It is amazing how one day can go
from awful to wonderful. It started in
Port au Prince and ended at my house in Mizak so it doesn’t seem so strange
when you throw that in there. I took
Cassie and Adam to PaP yesterday so that they could catch their flights early
this morning.
We just stayed with some friends so
I slept on the floor, a concrete floor with a carpet. And there are so many more noises in PaP then
in the countryside, music playing all night, cars passing by and people
praying. And it is hot, HOT, sticky
nasty and no air conditioner, which is also makes the misquitos fun to deal
with! Needless to say even with the Benadryl
I didn’t sleep so much. We had to get up
about 5:30am to see them off to the airport.
The drive there was not bad, not a lot of traffic. They were safely on their way.
But we were off on our own journey
back through the hot noisy city, trying to find several different Tap-Taps
(trucks- of different sizes that serve as Taxi’s. They call them Tap-Taps
because people tap on the side of the truck when they arrive at their
destination.) At one point in time in
the main market strip in PaP we were not moving at all, for some time. We decided to get off the Tap-Tap and
walk That was until I was walking in
sludge, this nasty grey gunk on the ground and said we need to get back in a
machine. The nasty grey sludge was
splashing up on my legs if we walked to fast.
Lucky, we found a truck about that time. It may have been one of the most interesting
Tap-Tap rides I have had, or at least the most interesting conversations. A lady boarded the Tap-Tap with her 4 small
children under the age of 7, the youngest being about 5 months. The boy was fussy and the other merchant
ladies thought he was hungry as he was grabbing at his mother’s shirt. The ladies in the Tap-tap ranging in age of
25-60 then proceeded to discuss breast feeding, talking about benefits of and
how long and how many kids they all fed.
I couldn’t believe I was in my current setting listening to this
conversation among knowledgeable women.
We
finally arrived at the Bus Station to catch the bus to Jacmel. After negotiating with 3 different vans we
finally got one to let us take the 10 year old that was coming with us only ¼
of the way for free on Papi’s lap. These
normal sized mini-vans ride 19 with the driver.
You sit in rows 4 across; you are pressed up against the person next to
you so tight you should know their life story.
If you think of the space you have on the airplane with the 3 seats
across if it was a van you could squeeze one more person in that row. So there we were I had 2 backpacks on my lap,
my own and Yadlee (the 10 year old we were dropping off) was part on my lap,
part on Papi’s lap. Not to mention the 2
ladies on either side of us each had a lap full of goods too. It was hot and miserable! To survive, you really just end up sort of in
a trance, sort of in a dreamy, sleepy state of mind trying to imagine you are already
at home.
When we dropped off Yadlee it seemed we were
in heaven with all the room we had, now just squished between the 2 people with
one backpack; riding in the middle of Papi and I. Now time for some sleep, however shortly
after climbing the mountain we ran into ‘road construction’. Pretty much the whole mountain has become
eroded and is falling down on the road, so we were waiting for what seemed like
forever in this van with 19 people and no breeze! I got out my DVD player, I don’t usually ever
like to do this because it seems rude and I just don’t’ like to announce I have
one. But I thought it would pass time so
I started ‘Julie and Julia’. Once we got
going though I had to stop it due to road sickness to many curvy roads to be
watching a film.
After
getting off the van at DiMez and eating some rice and beans in a small restaurant
and changing into shorts behind the shack or a restaurant, instead of my tight
short skirt to ride the motorcycle; it was smooth sailing. I was so happy to be bouncing up that mountain
with the breeze, almost home!
Right
after the road where I always think to myself ‘almost there!’, we see a family
of 3 walking with 8 full size chairs and 4 small Haitian Kitchen Chairs (looks
like a kid’s chair) on their heads. I
immediately nudged Papi, because since being in the country again I have been
looking for dining room chairs. We have
4 at the house for the 7 people who live on the property. Which is usually fine because it doesn’t seem
everyone is ever home at the same time, but when there were 2 more Americans at
the house – I felt bad stealing the chairs from other family members. After much negotiation we ended up with 4
large chairs and 1 small kitchen chair.
Our driver actually helped negotiate the price. After arriving home I was so excited to be
home, I sat and relaxed on my bed and a bit later I had new chairs show up on
another motorcycle. I rested from the
long journey by taking a big nap on my bed.
We had left early enough that when I awoke from the nap I still had
plenty of time to organize and clean in the house before dinner.
The happenings of one day.
