Le Soleil est Chaud (The Sun is Hot)

After a restless night sleep.  There was no breeze.  The air was heavy and hot.  We had a fan but the electricity turned off and we roasted.  I say we, I mean MacKenzie and I.  We share a room since we're the only females in the group.

In the deepness of the night, I heard chanting, maybe some drumming off in the distance.  I was told it may have been a voodoo ceremony.  With no generator, fan or other electrical sounds, the silence allowed for many night time noises.

I worked with Rick today on measuring and cutting shelves.  We were a good team.  We didn't make too many mistakes.  The group repaired a bed for one of the women who lives at the children's home.  We started hanging shelves for the kids school supplies.

The best part of my day was playing with the kids.  I sat down and just started rolling a ball back and forth with the littlest guy there (he's 1 or so). Next thing I knew, several kids, MacKenzie and I were playing a game where someone stands in the middle on one foot with their eyes closed, the ball gets passed around the circle, someone hides the ball behind their back. The person in the middle guesses who has the ball and the middle person changes places with the one who held the ball.

Then, one little girl was working on her homework.  She was reading from a French book.  She asked me through pantomime to sit next to her.  I told her to read to me.  So she did.  I clarified some words I thought I knew.  She was teaching me, it was really neat.  Soleil (sun), terre (earth), nord (north), l'ouest (west).
She then asked me to read it to her.  I discovered that I was helping her to study her homework.  I read the question and she had to respond with the correct answer.  It was really a fun opportunity.

I have learned over the last few days that this location where we are working is not called an orphanage, it's a Children's Home, some of the kids are orphans who lost their parents in the earthquake but others are children from single parent homes who can't afford to feed and properly take care of their children.  They have twenty children on the wait list and are hoping to finish the large room to house at least 10 more of them in the next few months.

The second best part of my day was after our dinner of rice with peas, fried plantains, spicy coleslaw and goat...My wonderful father and Rick took the time to go out and get a mocha birthday cake to celebrate my birthday.  I'm glad to be in Haiti to celebrate this birthday.  We all just hope we don't get "Haitian happiness" after eating the cake.  I'm sure you all can figure out what that is.

To my dear youngest daughter, I have for you some Haitian insects of Haitian size.  Everyone thinks I'm slightly bufu (crazy) for being so ecstatic over large insects.

This is how ironing is done, just about every day.  With an old metal iron, filled with hot water.

This is the shantyville picture, I finally got one today.  May close contact with lots of tarps, tents and tin for structures

Some little kids playing on our way home this afternoon.

The completed bed that we fixed.

 

Enjoy this video of the little girls doing a song and dance.

Tap Tap

This is a tap tap that we ride in some days, going to the orphanage.

How many Haitians can fit into a tap tap?  Always one more.  Tap tap means fast, fast.  They are the taxis here in Haiti.

We completed 5 bunk beds today. Holy cow, wow!
T & Madame Gladys keep finding projects for us to do.  T is one of the teachers at the orphanage.  They asked us to bild a shelf for school supplies.  We started today and hope this is a quicker project.  Little things keep coming up for us to do.  Leaky faucet, repair door handle, broken table, loosened screws on a bed and whatever else may come up.

I really enjoy driving around and observing the people of Haiti.  There is such a variety.  All within the same vacinity, peole will be picking through garbage for things to sell.  Store front owners, women carrying veggies for sale on their heads, men driving tap tap's.  People selling charcoal, clothes, shoes, medicine from under a makeshift canopy or just on the side of the road.

When the electricity is on we are grateful for the airconditioners in our room, when it's off we lay low and hope for breeze.

The days are flying past. So much to see, so much to absorb, so much to learn.  I feel saturated for today.  I am "fatigue". (tired)

Charcoal is made: dig a pit, add wood, add a starter fluid of some kind, let it cook slowly for several days.  People sell it, it's used for cooking.

These two girls,  maybe sisters caught my eye.

This is a vendor selling charcoal on the side of the road. 

water barrel on the rooftop where we are staying.

Busy morning on the main street.

The washing station where Michlene does the dishes after every meal they feed us.  She works hard in the kitchen.  She didn't want me to take her picture.  She speaks no English.

Notice the guy selling bread on the side of the road.  Fresh baked bread.  We've picked it up on our way home for dinner and it's still been warm.  It's very delicious.  It's a dense white bread.

It's the whole gang and the 5 completed bunk beds.

Notice how T, the Haitian is sawing.  He was a champ with the primitive tool, when we couldn't get the saw to cooperate.

  A dry river bed filled with trash.  This is only one of these.  This is what every river bed looks like.

Au Revoir

Shanty Towns and Mansionville

After a good nights sleep , we awoke to a beautiful morning.
We had scrambled eggs with peppers and hotdogs, fresh mango and cantalope, Haitian coffee or tea for breakfast.  I go for the strong, rich, delicious coffee.
Since I'm traveling with 3 older men who are hard of hearing and only drink decaf and two younger people who don't care for coffee. I'm generally the only coffee drinker.

We ran to the hardware store today.  As we took a new route we observed a tent city area (I missed a photo opp.) Within walking distance from the tent city there was a vast contrast of mansions, really much larger and better off houses.  To compare it to the US, it may be similar to a huge dumpy trailer park right outside a gated upscale housing development. Except that tarps, tin and tents are the "trailer" living structures here in Haiti.

The hardware store looked just like a Lowe's or Home Depot, only difference, it was surrounded by a tall fence and a gate at the entrence.

With traffic and stopswe didnt arrive at the orphanage until 11:00 am.  The bunk beds are taking much longer than we all expected.  We have to improvise with lots of different tools and supplies.

Madame Gladys would like us to build a shelf for dishes as well; hopefully we can complete that shelf by Friday which will be our last work day.

You all may find this interested to hear this:
There are no washers and dryers or water heaters. Where we are staying, they have a cistern near the front gate.  It's filled with city water.  Each morning Michlene pulls up enough water for dishes and whatever else.  They add a capful of bleach, even to drinking water.
Laundry is all done by hand.
Showers and toilet flushing, water is pumped from the cistern to a huge 300 gallon black plastic barrel on the roof.  For showers water comes from that barrel.  The temp is determined by the time of day and outside weather.  Early mornings, plan to be a little freezing, afternoon when the sun has been heating it, the water will be luke-warm.
The story I'm leading too, I think you'll find humorous, we all did.  The other day, MacKenzie was showering.  The water stopped running and she was covered in soap, whith no one in ear shot.  She stood there for awhile until Ryan came and knocked on the door.  She said, " Please get Bec, the shower stopped working.:  I came in, she told me what happened, I went downstairs to Leny who flipped a switch in the kitchen.  The barrel had apparently emptied and the switch turned on the pump that refilled it from the cistern.  We all had quite a laugh over it.  It's like a lottery, who will be the next chosen one?

Complacent means: staying aware and alert of the possible dangers even after becoming comfortable.
 Ayla in the book Valley of the Horses became complacent when she had settled into a cave and she established a routine; yuntil one night hyenas attacked and she fell asleep before stoking the fire.  She also became lazy about keeping her sling shot on her.  Her attempt to scare hyena's away was done by screaming into the dark, frantically feeling for rocks or her sling shot.
As we all become more and more comfortable with our surrounding we are reminded to not become complacent.
 

Rick & Vern's room.  The electricity is on, so they are happily staying cool!

Vern brought a few soccer balls.  This boy on the street saw them and asked if he could have one.  His day was made by the gift of that ball.  He kissed it and had the most beautiful smile ever.  Vern even showed his "foot-ball" soccer skills by knocking the ball off his head to the kid.

Happy boy!

Part of the shanty town

Lenny, Rick, Vern and Jim coming out of the hardware store.

MacKenzie and Ryan standing up in the back of the pickup on our way to the orphanage.

A women walking her burro with saddle bags filled with something for sale.

Myself and MacKenzie drilling a bunk bed side.

Jim flipping the boys upside down.

Jim picking the girls up by their ears. 

They have the lottery here too.  Want to waste some money?

Sugar cane in a wheel barrel for sale.  We tried some the other night.  You peal off the dark outside layer and bite off a chunk.  Suck out the sweetness and spit out the inner bark.  It's quite tasty.  Not as sweet as I imagined.

Bonsoir! Into the Mountains

We went on a tourist adventure yesterday.  We rode in the back of Lenny's (Pastor Wilson's son) pick up.  You could sit on wooden bench seats but better yet we could stand holding onto the bars on the sides.  Wind and sun in our faces as we headed up into the mountains  We could breath better with the fresh, clean mountain air.  For Jim (the overall coordinator) the cooler the better.

All of us "buffos" (crazy) people are quickly becoming friends. We laugh and joke with each other.  We pick, tease and when necessry are honest with each other.  What a great gropu of peole to be on this trip with.

As we drove out of the congested city, we visited Lenny's home that he's in the process of building.  His grandfather lives there and Lenny's house is being built onthe top of his grandfather's house.  Two full time masons with the help of friends, in 6 months his house will be completed.

In the country there is no need to have safety walls and gates for protection because no one comes there to "mess with the people, " said Markenz (one of the permanent residence at Pastor Wilson & Glady's house).

From there we had lunch at the Baptist mission and did some shopping.  Haitians like to bargain, they enjoy the challenge, I guess and enjoy having "blan" (white) people pay more for things than they are worth.  It's money in their pockets, so that makes sense. 

I was able to bargain some paiting today.  The seller started out as $30 for one.  I said how about 2 for $10?  He said no, no, two for $25.  I said how about two for $12?  He said, no, no I need to make money here.  Two for $20, that's it, you take!  I paused, thought and said the highest I"ll go is $15.  He said ok, $19, yes!  I said $15 is all I'll go.   He said, "you are a hard bargain, ok, I'll take!"  Yeah!  My heart was racing and I had to think clearly in the midst of my inner nervousness!  Thanks to my dad for staying near me.  In this culture, the women are vulnerable.  I needed a male to stay near me.  His being there helped me to not be too haggled.

Vendors would approach the back of the truk with bread, baskets, sunglasses, etc.  "no, merci, no merci"  we say over and over, which mean, no thank you!

I felt like we reached the top of the world today.  We stopped to do more bargaining and there was a beautiful view.  We could see the ocean to the Morth, all of Port au Prince, Carre four, Petionville, City of Soleil and beyond.  I learned today that City of Soleil is the most impoverished part of Haiti where raw sewage runs down the streeets and people food is covered with flies.  I am grateful we are not staying there.  The population of Haiti is 10 million.  500,000 people died in the earthquake.  Those are immense numbers.

One other thing I found interesting is the name of Haitian money is goudes.  At the Baptist Mission there was a small museum type space that went through Haiti's history.  Gourds were originally used to carry water, their money was named after gourds.  In case you were curious like me.

Standing up in the back of the pickup.  Thankfully the roads were fairly smooth.

An entrance to someone's house, with a metal door and huge natural stone walls at the entrance.

 

The rock base of Haiti is made out of basalt, limestone and volcanic rock.  The limestone makes for a good ingredient for making cement structures.

We stopped at the mechanic.  No fancy garage, just a small building and several older men who knew what they were doing.

Beautiful mountains!

From the Baptist mission you can see the amazing hill side growing plots, houses and roads.

This pictures doesn't capture the vastness but still beautiful.

A plaintain tree.  We ate some fried plantain the other night, slightly bland tasting but I enjoyed them.

Avocado plant.

Look closely you'll see little green, unripened lemons.

Coffee plant, the flower pods were just barely starting to open.

We saw cabbage growing, spinach or swiss chard and beets. 

Very nice neat raised beds

My girls, this lizard picture is for you.  He was cute and told me to tell you bonjour. (good day/hello)

Another mountain shot, the clouds were setting low, we knew rain was on it's way.  We were going to get wet, no matter what.

The dirty water and piles of trash further up the road, just ran down hill after is down poured.  Thankfully for just a short few minutes.  It was a nice warm rain.

Au Revoir (good bye, until we meet again)!

Cockadoodle doo!

Beautiful blossoms on a tree across the wall from where we are staying

Sunrise from the roof top, where we are staying.

A women, vendor who was cutting, cleaning and selling bread fruit.
She was very unhappy that I took a picture of her.  I tried very hard to be descretely. Who knows what she said in Creole.

The line of traffic that kept us from moving too fast yesterday.

Men with guns are stationed outside every gas station and every grocery store.

We had to improvise.  We didn't have a drill head the right size to fit in the drill,  so we cut the end of the screw driver off.  Thanks to 16 year old Ryan for the idea and the help of one of one of the Haitian men for breaking it.  It made the job move much quicker.

I had the privilage of teaching both the girls and boys how to crochet.  The girls took off with it and some boys, if they wanted to, they made belts, some tried making kites with string and plastic bags.  It was the best part of my day. Madame Gladys who is pastor Wilson's wife, she learned how to crochet with all of the kids.  She is one of the main teachers at the orphanage.

Ryan was getting a Creole lesson by pointing to picures and having the kids teach him how to say them.

MacKenzey was just eating up these kids.  Naelka is a friendly smiley little girl.

We got the Haitians involved in this bunk bed building.  We completed 3 yesterday.

Cockadoodle doo!  Cat fight, dogs barking.  Awoken by a rooster, you'd think I was on a farm but I'm not.  I'm in the middle of a highly populated city.  No back yards, wall to wall cement houses, with stone and garbage almost everywhere.  Scattered trees with blooms that are beautiful.  Bright purple and pink flowers, cactus blooms are white.  Large palm trees and others I'm not familiar with.

Roof top sunrise, pigeons and morning doves, little birds that make their nests in holes, maybe finches or swallows of some kind.  A world of cement, tin and anything else that can be scavaged or re-used.  Talk about a recycle mindset, it's survival here, improvise, if they don't have it, they'll find something that will do the job.

A bell rings at the same time every morning, 7:30 am as the shoe shiner passes outside the gate of the secure enclosure we stay in.  He says something in Creole as he passes, I imagine it to be "Get your shoes shined or repaired, only 3 goudes" (which would be about 15cents US money)

Everyone has cell phones, not iphones or smart phones but everyone is just as attached to their cell phones as most Americans I know.

Today we were back at the orphanage.  Instead of a 30 minute bumpy drive, it was an hour and a half.  Traffic was horrendous and the roads are in a sorry condition.
You think you have it bad driving during rush hour, you don't really, take a look around you :)
I heard today that the only laws for driving around here is you must be 18 years old, and your car must have brakes and a horn.  No emissions required here!  The diesel smell is often choking.

And to boot, I only saw three men peeing on the side of the road today and one lady squatting.  I guess when you gotta go, you gotta go.