Coasta, the Haitian Hound
Chapter One
At the very innocent age of 21, I moved with my new husband to a far away land. “I am taking you to Paradise” he told me! Little did I know at the time that Haiti would provide such a beautiful, funny, and yet sometimes painful chapter to my life. My husband had rented a two bedroom apartment for us in Petion Ville, which was a beautiful little hillside town overlooking the Capital City of Port a Prince.
As soon as we had deposited our suit cases and boxes of belongings in our new home, it was time for me to meet my new father in law. My husband had rented a tiny cookie cutter, two-door Renault to navigate the three hour drive to his father’s home in Gonaives. The drive there was breath taking and exciting. When you are used to riding along the California highways, the narrow two lane roads of Haiti, on which everyone drives 90 miles an hour, can seem like a scary roll-a-coaster ride. Everywhere you looked there was color, from the dark green county side, the deep blue ocean in the distance, the bright clothing worn by most of the people, to the almost neon kaleidoscope of colors on the Tap Tap’s that whizzed by us within inches, horns blazing, piled high with produce, luggage and people. It also seemed that the only kind of car allowed in Haiti, besides the afore mentioned busses, must be the Renault, as different colors of the same variety we drove dotted the “highway”.
We spent a lovely long day at his father’s home. I was in pig heaven; or should I say goat heaven, loving the farm like atmosphere, with the goats, chickens and puppies. It felt surreal to be in this vastly different country so many miles from home. My new father in law was extremely sweet and eager to welcome me into the family with a typical Haitian feast. Creole fried chicken, red beans and rice, fried plantains and of course, a nice warm glass of fresh goats milk (Yuck). When it came time for us to leave that evening, my new father in law made sure that our car was adequately loaded with plenty of welcoming wedding gifts. We could barely close the doors on that little hatch back which was now loaded to the gills with, mangos, citron, two live chickens (yes I said live, and they weren’t to be pets either), left over food from our feast, and a ti’ chien, a little puppy that I had been playing with that day.
As we set off on our long journey home, I sat in the passenger seat with the cuddly, fat wormy bellied, white and brown 8 week old puppy on my lap giggling like a school girl. I figured his placement on my lap to be the best bet as there were two live chickens, with their feet tied together in the back seat. My husband and I laughed at the cute little guy as we drove through the much darker green now, mostly deserted, country side of Haiti. The only real light was from the dim glow of the dashboard lights, and the reflection of our headlights off the road ahead. Rarely, we would see cooking fires, which marked the scattered shacks of a small neighborhood we’d passed. In all the excitement I decided to name the little guy Costa in honor of the radio station we had listened to back in the United States and the fact that we were now living on “The Coast”.
There was one little detail, however, that had not been mention as we left my new father in laws home. Little Coasta had just been fed… Well let me tell you, unbeknownst to me, they did not have canned dog food in Haiti, and Coasta’s super had been the entrails of our own. About 30 minutes into our drive, miles away from anything, in the pitch dark of the car interior, on my lap, Coasta got sick! There was no gakking sound, no heaving, and no warning what so ever, just a sudden feeling of warm, sticky, steamy goo all over the front of my body.
When I squealed my husband immediately steered the reeking rental car off the road, parked and ran to my rescue. I managed to get out of the car without getting much of the mess in it. We searched the car and the goodies that had been bestowed upon us by my father in law, only to find that, nope, he had not given us any paper towels and there certainly weren’t any left over take out napkins stuffed in the glove box to clean up with.
God bless my husband, he ran about a half a mile back to the nearest shack to see if he could find anyone with anything to help us clean up. But my clothes were a mess and I was soaked to the skin, so I stripped down to my bra and panties just as quickly as he disappeared. I didn’t want to add insult to injury as I was now gagging my head off. Imagine the look on his face when my husband returned to the car with a rag, a bowl of water, and a shocked looking Good Samaritan from the nearest Village. There I stood, a fair skinned, blonde, American in nothing but my undies in the middle of nowhere. All the while this adorable puppy sat on the side of the road getting it all out and looking at me as though I were crazy.
Needless to say, Coasta rode home the rest of the way in the back seat of the car with two very annoyed chickens, and an annoyed, half naked adoptive Mom in the front seat. Thankfully, there are a lot of people in Haiti that don’t wear much clothing, so no one seemed to care about my lack thereof. But let me tell you, it was a very long and very loud trip home. It was a good thing Coasta was cute, or he might have gone home with the Good Samaritan. I never knew before that night, just how much I appreciated the road side rest stop, or the corner gas station…. But Coasta was going home with us.
