I am not the best with down time. I tend to prioritize things I like and enjoy over
things that need completing. This is not always the case, of course, but with multi-part tasks, I would rather go to the gym or read a book or go kayaking, than to do one part of a project and not see results. Well, these people live in a culture of poverty, hopelessness, unemployment, dependency, and violence. I imagine my priority would be to acquire a hobby to occupy my time. It is my cultural upbringing that tells me to get a job, to support myself and seek success. Here, it is different.
Today was my domestic day. Technically not a down day, but is a day to stay at
the camp site working with staff to make meals, clean dishes and do laundry. Today, is my day. I woke up to help prepare breakfast at 530. We didn’t actually start until 6 o’clock. Thats when Mary Eve, the cook, got up. Then we cut fruit, bread, and began to boil water for the coffee. Then we started on the pancakes! 🙂 She makes pancake batter in a large rubber basin, the same ones we use to wash dishes and do our laundry. She adds eggs, oats, cinnamin, flour, nutmeg and chocolate powder. Yum is right.
A half hour later we serve breakfast. Everyone dives in for the pancakes. After we ransake the table, my team starts the process for dishes. It really is quite an undertaking to do dishes for 45 people plus MOHI Haitian staff. Then its time to help rake the leaves or share the internet, or….start working on the lunch meal.
Today I’m prefering others, so I let everyone else use the internet first. I let my teammates do their laundry even though I have concrete clothes that REALLY need washing. So, I help out with lunch. Guess what-I make french fries from scratch. This is a skill people need to bring back to the states. There is no comparison to fresh french fries. We peeled a sack of potatoes for over 1.5 hours. Then we used a vegetable cutter to cut potatoes into fries. Then we dropped them in one pan to get hot, then dished them into another pot of hot oil, then finally into a third pot of hot hot oil for frying. They were delicious!!!!
Lunch was quite a job. In addition to fries, there were hot dogs and beans. These beans were cooked in the largest pot/wok I have ever seek. This is common in Haiti; the better to cook your rice and beans with. We started with sauting garlic, then beans (poi), then diced white onion, then like 7 cans of Hormel chili and beans. I do not like Hormel chili and beans, but here in Haiti…it works! 🙂
peeling potatoes for 1.5 hours the POI (the delicious beans)
Lunch is a fight over how many french fries we can each have. As if our mass food intake and white skin and English language didn’t make us American enough. I enjoy my labor of love and begin picking up plates for washing. We fill three separate bins that could serve as above ground kiddy pools and rinse, wash, bleach. As a team, we have the system down. We even stack the dishes to ensure they dry before being restacked on the shelves.
Now, I take a break. Two girls from another team are going for a swim and I was invited to join. Seriously, I change into shorts and dive right in, in the same underclothes and t-shirt I had been wearing 🙂 It felt so good to swim, float, and relax! Today was unique in the fact that there was a gathering on the beach. We got to see Haitians dancing, swimming and communing. To us, it was a joy since we haven’t had the opportunity to really connect outside MOHI.
After about 30 minutes, I rinse off and head for the kitchen to start with dinner. It is apparent the operation has already begun because Alicia is sitting on a cement block peeling carrots. There is a pot of water boiling and about 12 packs of spaghetti noodles sitting on the counter. I assume its spaghetti night. I help as much as Mary Eve will let me then go off to the internet. Yay for the internet stick. I climb on an out-of-commission boat parked on the property and fire up my computer. The service is hit and miss, but its something. J I was able to communicate with our Romanian contacts and post a blog, even upload a photo. This is something really special with this unreliable internet.
Dinner is served and I load up on carrots; you really have to get the vegetables when you can. Spaghetti is alright, but by the time I get through the dinner line I just have cold noodles. Honestly, I think I enjoyed them better this way. We are chatting and relaxing after dinner when someone calmly says, “if you’ve got anything electronic in your tent, you might go get it. Its raining.� In less than 30 seconds we hear the downpour. Its mean, its loud and its Haiti’s Raining Season! People go crazy. People run to their tents to protect their valuables. I remain quiet and sitting at the table typing. It is seriously one of the calmest moments I have experienced in a while.
The third party observer angle gave me peace to view the breakout. Really, I know that anything that gets wet will dry in the heat of the following day. There wasn’t anything I could do to make the tent be a better tent. In the end, the rain subsided and I retrieved my sleeping bag to sleep on the guest house tiled patio. It wasn’t a covered tent, but it was dry.
Needless to say, I had plenty to do with my “downtime� today. Things certainly do take on different meanings when you travel to other cultures. J I love the experience.
God gave me peace, calm and grace to survive the day. With God all things are possible-otherwise, I would have never gotten through the day sane.
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