Madness first:
- No traffic pattern. If I had the courage to drive the streets of Haiti (I don’t), I’d have better luck taking a left turn by pulling to within inches of oncoming traffic than using my blinker.
- Horns are seen more as personal musical instruments here and are used at all hours by people who love the music they can make.
- Club music carries over to our porch (where we sleep on clear nights) until about 1 or 2 am.
- Our boogers are black from all the dust and car exhaust from the busy road just a few yards from the house we’re living out of.
- Taxis (called “tap taps”) have no passenger limit. Most are elaborately decorated pick-up trucks that drive in a seemingly random pattern. You just bang on the window when you want your driver to pull over and let you out… before you argue with him about how much you have to pay him (our translator does the arguing for us).
- There are two currencies in Haiti–one real and one fake. There are Gourdes, which is the real one, but many markets will give their prices in Haitian dollars. In order to find the real price, you need to multiply the Haitian dollar amount by five to get the Gourdes. Supposedly it’s a pride thing.
Simplicity:
- Church has no set order or pre-set song list, but still manages to last about three hours with all of the love that is poured out from the people here. Tin-roof concrete structure in the mountains or tarp-constructed tent community school in the city– it makes absolutely no difference.
- Power comes on for maybe 3 or 4 hours per day, largely dependent on the weather. Internet is guaranteed even when the power is on.
- Lack of indoor plumbing makes a shower consist of filling a bucket with cold water and using a cup to rinse yourself off.
- Kids are more entertained here by a game of “Patty Cake” than most kids in the US are with video games. Watch indiglo lights are also extremely entertaining.
- After two weeks with hardly any sweets, I finally got my hands on a Chips Ahoy cookie and the smell of it satisfied me for a full five minutes before actually putting it in my mouth.
- A smile, “Como rele?” (Creole for “What is your name?”), “Jezi renmen ou” (“Jesus loves you”) and a few other phrases are really the only communication you need most of the time to create meaningful friendships with children.
The view from our host’s house of the sun setting over the water and a small tent village
