Car Breakdowns and Abandoned Babies

I drove in Port-Au-Prince and it was exhilarating in a terrifying sort of way. I was offered a car to run errands and two of us embarked on an adventure. The other girl knew her way around (roughly) and so she took the job of navigator. I took the wheel. Imagine extreme hills, horribly paved (and some not paved) roads, traffic with no traffic signs or lights. Plus the car I was driving was beyond crummy. A 1985 volvo that outlived its life about 10 years ago. It would randomly decide to turn off and the entire car would shut down, brakes and all. I had just a finesse however, that the other girl soon did not even realize that car had turned off even when it happened three times during a 4 point turn on a jam packed highway! When we arrived home safely, we felt empowered.

The next day however, three of us took the car out for some sightseeing. We didn’t get very far when the driver (not me this time!) took a death dive into a pot hole and our axel didn’t make it. After horrible noises we pulled over in a district not too far from Cite Solei. Not a place you want to be stranded. After an entire crowd assembled around us we had to come up with a plan of action, considering it would be dark in 2 hours and we couldn’t be out there after dark for safety reasons. We finally decided to have the axel welded together again but when we managed to get the car a block away to the mechanist, they were unable to do it since there was currently no electricity. So we had to leave the car behind and head home on a tap-tap.

That same night at the school/hostel a baby was abandoned. Two babies have already been taken in here and it is more than the director can handle. So when this mother arrived and said she could not care for her baby, the director said she could not take the baby—especially considering the baby looked very healthy and well cared for. The mother left the baby with the neighbors after promising to come back after buying diapers. She never came back and the neighbors brought the baby here. We are all hoping the mother may still come back. Apparently she was a restavek (although she was older) and had been thrown out of her home. After wandering on the streets for 3 days she didn’t know what to do. We hope she can find a place and return for her son. You can’t file an “abandoned baby report” anyway until 3 days later.

One funny thing of note when it comes to babies and children—their bellybuttons. At birth, the placentas are often not cut correctly and their bellybuttons end up looking like another appendage! I mean really, it can look like a finger, a penis, or Gonzo’s nose.