Making Traffic in the truck

I have been wanting to shadow people since I came back to Haiti. This last Friday it finally happened. I am going to break down the day into 2 blogs. I decided I would ‘make traffic’ with my friend Tigo. He told me he started at 4:00AM. This of course ridiculously early, but if you want the full experience you have to go for the gold. He was supposed to call me when he was ready to go. Luckily for me he wasn’t feeling the 4:00AM either, so we left at 5:30AM. This is one of my favorite times in Haiti anyway, because the light across the trees is beautiful. And the sounds when the country side wakes up just makes you smile and appreciate nature. We headed down the road a bit as the rain was starting. There was a group of ladies waiting with large rice sacks filled with different fruits and vegetables, mostly avocados to sell in the market in Jacmel. We loaded up all their goods in the rain. It is a little Toyota pickup truck with a rack on the top that is extended from the back rails so people can sit in the bed of the truck. We put 8 – 5 gallon pails on the top of the roof of the cab. Then 7 ladies with some more produce in the bed of the truck. Then Tigo got a tarp out of the cab of the truck to cover the ladies to protect them from the rain. We picked up a couple of other people along the way, but I was also noticing many people that were just walking with their produce to Jacmel. It is a 40 min ride down the mountain to Jacmel by truck. It is difficult to imagine these women walking all that way with all they have to sell on their heads. We arrived in the normally bustling city of Jacmel to silence in the market. With just a few people there in the market starting to arrive with the bananas, avocados, corn, clothes, and much, much more. Usually you cannot even walk through this area and we just pulled in with the truck without a problem. After unloading the truck we went to a different area to wait for people exiting the city. We ate a pati, this is like a homemade hot pocket. It may actually be the original Hot pocket. These particular ones had some unidentifiable meat and boiled eggs in them; it was delicious. No one was coming to load up in the truck; the rain had kept them in bed a bit longer this morning. So I got to drive to Di Mize so we could wait at the cross road path up the mountain to La Vallee.

At Di Mez, we waited and waited. Di Mez is a little crossroads town that is a junction of people coming to and from Port au Prince and Jacmel up into the mountain communities. As I watched everyone setting up their shops there too, I asked if anyone actually lived in Di Mez. Not really, no one lives in this area they just set up shops there – I guess it is a Haitian mall or a strip mall or I don’t know, just trying to think of a comparison to the United States. As we waited their doing nothing, I wish I had a book. And then I saw a women preparing food. I asked Tigo if I could help her and he looked confused at the notion, I think wondering why, but just going with it as we Americans do crazy things sometimes. I ended up asking the women, she gave me the same look – and I don’t understand why look. Then she handed me the knife and the breadfruit. I was happy, something to do. She just kept telling me in Creole over and over, “Don’t cut yourself. Pay attention.” When I finished she looked at me like ok that was nice, but I asked to cut another piece. Then as people would pass by she would tell them, look at this girl helping me. It was entertainment for awhile, while we waited for people. You never know what a day will bring and you need to be ready to embrace it. Instead of just sitting around and waiting for what was next I decided to try and learn something new and maybe help someone out.