Saturday, September 14, 2013

Today was an interesting day in Haiti. (written about a year ago)



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.

 

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