Three weeks. 21 days. Approximately 510 hours. That’s how long i’ve been in Haiti. And i don’t want to think about how quickly the remaining time will go!
This weekend was an interesting one! Sunday morning we were all prepared to head off to church when we discovered that the car wouldn’t start, so we (all 12 of us) were going to pile into the ATV which has six seats plus the bed. But then we found that the one tire was flat! (it was flat before we all piled in). A couple of us got a ride with people from the main house, but when we got to the main road we found that a big truck hauling a bulldozer had gotten tangled in the power lines and had downed poles for quite a distance! As one person in the car said, ‘the wires are holding up the poles’! we were able to get around the initial hold up, but for a good distance there were poles that had snapped or wires that hung really low. Despite all that, we made it to church and had a great service!
Sunday afternoon the rain poured down. As the kids here say, ‘lapli ap tombe!’ We had to come up from the main house in the back of one of the pickup trucks that has a high cage around it, and we all got soaked! it was kind of fun :-) cleaning up afterward....not so much! lol.
Eventually the rain let up and we were able to go ahead with our plans for a BBQ and Campfire up at the property at Fort Jaques.
When we got there, a bunch of us walked to the fort at Fort Jaques. The view from there over the Port Au Prince and the water is amazing! Some of us decided to pay for a tour of the fort. It was worth our ‘hefty’ 35 gourds! ;-) Sadly, there was some damage done to the Fort by the earthquake. As i recall, we used to be able to walk around the entire perimeter outside the fort, but we are no longer able to do that; parts of the one wall have crumbled. Inside the fort, some of the rooms have become blocked off by rubble. We climbed over some of the rubble to see inside one of the rooms. I didn’t realize just how maybe-not-so-smart that was until our guide told me not to touch the wall because the earthquake made it weak :-S Anyway, it was really cool to see the inside of the fort, to walk around the top and look out over the city; to see the canons; to hear a little of Haiti’s history. We learned that this particular fort never actually got used; it’s over 200 years old.
We returned to the property, and there were a few people from another organization who were there as well. We had a great supper that included all the typical BBQ foods :-) mmmmm-mmmmm! After eating we went to the newly completed fire pit. The Haitian men who built it did a beautiful job! it’s like a sunken amphitheater around the fire pit; the stone work all fits perfectly like a puzzle. We had a great time hanging out on a beautiful, perfectly warm, Haitian evening filled with the wonderful people who make up the GLA family :-) The people i have the opportunity to know and work with are a huge part of what makes the experience of working at GLA so good!
At the end of our evening (at 8:15 p.m. it’s completely dark and feels late around here) those of us who hadn’t left yet piled into the back of the pickup and had an open air 25 min. ride back to the Toddler House. I love riding in the back of trucks and having the wind in my face as we sometimes fly but mostly bump along the road down the mountain :-) Box cruises are something i wish were legal in Canada! Imagine flying along our smooth, pothole free roads! But it may just be Haiti that brings out the charm of such an experience. Some experiences just can’t be replicated!
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