Bus station encounter

Soooo….an uneventful bus ride back to Ottawa. I noticed a couple of women (Haitian) who had been on the same bus as I going to the airport in the first place a couple of days, and they were struggling with some of their belongings, so I helped them carry things off the bus, and get their luggage off the bus. I’m glad I didn’t whine too badly about being inconvenienced from the flight; my new friends (Mme. Clements and her daughter, Fréda Césaire) were about to go to Haiti for 6 months, something they do each year. Each time the flight was cancelled, they spent the night in the AIRPORT, trying to sleep in a chair. I was originally planning on doing that the night before the flight, but decided that my mother would be happier knowing I was in a hotel getting a ‘proper’ night’s sleep (am I right, mom?!). This mother/daughter pair spent two whole days in the airport, and Fréda’s mother has mobility troubles, so they stay put- didn’t eat or drink.

Anyway, they didn’t even have a phone number to contact the airlines regarding the rescheduled flight, and Fréda said she doesn’t know how to use the internet, so I told her I’d call her when I find out when the flight will go. I shared candies with them (am I a granny already? why did I have candies in my pocket in the first place?!), lent my phone to Freda so she could call for a ride home, and we chatted about Haiti, the political situation (Fréda says the elections in Haiti are always a farce- so hard to imagine!), and she told me about where Mme Clements lives. Apparently her town was relatively unaffected by the earthquake. She was pleased to learn I was going to be building in Haiti, saying there was a need for more solid housing, and she didn’t seem to have the same prejudice against straw bale houses for Haiti as some Haitians do (apparently, if you didn’t listen to that clip from 'The Current' a couple of days ago, some Haitians are anti-straw bale…simply because it’s returning to the older ways of building, which they associate with a more peasant way of building. I had the pleasure a couple of years ago of taking Linda Zhu, a Chinese colleague, on a tour of straw bale homes in Ontario. Linda has overseen the construction of hundreds of simple little bale homes in China, and she said she had the same obstacles to overcome in China: the Chinese wanted homes made of brick, and bales plastered with cement, not earth…earth plaster is for peasants, cement is for the rich. In the beginning, they compromised, incorporating brick columns into the buildings, and using cement plasters, but eventually people came around to appreciating local materials.). (That was a very long aside!) Freda said perhaps when I’m in Haiti I can come visit them in their village- how I would love that! I asked permission to photograph them- and Mme Clements giggled, (she was so cute!), and took off her hats (rats- I loved the hats!). What I failed to capture in the photo is their 6 months worth of luggage that they had to haul around the airport, and both of them with canes. I helped them take the luggage out to the car when they were leaving, told Mme Clements that I was delighted to meet her, and I gave Fréda an unexpected hug. It just felt...right!

So, while I didn’t make it to Haiti, I had a great hour hanging out in the bus station with Fréda Césaire and her mother!