She’s in Haiti. We found her on our adventure to the market.
Kanou, one of our ministry contacts, is an amazing tailor. So of course I had to have him sew a skirt for me, as did Leah, Stacey, and Rachel. The skirt was actually much needed, considering we had to wear skirts to church and our ministry sites, and I only brought one skirt (very smart). Yes, that does mean I wore the same skirt pretty much everyday last month. Surprise!
To begin the process of making the skirts we had to pick out a fabric. The only place to find fabric close by was in downtown Port-Au-Prince. So we started our travels downtown on a bus. It was the first time we had taken the bus form of public transportation. Typically, we would use a “Tap-Tap�, which is like a small truck bed with benches in it. So this bus seemed really fancy considering Leah, Rachel, and I got to sit in the front of the bus with the driver and AIR CONDITIONING. Any driving experience through Port-Au-Prince is interesting. This time was probably my favorite, because I found CARMEN SAN DIEGO. She was on the back of a bus. A lot of the buses in Haiti have crazy paintings of people and things on them, like George Bush, many American rappers, animals, and obviously Carmen San Diego. I think that made my time in Haiti complete. Seriously.
We arrived downtown after about 30 minutes on the bus. Downtown Port-Au-Prince is still devastated from the earthquake. Big time. It is basically still rubble. Everything that was once in a building is now on the streets. The streets are filled with people, vendors, basically anything. If this gives you any indication of what the area is like, Leah and Stacey saw a dead man in the middle of the road bleeding out of his head. People continued walking by the man like there was nothing going on. So we did the same. We continued walking to find our fabric. Finally, we found vendors that sold fabric. I found just the one for me, as did Stacey and Rachel. So we were very excited. After we had bought our fabric, zipper, and thread, we headed back home. Plus, we got a Coke for the ride home. Very important. Maybe the other highlight of my day, besides finding Carmen. This time we took a school bus back to our house. I sat by Stacey and an old man wearing a really fancy watch. 3 deep in the bus seat. That’s the way the Haitians roll.
Not even 2 full days later, we all had beautiful, well-made skirts, sewn by our Haitian brother. I actually wore mine on travel day, because I was so excited about it ☺
So that’s how I found Carmen San Diego and got an awesome skirt all in one day. Typical day in Haiti.
Rachel McGuire, one of my teammates also wrote a blog about this day. In my opinion, she is a much better writer than I am, so you might want to check out her blog if you want to know what I’m doing. Plus, she writes more often than me. http://www.rachelmcguire.theworldrace.org
