Let Me Count the Ways

Let Me Count the Ways

I’ve noticed that everyone on base who is on a contract basis knows exactly how many months, weeks and days they have left until they go home.  I’ve discovered a few interesting ways of counting that time.

When I first got here I had three months,  from Oct 31 until January 30, on my term.  That’s ninety days.  After the first week it was 83 days to go.  That seemed like an awful lot so I changed it to twelve weeks left; it was a more manageable number I suppose.  Now that it is down to two weeks, or fourteen days from today, it seems quite doable.

I had brought two bottles of anti malarial pills with me.  The first bottle was a thirty day supply, the other a 45.  I found that when I filled the smaller bottle in measured increments such as seven pills to the bottle then, when I ran out of that bottle, it seemed like the time had flown faster because now I needed to refill it again.  When I looked at the big bottle brimming with those green, fat pills, I simply couldn’t grasp the concept of jugging all those in the allotted time; but when it was divided up it seemed to disappear faster. That  was manageable.

Manageable is the key word here.  One worker who returned from Christmas break said it simply, “when I come back I return to prison mode”.  That simply means he understands his return ticket is dated, there is an amount of work that has to be accomplished in that time allotment, and there is nothing he can do to change those facts.  Knowing that there is a time scheduled for his return back home makes it ... manageable.

Kimmie helps out in a cute manner.  When she writes me on facebook or makes a comment on my blog she adds the number of days left to the note.  One message had only the day count, 24, on it.  When I first saw it I had to scratch my head as I didn’t know what the lone ‘24’ meant.  The next day I grasped the concept her message simply said ‘23’.  Duh.

The long termers, a year or more contract, don’t like to talk about their remaining months.  They made the decision to come here for a long time and this, therefore, would be where their life would be for that period.  They try not to be in touch with others outside of Haiti because it forces them to live here, in the moment.  Then their lives seem to change in that their Haitian friends are now ‘family’ and their lives become intertwined locally rather than internationally.

As for me I am not long term.  I go home in two weeks, that’s fourteen days; and I am counting each one down.