It's been a country music kind of week. Yes, I know how that sounds. I used to make fun of country music relentlessly. An ex boyfriend loved it and I gave him shit every day for for it. I should apologize now... Except that he also cheated on me so I wont. Instead I'll re-listen to the country song about slashing a cheating ex boyfriend's tires. I never did that though, promise. But this has not been an angry country music kind of week or a sad country music kind of week, its been a sappy love song kind of week. An "its another rainy day and I miss the boy" kind of week. I'll be back in paradise in few months though... As long as I stop drinking and start saving money now...
What I do have to finish now is writing about my last adventures in Haiti. I figure someday my children will want to know what I did there and I'll probably be too old to remember by that time so I should get it all down while its fresh in my mind. So where did I leave off? Leaving PaP? Must have been because life always gets better when you leave PaP...
So in the earlyish afternoon (neither of us are very good at waking up early, we walked out of the "bad area" of PaP with giant backpacking packs strapped on. As if we didn't already stand out by being the only white people in a 5 mile radius (maybe an overstatement, but it does feel that way there). We grabbed some street food and tried to avoid the mud puddles cause by the downpour the night before. I'm sure many of the people reading this are familiar with mud puddle because you live in the Northwest. But you live in the US where even when there are big puddles where the rain wont drain on the side of the road. Unless you have been to a place with sewers meant for 1000 people somehow serving a million people, you have never seen or smelled mud puddles like these. Not something you want to go through with an open wound. Or open toed shoes. (On a side note, Haiti recently began construction on its first sewage treatment facility! Yay!)
Anyway, we hopped from one side of the street to another and found our way to a bus station to then go to another bus station. Even Reuben was occasionally unsure of where we were, luckily he didn't tell me that till later. We made it to the second station and after a minimal amount of time waiting on the bus we were on our way to.... Well, we weren't really sure.
We wanted to go to the island of La Gonave but the only information the guide provided us with to get to the boat to go to the island was that the dock was about 50 meters past a small hotel on the beach. As soon as we saw the beach Reuben had the good sense to start looking for the hotel (I was just enjoying the view on the beach) and suddenly said "I think this is it! Merci, chauffeur!" With that, we jumped off the bus (me very awkwardly due to my giant bag) and walked across the road to what looked like a dock where, as luck would have it, a boat appeared to be loading passengers.
At this point we still knew very little about the island; mainly what would be available there. Some said there were no cars, some said there were only cows, some said there were no store or places to stay.
Along the dock people were selling all sorts of things so we exchanged some money and bought 5 mangos, 4 packs of crackers and 3 bottles of rum. That seemed sufficient. We had a tent and full water bottles, what more could we need?
We then jumped on the boat and sat on the upper deck in the sunshine along with 3 caskets and a wedding party. Reuben ate 2 of the mangos. It took nearly 2 hours to cross what looked like a short distance to land. I baked in the sunshine forgetting that I was still not tan enough to be outside with out sunscreen. My nose and part of my hair got pretty crispy... It was beautiful though; the exact picture of what everyone thinks the Caribbean is.
When we got the shore, we had no idea where to go. It seemed like everyone was taking motos to town so we hopped on one and told him we were hungry. The driver proceeded to take us to what was for all intents and purposes, someones home. Hesitantly, we walked inside the house and asked if they were serving food. They made us rice and beans but I'm still not sure that this was an actual place to eat... The kids were running around pretending to smoke fake cigarettes which I suppose was to impress us?
After finishing we decided to find the next most important thing, beer. We walked up what appeared to be the main road in town to the end and found a small bar and restaurant. Reuben told me later that he picked it because of the price of spaghetti advertised on the sign outside. I think he has an instinct for these things because that place was the key to our amazing trip.
Inside a young guy, Jean, served us beer and spoke with Reuben in Creole. He spoke a bit of English but told us he was going to go get his dad who had lived in the states. Shortly, his father came in and told us his name was Sargent and he had lived in North Carolina, which was evident from his the accent he spoke english with. We chatted for a while and he asked us where we were staying. We told him we were going to pitch a tent somewhere which he told us was a very bad idea and that we would be staying at his house. For free. We offered to pay him, he said "No, you have to offer what you can when you can. You never know when you'll need something from someone else." Again, this is Haiti.
I know what you read about Haiti, I read it too. I know how it all sounds there, dismal, ugly, mean. And yes, some of it is. But overwhelmingly, its not. It is full of people like Sargent and Ernst. So be skeptical. And go in with an open mind and an open heart and the good people will find you. The next part of the adventure next time!
