In order to legally reside in Haiti for more than three
months at a time, non-Haitians are required to obtain what is called a Premis
de Sejour; I think that means a permit of the day, but that is just an educated
guess since I don’t really know French.
Prior to coming, I gathered what I thought I would need for the permit. There is a Haitian Sister of Holy Cross who
has assisted many sisters with this process.
She submitted my papers and the papers of a young lay woman from Canada
who is volunteering at the high school in Cap Haitian which is also sponsored
by the Sisters of Holy Cross. One of the
things I knew I needed was passport photos so I had them taken in New Orleans
before I left. I do not remember reading
that I would need six photos, so I only had two printed. Once in Haiti, I was informed that I needed
six, and had the picture taken at a photography shop here in O’Kap. Last week I called the sister who was
assisting me with the process to check the status and learned that I would need
to go to Portauprince to sign a paper, although in reality it was more than a
simple signature that was required. On
Sunday the lay volunteer and I rode with a chauffeur who was going to the
capital to transport the postulants from the capital to O’Kap on Monday. The trip took over four hours. We arrived in plenty of time for Sunday
dinner at the convent with the sisters in Portauprince.
On Monday morning we went to the immigration/emigration
office in the city. Riding through the
city, I saw familiar sites and noticed significant changes as it has been well
over three years now since I had been in down town Pourtauprince. The National Palace has been completely
demolished; I had heard this, but to see
an empty space where a massive but broken building had stood the last time I’d
passed, is very different than simply
reading the news on a website. When we
passed certain spots, that were only vaguely familiar, I recalled that large tent
communities had once been there.
.
We arrived shortly after 8:00 am. While the other areas of the building seemed
already crowded with people, there was nobody waiting in front of us when we
arrived in the air conditioned Premis de Sejour room. I was feeling a little nervous about the paper
work because I knew it would all be in French.
I had heard stories of people who work in government offices, speaking
French to people who don’t understand French and pretending not to know
Creole. While I don’t doubt there is at
least historically some truth to those kinds of stories, thank God, this was
not my experience. Actually the woman who helped us knows English, and after a several minutes of the sister and I conversing in
Creole and then the sister writing the French spelling of words on the back of
an envelope for me to copy unto the application, the kind worker decided that
it would be acceptable for me to write in English on my application. I was glad that she was so helpful and
patient. My only complaint is that she
asked me my color hair, and when I responded, “red, wouj, rouge” (If my answer had been acceptable, I could have
even written red in French, since I know the capital of Louisiana,) I was
informed that my hair is not “red;” it is “brown.” While I have always thought myself a red
head, I quickly decided that in this context, this was not worth arguing about
and wrote “brown” on the paper, in English.
When we got to the next question, I quickly said and wrote that my eyes
are hazel (in English) before anyone had time to inform me otherwise. The only problem was that my birth
certificate had not been translated into French. We were told that we needed to have an
official translation done which a specific agency can do for (what I think is an excessive)
fee. I don’t understand why the birth
certificate would need an expensive official translation; or really why if
someone in the office knows English, and I can write my hair and eye color on
the application in English, my birth certificate would need to be translated
at all. The young woman who is volunteering
at the high school’s, birth certificate is acceptable because hers is bi-lingual since she was born in Canada,
however her certificate of health was not acceptable because it was written on
prescription paper as opposed to a formal official letter; before her permit
can be processed, she needs to go to a doctor here who will give her a
certificate of health written in the proper format. My doctor in the US happens to be Haitian
American and wrote my certificate of health in the proper format and even in
French (one less thing to have translated) and it was perfectly acceptable; thank
God. Before we left, we had to have our
pictures taken, (even though we had each already submitted six pass port type
photos) and we were finger printed. I think we were fortunate that they allowed
us to have the pictures and finger prints taken even though neither us had submitted
all of the proper documentation; otherwise, we would have had to make another trip. The office got busier as more people came in
while we were there. Still, it was not anywhere
near as busy as the open room just outside the office; I am not sure exactly
what happens there but given that the building said Immigration and Emigration
I can imagine. As we made our way
through the crowd, I wondered, for every American and Canadian citizen applying
for a Permis de Sejour to stay longer than three months in Haiti, how many
hundred Haitian citizens are trying to get papers to go to either America or
Canada? I suddenly acquired a deep
appreciation for the fact that I happen to have a birth certificate which
indicates that I was born in the United States.
Later that
morning we left the city with the Holy Cross postulants who had been in the
capital all week for a formation program and two other sisters. Soon after we left the city limits there was
a “blokis” caused by a “manifestasyon,” which means a traffic jam caused by a
protest. One of the sisters called a
young person to the window when we were completely stopped and asked what was
going on and he explained that the manifestasyon was for “dlo” and “kouran.” People had organized this to try to get the
attention of the government because they do not have access to “water and
electricity.” In various places people
had parked large trucks to block the roads, in some places there were also
rocks, and at one point we saw a couple of burning tires. The traffic was very slow moving to get
around the obstacles; then we were able to travel sometimes a bit faster for a
brief time until we came to the traffic caused by the next set of road blocks. This went on for quite a while. At one point we pulled to the side of the
road to wait a while, simply because it felt safer to do so. It took more than twice as long to return to
O’Kap than it did not get to Port-Au-Prince the previous day. I am very thankful that we arrived safely and
grateful that at least here at the orphanage and convent we have dlo and
kouran.
Happy Thanksgiving!
No comments:
Post a Comment