Today started out about like every other day.  The same routine we’ve been doing on a daily basis.  I did get to go visit Gertrude’s nephew’s orphanage which is nearby.  Jamie does some therapy on one of the kids there.  They really don’t have much and none of the kids are in school mainly due to lack of funding.  We took some dresses over there and some of the boy’s underwear.  Boys really get hosed down here as far as getting clothes.  No one really brings boy stuff. The girls were all excited and you could just see the disappointment on the boy’s faces like “this is so lame, whoa, a pair of underwear how exciting!”  I told Jamie that we would have to go find something for the boys to redeem ourselves.  We did go back after lunch and took some of the school kits I had brought down.  They were much more pumped after seeing the goodies inside.

Today was also the day we were to go to Les Cayes.  Gertrude said we would be leaving at 2pm. We didn’t.  We didn’t leave at 3pm either.  Finally, by nearly 4pm we leave.  We finally got clarification on what “a couple of hours” actually means in Haiti.  When people down here say a couple of hours, it’s actually about four hours.  Why can’t they just say four hours then?  Time really has no meaning here for the most part.  At least if someone said you only have a couple of hours to live at least you get a few bonus hours to live it up before you die.

Gertrude loaded the truck up with all sorts of stuff to bring down and five of us will be sitting in the cab.  She tells us we should be to Les Cayes by 6 pm.  Jamie said how about 6:30 just for giggles.  Boy that was a big lie.  After we got out of town we asked to go hop in the back of the truck mostly because we couldn’t move our legs because of everything she packed into the cab.  The back was better.  Better scenery, air, albeit not the freshest and we could move our legs.  We knocked to come back in when it got dark out and our best guess is we had about an hour or so to go. We asked Gertrude where we were and about how much longer.  She said, oh we’re halfway to Les Cayes.  I felt like someone totally burst our bubble. By then it was between 7:30 and 8ish.  And we had learned earlier that we were not actually going to Les Cayes, we were going to a small remote village called Damassin.  Damassin is about an hour and a half past Les Cayes we were told.  Talk about buzz kill.

The bad thing about today is we were only able to have fruit and toast because they ran out of eggs.  We also discovered that we had no water and the pump broke.  No water with about 50-60 people at any given time is not going to result in anything good.  No flushing toilets is ever a good thing and with nice hot temperatures, it just adds to the “roughing it” part.  They need water to make the food, water to do the mounds of dirty laundry, and to flush the toilets.

I’m no princess but I would strongly want water.  I would be ok without power for an extended period mostly for personal reasons like the internet.  A bed with a comfy pillow is strongly desired because I sleep like crap most nights.

Anyway, we are really hungry because we really didn’t have a lunch.  Jamie keeps eating the equivalent of Goldfish.  I tell her to stop eating because we don’t know when our next meal will actually be.  I am really hungry though.  I figure it’s good to know what it feels like to be hungry while in Haiti.  I know I won’t starve to death or at least I hope that doesn’t happen.  I’m not sure but somewhere along the way, Jamie started getting car sick.  I occasionally piped in some comment and she said every time she fell asleep I would start talking.  Seriously, it wasn’t on purpose. 

I heard one of the most feared words uttered in the English language, “Please pull over, I think I’m going to puke”.  She’s in the middle and I’m on the door.  I see her put her hands over her mouth and since the car wasn’t stopping, “I yelled, stop the car, she’s going to puke!” It was in my most authoritarian voice as in “drop the weapon”.  I knew I would be on the receiving end if the car didn’t stop.  I think I freaked them out because they never heard me yell like that.  The car stopped on a dime and I already had my hand on the ejector seat ready to bail.  I was out so fast; I’m surprised I didn’t launch myself over the side of the guardrail.  The event was over in a matter of minutes.  I said lets pee because we have a long way to go.  I never peed on the side of a Haitian highway before.  Of course, I’m pretty sure many have peed before me in this very spot.

Speaking of peeing, everyone pees here whenever and wherever the urge strikes.  I’ve mostly seen men whipping it out nearly in every public place I’ve been.  Today was the first day I got to see women pee.  I’m not talking about me either.  There was a big truck tap tap taking people somewhere. They must have been traveling for quite some time.  We were stuck in a traffic jam and numerous women hopped out and just squatted on the side of the road. No one even notices or pays attention, well, except me.  I had to take a picture strictly for reporting purposes.  Now I know why they all wear dresses…and no undies.  Gross!  One young gal really had to go I was like whoa, that’s a lot of pee.  One lady took some tissue with her.  I am hoping she was just more of a hygiene freak than it being something else.

After the vomitus exodus, Gertrude realized we might need some food for the starving occupants.  We pulled over and two of the guys went and got some Styrofoam containers of BBQ chicken.  It was hot.  So hot, I felt like I had an injection of that filler junk you put into your lips.  My hands were so dirty and I had nothing to even try to clean up with.  Then I add BBQ chicken on top of fifthly hands and no napkins, driving in the dark, makes for a very interesting meal. I just didn’t know what to do with my hands they were so gross.  I did eventually find some spray hand sanitizer just to get the stickiness off, they were still dirty.

At 10:30 we finally arrive and now we have to go meet with the priest and eat dinner to talk about what we have to do the next day.  I was barely coherent.  I felt bad for the staff that they had to start cooking food at 11pm.  We went there because we were going to take photos and gather information about some kids that could potentially be sponsored to go to school in this poor village.  Typically, some of the organizations sponsor a handful or so of kids to get them through school.  Gertrude asked about how many, very nicely Father Jack said 150.  I thought I was going to fall out of my chair.  Really, 150?  Is that the whole village, seriously?  I found out there is actually between 4-5 thousand people in this region.  I only saw a few hundred where we were and most live in the more rural areas.

I had an obligatory bowl of soup since they went through all the trouble but I didn’t want to crash with a belly of food, that’s gross.  I did suck down two glasses of wine though mostly relax me and prepare for bed whenever that was going to happen.  We left Father Jack around 11:30 and headed to our waiting accommodations.  We pulled down a little path and the headlights provided us a glimpse of a little tin roof building, we gave each other the look of “oh crap”.  Gertrude said no, not there, this one.  It was several steps up thankfully.  I was singing praise and relief.  It was a little concrete house with two bedrooms that are packed with bunk beds.  There is a bathroom, yay, and power.  I describe it as a rustic cabin in the woods back home.

Honestly, I was so tired and so happy just to have a bed, I didn’t care.  Gertrude gave us each a little battery operated fan to blow on about 6” of any given body part.  It felt like someone blowing on your face that was about the extent of the cooling action. 

This village is so quiet you hear nothing.  Really, nothing, that is until the roosters start their crap at o’dark hundred hours in the morning.  Come on roosters cut us some slack will ya?  Roosters really tick me off.  Honestly, I slept really well until they chimed in. 

In the morning Gertrude informs us that we must butcher the pig. I’m thinking I didn’t sign up for that excursion.  I’m not going to be part of the pig killing experience.  She then says no worry my uncle is going to kill it.  We told her to tell him to get the show on the road so we can leave by 2pm.  I don’t want to think about the pig.

We go to the priest’s house and have a good breakfast. It’s really nice on the church grounds.  It seems like there is a school there for priests in the making and one for nuns in the making and one for kids who just want to go to school. I think if you want to be a priest or a nun in Haiti, it’s a good gig.  A place to sleep, food, a job and all that seem like a good thing to me or to a Haitian.

We started with the kids, which some are about 29 years old and in high school.  How sad is that?  I was thinking they were born when I graduated.  It’s not because they are dumb it’s because they don’t have money to attend school and when they get it then they can go.  It’s honestly really sad.  There are a lot of smart kids really wanting to learn but where they live there literally are no opportunities for anything.  It’s so remote here there is nothing for them to work towards.  There are no stores and everything they have basically they have to raise as far as food.  Obviously, medicine does not grow on trees or money for that matter.

The people mostly are nice and friendly and I’m sure they were waiting for us to show our faces in the morning like we were the circus coming to town.  I don’t think white people make it to these parts very much.

It was all fine and dandy until Jamie got sick and Gertrude was worried sick.  Due to HPPA, I will not be discussing the illness/ailment.  The staff was all worried and made a bed for her.  I wanted the bed mostly for a quick siesta.   She declined and we came up with a game plan to get the kids done in the most efficient way.  It was overwhelming in the beginning but it got better as it went on.  We even had a reporter show up with his cassette recorder to capture this white person moment with this village…later he really wanted money for his radio station.  He was quite official looking, well sorta but he got every detail we were taking.  We went through so many people my head was spinning.  No one smiles.  I tried to humor them and make them but it was like a booking photo.  I told Jamie who wants to sponsor a kid with such a serious look; they need the puppy dog eyes. I got most of them to attempt a smile.  It’s like a fake smile and it looked like it hurt them to smile as well.  Come on people!

After a couple of dead batteries we were finally finished. Phew!  Ok, now let’s go.  It didn’t happen.  The pig came back mainly in large chunks.  And all the inners came back too.  That was a little gross for me.  Gertrude brought some big bags of rice and some rice packets as well to help this village.  They looked like a bunch of free loaders.  It was a crazy mob scene only topped by us handing out some clothing which made it worse.  Father Jack didn’t help suppress the chaos and was like oh well.  A few women would be perfect in America, total freeloaders living off the government taking anything they can get.  She kept grabbing her boob which later meant she had a little child.  Well I have a child and I’ve never grabbed my boob to convey a thought or message.  You can tell she is the village idiot for sure and it was confirmed by Gertrude.  Unfortunately the people there are really deprived of a lot.  It was sad.  I took to a few kids that just were clinging to me like take me with you please.  It broke my heart.

We find out the pig needs ice and then they cook some pig parts and people eat them.  I took a pass big time.  Jamie thought they were eating raw pig.  They’re not total savages. Gertrude passed out chunks of pig fat and gave it to very willing recipients.  I was not digging all this pig stuff.  Apparently, when you kill a pig you burn the hair off of it.  I am hoping it was dead before they burned it.  Haitian’s are not very animal-friendly at all.  Honestly, it makes me really mad how they treat animals.  I just don’t think they get it and they only live in the moment and don’t think about the future.  Regardless there were more pig parts than I could identify.  I took a picture of me with a pig foot.  They literally will eat each and every piece of a pig.  Seriously.  I’ll take a pass. 

So the pig has been dead for a couple of hours and people are still pissed at us for taking the clothes away because they weren’t being very nice about the whole process.  It was obnoxious, to say the least.  We are ready to go but Gertrude is still passing out pig parts and they are packing the truck like we are moving across the country.  We find out that we are adding two more people too.  Ok, like there is any more room.  There is not.  Jamie and I beg to sit in the bed of the truck even though there is no room but it beats 5 to a seat in the back.  She’s bringing in more crap and we tell her it’s not happening.

It’s so hot, I want to go and the villagers are getting restless.  They pretty much want everything we own and for us to go back naked.  I’m thinking I will get a killer tan and sunburn in some areas.  I’m thankful I can dummy up.   So five people down and 7 going back home it totally makes sense in Haiti. 

I will post pictures when I can get an opportunity.  I have been having serious technology issues.  More to follow and stay tuned for the ride home.