in my head and the excitement of seeing my family and friends, we touched down at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince.
As we deplaned, the smell of the air and the intense heat felt instantly familiar. We made our way through the thronging crowd of people and children who were begging for money and headed towards our waiting truck. Mom had given Betty and me each a handful of dollar bills to give out to the children, but we handed them out too quickly, running out well before reaching our ride. I was saddened to see young kids and teenagers around my age, who should have been in school, begging for money, wearing tattered clothes with no shoes. I looked into their eyes and thought how these kids were just like me. They too had dreams and goals, but sadly, they had no opportunities. I was one of the blessed few whose family had been able to provide with a chance to make his dreams come true. Looking at these kids, I knew that no amount of handouts could ever make a real difference in their lives. They only needed a chance to get an education in order to better themselves. Haitians are generally a very proud, hard-working people. I knew that those kids wanted to go to school, and that their parents wanted to work, but the country could not provide enough educational opportunities or jobs in order for them to do that. Haiti was failing them. Looking into their faces, I knew that I HAD to succeed in becoming an airline pilot, then they could see that one of their own had made it and be inspired that they too could make it. As I looked into their eyes, I hoped to return one day to open up a travel academy and aviation school, where they could study about the travel and tourism industry and work towards careers as airline ticket agents, hotel managers, aviation mechanics and airline pilots. I still cling to that dream and pray to realize it before my time on Earth is done.
My mom’s eldest brother, Uncle Octamoliere had come to pick us up in his red Toyota pickup truck, which by the looks of it had seen lots of action. It was a dual-cab diesel-engine truck with rugged tires and a bunch of dings and scratches in the paint from its battles with Haiti’s rough roads. We piled our bags into the back and headed to our house. Mom and Dad had been to the house before during their trips back to Haiti, but Betty, our siblings, and I had only seen it in photos.
We made our way from the airport through downtown and up to our neighborhood called Delmas. As we rode along, my uncle’s heavy-duty tires got a good workout as we weaved from one side of the road to the other, avoiding ditches while dodging the heavy oncoming traffic, pedestrians, goats, stray dogs, and chickens. Uncle Moliere was very skilled in maneuvering through all the chaos and before long; we reached our house. I was tingling with anticipation as we pulled up in front of the gate. We honked the horn, our watchman slid the large red gate open, and with a roar, the engine of the heavily weighed-down truck pulled up the little ramp into our driveway. As we stepped out of the truck, our watchman started unloading the bags from the truck to bring them inside. We were also greeted by the smell of lunch being prepared by the maid my mom had arranged for our stay. Wow, I thought, a watchman AND a maid, this is VERY far from the projects. As we wandered around the house for the first time, I was impressed by how big it actually was. The pictures had not done it justice. When we stepped out onto the second floor balcony, which wrapped around most of the second level, my siblings and I couldn’t contain our glee that this was OUR HOUSE! We jumped up and down, hugging each other as our smiling parents looked on. This was going to be a very nice vacation indeed.
The road to Fort Jacques
The road was much twistier than I’d remembered. As the truck slowly made its way up the hill towards Mama and Papa Franchil’s house, my head was darting around, trying to take in all the sights and smells that had once been so familiar to me. The same characters were still there. The ladies along the roadside selling fried goat meat, chicken, and fried plantains; the ladies selling fruits and vegetables; the ladies carrying buckets of water on their heads; the men driving tap-taps, trucks, and buses… all of it was still there. As we ascended higher and higher up the road passing the Baptist Mission hospital where I had been born, I breathed in the fresh mountain air and took in the beautiful views across the valley. It was as if everything had been put on pause since I’d left and had started up again as soon as I arrived.
We reached the end of the paved road, and as the trucked lurched onto the rocky path ahead, I started to experience the familiar sensation of our truck bouncing along the rocky road. This had my little siblings and me laughing and shouting out “Whoaaaa” and “Oooooh” with each big bump as our roller coaster-like ride progressed. As my dad drove along some of the narrower stretches, we occasionally got precariously close to the edge of the road with nothing but deep valley far below us. We had only been in Haiti a couple of days, and Mom and Dad wanted to make sure one of the first visits I made was to see the two people who had raised me for the first seven years of my life. As we drew nearer to their house, everything was familiar except that it all seemed to be smaller than I’d remembered. I chuckled at the thought that things had seemed bigger while I was growing up there only because I had been so small. All the paths I used to walk, my school, the cornfield I used to raid, the houses, and churches I used to run by on my neighborhood patrols were all still there.
Mama and Papa Franchil were just as I had remembered them. My grandmother had come to visit us on Staten Island back in 1983 about three years after I’d left Haiti, but this was my first time seeing them both together since 1980. Smiles and tears filled their faces as we all embraced. They were so happy to see the whole family and me, and after hugs and kisses were exchanged, we sat down to eat. The conversation was lively, and neighbors kept showing up as news of our arrival spread around the neighborhood. My grandmother, in her soft way, was stroking my head, patting my hand, and looking at me with joy, as if she were seeing me for the first time. “Steee-ven” she kept repeating, as she smiled at me in the endearing way only a grandmother could. It was as if their long-lost grandson had been found.
As we talked, my grandmother reminded me of a time during her visit to New York when she had asked me at age ten what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I had told her confidently that I wanted to be an airline pilot. As it would turn out, she would sadly be the only one of my grandparents who would live to see me achieve my dream.
Delmas 65 and 65 Christopher
With my dad being one of six kids and Mom one of seven, I had more cousins than I could count. After our trip to visit my grandparents and neighbors up in Fort Jacques, most of the rest of our time that summer was split between our house in Delmas and my Uncle Moliere’s house. Uncle Moliere had a large, two level, five-bedroom house that had a wrap-around balcony even larger than the one my parents had. He and his wife had seven kids of their own: five of whom still lived at home. I was sixteen at the time, and my cousin Darby, age seventeen and I instantly became best friends. Also in the house were his two big brothers, both in their early twenties, Elrood and Walter, along with his younger twin sisters Judith and Jemima, who were both my age. The two eldest sisters in his family, my cousins Venante and Nancy, were actually living with us at my parent’s apartment in New York. Mom and Dad, over the years, had taken in many family members from both sides who arrived from Haiti and needed somewhere to stay as they got settled. Everyone from my uncles, aunts, countless cousins, and friends of the family would, at one time or another call my parent’s apartment in the projects, and later their house on Staten Island, home. Mom and Dad both had generous spirits, and they always tried to help as many people as they could. While the nucleus of the seven of us was always there, rarely were there only seven of us living in our home. However, while many cousins would come and go from our house over the years, this was the first time I was meeting these particular cousins. Betty and I were immediately taken by how fascinating, friendly, and just downright cool they all were. Mom and Dad spent their days visiting friends and family scattered all around the capital, and Mom would take my three younger siblings with her most of the time, so Betty and I got to hang out around town having fun with our older cousins, learning what it was like to be a teenager growing up in Haiti.
The days went by quickly with my family and I making the most of every minute of our time that summer. Although
