Picture Time

Alright! Well, I was pretty much out all day yesterday, so I didn't have the time to upload any of my pictures. I did, however, manage to get 100 more pictures from our long adventure out and around Port-Au-Prince, so hopefully that should make up for it. Anyway, below are a few of the choice selections from the past three days. When I get back home, I will be posting all of the pictures I've taken on Facebook in their original, uncompressed sizes.

My friend Olwitch has Typhoid. He got back with the clinic today with these. He has to take at least 6 pills a day.

This is all debris from the earthquake from last year.

Casami is a pretty nice office furniture store

In the bottom right, there's a slum nestled into the hillside. It's a mix of shacks and tents.

Yesterday, when we were out on the main street of Delmas (city right next to Port-Au-Prince), there was some sort of water leak going down a driveway. The woman you can see in the middle of the picture used it as an opportunity to bathe herself. You can kind of see a boy behind her doing the same thing

This is a huge tent city just across the street from the Port Au Prince airport. The picture doesn't really capture how big it is, it's almost like there are tents as far as you can see.

One of my favorite examples of a TopTop. Not all of them are this awesome looking. But it's basically what people use as taxis. The Pickup Truck bed has a high top installed on it so that a lot of people can pile in the back.

A different tent city, but pretty much just as big. The tents go way back down the street.

Some of the pictures didn't load on my editor, so I didn't get captions for everything, but I hope they generally can speak for themselves!

Well, that's it for now! I'll add a more detailed update either tomorrow or Saturday.

 

 

Week Two Continued - Port Au Prince, the Office, and the Mostiques

Bon swa 'Merica! Hope the bar-b-que's been delicious.

It's starting to feel like home here in Haiti. And let me tell you, the creole combination of rice, bean sauce, and delicious spicy chicken gets me pumped for lunch time every day. It's kind of ironic, when I was leaving I was thinking that I would definitely be losing some weight, but it's looking like it's going to be the other way around.

But anyway! I'm starting to realize that I need to do more frequent updates - recounting everything that happened last week is tough! Today, I got pulled out of chapel a little bit early so that we could run some errands. Pastor Marc, the pastor who lives with all of us, had a meeting with the principal of a trade school and I got to sit in during it. The principal, like most of the people I've met here, was a very nice man. After all of the important matters of business had been discussed, he showed me pictures of his father's house in the mountains of Haiti, and I hope to have the chance to visit that particular area, because they were absolutely beautiful. But after the meeting was over, we headed to a supermarket where I proceeded to splurge on some delicious delicious snacks.

Not pictured is the other Hershey's Cookies 'n Creme that is currently in muh belly. Mmmm....

I was very impressed the first time I came to this supermarket - it's like a fortress! There's a wall that surrounds the whole parking lot (one of the few legitimate parking lots I've seen) with a little guard post where one of the five or so shotgun-wielding guards hangs out. On the inside, it basically has everything that you would find at a Jewel/Bi-Lo/etc.. Including a candy aisle. Huh-yes.

From the hour or so of driving around that we did, I probably got about 70 good pictures. I don't think I had previously been to any of the parts of town that we drove through today, so it was nice seeing another part of town. Anyway, I'll be sure to upload 12 or so of them if I have more time tomorrow.

As for the rest of last week, I got to spend a lot of time helping out Marthe, the secretary, in the office. She likes to refer to me as "her baby," which I'm totally ok with because she's awesome and has been known to bring me snacks. We definitely have a good time, though.

Marthe, hard at work as usual.

As I mentioned in my last update, I got the chance to leave the Teen Challenge house multiple times, and it was pretty amazing to see so many different parts of Port-Au Prince. Typically, I was just tagging along with Marthe and Mr. Lionel as they ran errands different errands for the office. The pictures posted in my last entry captured a couple of examples of heavily worn down areas, but what I saw in what I'll call "the shopping district" was significantly different. The streets were bustling! There were street merchants everywhere, selling everything from clothes and shoes to DVDs. But the actual shops are pretty much like what you would expect in an American strip mall. Except, like the Eagle Supermarket, they all have shotgun wielding security guards standing at the entrances. No big deal! Unfortunately, I haven't gotten a chance to take pictures of the area, but I'm sure I'll have other chances.

Last Thursday, we took out the trash and it was... well, nasty. To say the least. The trash is basically just kept in big bags in the back of the house, but they get so heavy that when we tried to move them some of them ripped open. Anyway, we piled all of the trash into the back of the bus and drove down the street to a dumpster, which was full. So Mr. Lionel backed the bus up next to it and we just pushed everything out into a big pile around the dumpster.

Dumpster situation similar to ours, though not the same one. You can see the outside of another tent city behind it. Like I said, nasty.

The other night we played dominoes, and yet again, the rules were intense. If you lost, you had to pick up your chair and carry it. If you lost again, you were out, which I suppose is fair enough. But apparently, when it's played on the streets, each time you lose, you need to hold a cinder-block under your armpit. When they told me this, I said, "Jeeze! You guys never play easy!" And somebody said, "This is Haiti, man - nothing's easy!"

Well anyway, that's all for today! It's time for some sweeping. Again, I'll upload some of the pictures I took today when have the time tomorrow.

Happy 4th of Joo-ly!

Oh, and a belated shout out to the Gamecocks, who went undefeated in the college world series on their way to their second straight national championship. Go Cocks! Yeah!

Week Two - Exploring Port-Au-Prince

Hello again, everybody!

I figured I could take some time off from channel 32's broadcast of Spiderman dubbed in french to upload some of the pictures I took from the drive out to church today. With all the bouncing-out-of-my-seat action going on, it was a little bit difficult to take "good" pictures, but I tried my best and got some fairly decent ones. As a brief overview - most of the pictures I took were of either heavily damaged buildings or particularly striking places. I would say that, by themselves, these pictures don't correctly represent the whole of the Port-Au-Prince landscape; they are merely meant to give an idea of how much damage still remains.

I have an inkling that George is a practitioner of voodoo. It's very hard to get a picture of him better than this bigfoot-esque silhouette seen here.

Left to Right - Jhonny, Wadelet, Somebody who we picked up on the side of the road, and Clegie.

Porportte and Makenson just before we left. Haha, Porportte decided to go with the serious face on this one. He doesn't usually look that angry.

Here's everybody in the bus on the way out. You can see Makenson and Elysee up there in front, I'm not sure who's giving the thumbs-up in the background. Photo was courtesy of Jhonny.

This is just down the road from where we are, across the street from the tent city I've pictured below. There's a pile of gravel that I just missed to the left of the house (which I'm assuming once made up part of the house) where, just the other day, a couple of goats were making a space to lie down. In a very bizarre sort of way, it reminded me of the Billy Goat exhibit at Brookfield Zoo.

The best picture I could get of the aforementioned tent city. Just out of the shot and to the left is the spot where we dumped our trash last Thursday.

Close to the same tent city, this appears to be a dried up river bed that has since been almost completely filled with trash.

And that's all I have for now! I'll try to upload more pictures after my next venture out through Port-Au-Prince. I'll also be posting an update either tomorrow or Tuesday. For now, it's time to watch some copa americana!