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!