds like someone giving a big kiss, they warn walkers of their passing. There’s a spirited game of dominos going on in front of the tiny comer market, and the clack of the tiles is interrupted occasionally by a laugh, an exclamation from onlookers, or the untimely morning call of a red-combed rooster who struts in a nearby yard. Men mix mortar, rocks, and water in the street with a shovel, and call to one another as they lift up another bucket-load hand-over-hand with a frayed rope.

There’s a lot going on, and Haitian people, although they lack much in the way of machinery and sophisticated tools, are doing it all themselves—the old-fashioned way—hard labor. Open, responsive, paradoxically cheerful, it seems—our first impressions of our Haitian brothers and sisters—okipe.