Dream world

Dream world
it all started when i set my clock for 4:30 on my i touch. After i woke everyone, dressed and
about to leave the room, glanced at my watch and 3:35. My iTouch was still set on Antiguan time. Back to sleep for another hour. Even at 4:30 there were people walking to work. They would check their watches as they walked throughthe light of the hotel. We got on the road to PAP shortly after 5. I had a fully charged camera so was shooting what i could in the slowly growing light. There were so many shots that i missed due to not being adept with his camera. We seemed to be in a hurry as we raced through the dawn hours. I hoped we would atop somewhere for dejeuner y café, my last i. Haiti. But as it turned out, that would not happen. I thought we had plenty of time to get there but we raced on. We were out of the
mountains and approaching the outskirts when disaster struck.
I had grown used to the horn blowing to warn our approach, but something was different. I glanced out the front just in time to see the small form move into our path, hear the brakes scream and the horrible sound of the impact as we slammed into the small girl. The next moments were an eternity. Had we killed her? Wailing voices converged from across the field and the nearby shelters. Were we in sudden danger of reprisal? The driver and LaFleur were out of the van and before I had any answers to my questions, the door slid open and her limp body was passed in to my arms. Was I about to experience a death in my arms? We grabbed two of the gathering crowd, slammed the door, and sped away, back in the direction we had just come. She was breathing, and I could see that her left arm was broken and probably her left leg. As I cradled her upper body in my arms, a miracle happened. Her eyes opened. And she spoke. She tried to sit up but between the new woman and myself we kept her fairly calm and quiet. The pain was starting to set it and her shrieks filled the van. I maintained eye contact with her even though our eyes were upside down to each other. I stroked her face and reassured that she was ok and we were taking her to a hospital The minutes dragged on but we soon came to a Medicin San Frontieres facility. It took a couple of tries to find the right entrance in their compound, but soon a stretcher was coming toward us.
Her name is Lachelle, she is 11 years old. Throughout her examination and diagnosis I massaged her neck and held her hand. Even when her father arrived she would not release her grip. I blew on her face and she requested "Encore". A orthopedist from Montreal came and found nothing else broken, a few abrasions, but nothing serious. She will survive.
She wore a t shirt that bore "THIS LITTLE GIRL TAKES NO BULL!"
I can attest to that, she is one brave young woman, being hit by a full van, sustaining multiple fractures, yet maintained calm and focussed control through it all.
I later found out that she had talked about a dream she had last night, about being chased by someone with a machete trying to chop her. Her father is a driver and had just dropped her off. She had never crossed the road by herself before it being a very busy road where they drive very fast. Also that in that community they have killed a driver who had killed a child and burned his van. Bigger miracle than i realized.
So what did I learn? All week I've been thinking that it's the journey not the destination. If I had demanded a food stop, Lachelle and I never would have met.
We missed the bus at the main station in PAP but got to the second station in what seemed like masses of time. Slow down and enjoy the trip.
Sadly we motor out of Haiti and into the Dominican Republic and
toward Santo Domingo. Between the tinted glass and the curtained windows, there was little to see, as if one was wearing blinders. It reminded me of how the world views Haiti, very different from the experience that i have just been privileged to have.
In a bizarre turn of events they show "Avatar". Talk about dream worlds and miracles.
The trip takes seemingly forever, it is dark when we arrive.
After checking into the Bella Vista again, we wAlk a short way to a relative of LaFleur's for a simple dinner. We dined in a small garden under the banana plants and the stars. The unfortunate part was that LaFleur was on his computer the entire time. I commented on how today's society is being disconnected from civility by its obsession with technology. The gadget takes precedence over those living breathing people nearby. The eyes are diverted toward the flat two dimensional screen. He was so plugged in he didn't even comment.
A small portable washing machine washed our Friends of Haiti shirts for our triumphant return to Antigua tomorrow
We walk back to the hotel through a small barrio, such a different world from the one we left just several hours ago.