Adventures in Haiti

I am not really sure where to begin, but here goes...

On Monday Jemmy, my main man, and I went downtown to do a few things. We took a tap-tap to Petionville and then a bus to downtown Port-au-Prince.

For those of you who do not know what a tap-tap is, I will explain. A tap-tap is like a taxi. Most tap-taps I see are small pickup trucks like a Ford Ranger. In the bed, there are 2 benches. One on each side. There is also a cover for the bed in case of rain. Now each bench is supposed to fit six Haitians. Notice I say Haitians here. I am much larger than the average person here. I have a love/hate relationship with tap-taps. I love that I am immersed in the lifestyles of lower to middle-class Haitians, but what I hate is that there is barely room to breathe. It is weird to be so close to everyone and very awkward getting in and out.

So we arrive downtown right by the palace. It looks exactly the same since the earthquake. It is weird to see their white house in ruins. So I am following Jemmy around and just gawking at everything. We come up to the end of the sidewalk to cross the road. Jemmy is still leading and he steps over the curb I then follow. What I did not see was a puddle. Now this puddle was not full of water. I am not sure what it was full of, but I kid you not it was the exact same color as the asphalt. My foot is soaked in this grey sludge. I cannot think of a time I was more disgusted. We went to the other side of the street and I used my bandana to wipe my foot. My sandal reeked. A younger Haitian than ran over to me and said he wanted to clean my sandal for me. He took my sandal and went to a faucet and washed it for me and then started to wash my foot, but that was too weird for me, so I told him to stop. I then gave him 100 gourdes ($2.50), which made his day.

So, I picked my project that I want to do while I am here. I will be working in the town of Baptiste or maybe a neighboring town. I will be working with them to start a coffee co-op. This would help with jobs, which are very few in Haiti. This area is just amazing.

The thing about Haiti from what I have seen is that things move a lot slower here. I need to work on my patience here. I want to go do things very fast, but there is much to be done. I am still in the Delmas region, but hopefully next week I will spend a couple of nights near Baptiste.

I have been doing a lot of things for Shane this week. What you all need to know is that Mercy League's ministry is just kind of starting back up again. As of now, it is not self-sustainable, which means he has to work other jobs to get income. This means he is not always doing Mercy League stuff. When we get this coffee project underway, hopefully this weekend, he is giving me a lot of room to just go and do.

This week I have been with Jemmy looking for an office space to rent in this area. It has been very interesting having to just go ask random people if they know of a place to rent.

I also hurt my foot the other day. It hurt a little when I was walking, but now hurts all the time in a different spot. I couldn't sleep last night because it was aching. It is definitely a sprain or worse, but don't tell my mother that.

I am realizing that I am only one week in. I feel like I should be accomplishing more, but there is still a lot of time, like 3 months.