1 post tagged “haiti”

What's the most extreme weather you've been in? A memorable storm? Heat wave? Or something else?

In 1987, I was in Haiti for eight days with a medical mission group.  We were camped out in a coastal town, I can no longer remember the name, on Isle de La Gonave.  It was towards the end of the week, a week whose intensity had stretched it way beyond its normal proportions.  It felt like we'd been there a month, caked with a month's worth of sweat and red dust.  We had just finished putting up the tents when a storm struck.  It was the kind of storm that could make you hear the voice of an angry god, it was so sudden and extreme.  The sky was almost white with the searing hot sun, and then it opened up and rained poured forth with thunder and lightening.  In less than a minute the tents were down and floating and our stuff was being washed toward the sea.  We grabbed what we could and ran for shelter, and a group of us took refuge in an empty house.  We would lay our air mattresses down on the cement floor that night to sleep, but that afternoon, we danced with the rain.  Someone had a radio, I think, or were we just singing?  I danced with Remy, a Haitian boy, one of the interpreters, and noticed for the first time that he was attractive, and I still remember what his sweat smelled like.  The group of us waited out the storm in a delighted intimacy that had faded completely by the next day.