Just Wanna Blend In

          Today I had my fill of being stared at and having comments made about me.  I go out in the neighborhood, which I've been doing for three months now, and everyone still stares.  It's as if people have not seen a white person (or me) before.  What really got to me, though, were the comments and stares when I took the boys to see the road construction.  Everyone (okay, not everyone, just the vast majority of the men) had something to say.  Some of it I understood; some of it I didn't (but I got the meaning just fine).  I felt bad for the boys because they had to listen to the stuff.
          Then, when I go out on the motorcycle to practice, everyone--men, women, and children--stare.  It bugs me.  I just want to be able to go out, do my thing, and not be noticed.  I don't want to have to respond to every child shouting "Hey, you" or "Blanc."  And I don't want to have to respond when the adults (mostly the men) do it.  I've gotten to the point of rudeness--I just don't respond and keep walking.  No eye contact.  No head movements.  Nothing.  Then I feel like a rude, stuck up American.

The boys watching the machine

The machine being watched!

          I feel so comfortable here, but most people still treat me as an oddity.  Then, I try to "walk around in someone else's skin" (thank you Atticus Finch!).  Is this how minorities feel in the U.S.?  Do they always feel as if people are staring at them simply because of the color of their skin?  Do they feel as if they are an oddity?   I rarely feel hostility, just like I'm an exhibit in a zoo.  Today was the only day I felt uneasiness.  That came because of the men.  The boys and I sat down on a short wall so that the boys could watch the ditch-digging machine, and some of the men came over and kept asking me to buy them something to drink.  I said no and smiled.  One of them stepped behind two of the boys and put his hands on their shoulders.  I didn't like that; it made me nervous (just like it would in the States).  I had the two boys move closer to me, and the man started in on me about how I assumed he was bad because he was black.  I said no, that I wasn't comfortable with a stranger touching the kids.  Gertrude assured me that Haitians do not feel it okay for strangers to touch their children, so I was in the right to expect him to keep his hands off.

Wolton, Edson, Jameson, Keloke

          Why did it immediately become about race?   Why not simply about respecting one's boundaries?  I wonder if in the States minorities feel hostility instead of oddity?  Do I not feel hostility because it's not there?   Or is it because I know it's a temporary situation for me?  

          The boys did enjoy themselves, though! That made all the other stuff worthwhile.  

          Yesterday a group came in to do quick blood

Marvens, nursing his "wound"

work on all the kids and staff here.  They were from International Child Care (I think), and they came with the staff from Christian Adoration School.  That's the school that the two teachers here are associated with.  It was quite the process!  First of all, some of the kids didn't know what was going on, but they didn't like the looks of things.  Those kid immediately screamed.  Some kids approached calmly, but after the finger prick they screamed.  Then there were the kids who screamed/cried for hours afterward, nursing the pricked finger as if they were near death.  The entire lab staff and the teachers have way more patience than anyone I know.  Any teachers who are reading this: please never complain about taking kids for vision/hearing screening.  That's nothing compared to this.

          I continue to improve on the motorcycle.  At this point, I just need to wait for the license so that I can go on the roads!  I'm trying to figure out where I want to go first.  Caribbean Lodge?  The beach?  Petionville?  Maybe the Sugar Cane Museum?