We went into the office for a couple of hours. She had to write some emails and I showed her how to use CRS Global a bit more. Had a great couple skype calls with Alex and Brie :) So then we left went to Eagle Market which is the Haitian grocery store so we could pick up food so we could make dinner later. Eagle Market pretty much has anything that one could imagine from groceries to liquor to fans to house goods, a bank etc. Molly picked up food, I kinda just walked around awkwardly staring at things and taking it all in. They had a nice selection of fruits and veggies, most of which I had never seen before. I think if it weren't for the fact that I was leaving for Les Cayes in the morning, I probs would have run train on that market.
Left the market and headed back to Molly and Kevin's place. I would attempt to spell it but it's got some crazy name that sounds like La Jek de jour or something, I'm sure I'm completely off. They live in this nice little guarded community that they call the equivalent of Haiti's Melrose place. It's basically a bunch of sweet condos that are all linked together in multiple buildings, but the residents are all NGO staff (everything from Clinton Foundation to USAID to CRS to CARE to CONCERN etc). So most of the people in the community are other international people that have come to provide aid assistance to Haiti. Their apartment was super cute, spacious, nice screen in porch and reminded me of something you'd see in Florida. Hung out around there talking with Molly and then Kevin came home and we all watched Babel. If you haven't seen this movie you should definitely check it out, reminds me of Crash in the way it's filmed with it's multiple stories layering over one another.
Molly and I made a middle eastern dinner of hummus, falafel, and israeli cous cous. I was super excited that I actually had food to eat and even more so that I had a feeling I wasn't going to get sick this time! Dinner was awesome and Melissa and her friend Renee stopped by. Kevin also picked up Richard (one of our drivers for CRS) so we all were hanging out. Well next thing I know it's determined that we are going to go out and hit a Haitian club. So a buncha girls come over the house to meet up with Ritchy and Kevin and Molly; they are from other NGOs, I can't really remember most of their names but several worked for USAID and one for Time Magazine (ok shameless plug, she's a really cool girl named Jessica who has an article coming out on monday on the debris issue in Haiti, so check it out).
Went to this club that honestly I don't remember much of the name. Yes, broke security protocol and snuck out, but we did it in convoy, so it's still ok right? The club was actually super nice. It was apparently opened by two Croatian women that decided to pack up and leave convienantly on the day of the Earthquake. They still went through with creating this club and from what I can tell it definitely paid off. Walking into the club, they have security guards and they wand you to make sure no weapons go into the club (I felt like I was home in Baltimore!) and when you get in they have a stage with a dancing area and a bar and a nice little lounge side with chairs. So of couse we ended up at the bar. Did shots with Kevin and he bought me Rum Sours. Spent a lot of the night talking to Jess that works for Time Magazine. She has been living in DC but she's actually from Haiti, so she could tell me a bit about the culture but still talk about home. Ended up making new friends with Richard (even though we actually couldn't talk to each other)....apparently I remind him of some american artist (musican). Our group ended up dancing, now Molly and Ritchy can tear up some copa, and Richard tried to teach me to dance but I'm totally not used to having dance partners. Was definitely a ton of fun. There was a great couple of live bands, all of which cover Marley which as we all know is an epic win! Between sets they played a mix of American pop dance music (with Haitian crazy sped up back beats) and Haitian pop. Everytime I would dance Richard would laugh and give me daps and hug me. Lots of dancing, good drinks and great company. When we left there's definitely an influx of locals that know to beg people coming out of the bar, which was semi intimidating, but just ran into the car with the others. They dropped me back at the hotel and I got a good nite's sleep.
Now today, not so fun, woke up packed up everything, and got picked up to head to Les Cayes. It was over a four hour drive to Les Cayes. The scenery was beautiful, got to see a lot of towns, but sitting in the car that long is rough. Got to Les Cayes to the hotel we are in and while it's pretty, it lacks a lot of lighting, people I know and has no tv and the internet I have to sit outside to get, so I'm not sure what's gonna happen when I have to head inside in the next 15, hopefully it'll feel like being a stronger connection.
Typical Till breakfast loaded with vitamins, anti malaria medicine, antibiotics, a jug of water and a cliff bar
On the way to Les Cayes. This is an image of one of the typical camp sites. The camps are made up of hundreds of tents that have been given to them by NGOs. In these camps there are zones, for example you have green zones/red zones/gang zones/ red light zones. In these camps they have everything you can think of in these tents from barber shops to restaurants to movie theatres! These people are used to constantly needing to rebuild due to the natural disasters they face every year, normally in terms of hurricanes.
One of the buildings left, note this one stayed while the giant one next to it crashed. If you can see there's people on the debris of the other building breaking it down. NGOs often employ native of Haiti to break down the buildings and discard of debris for cash. It's a program cleverly titled cash for work. The problem is there is no true trash system in Haiti, so there's no place to discard the rubbish. Imagine no landfills and no centralized trash system, it leads to a lot of sanitation issues within the nation.
Another building on the way to Les Cayes. I just liked it, no significance :)
This is a view of the beautiful forestation in Haiti. Palm trees, beautiful leafy green plants. There is a huge problem in Haiti lately with deforestation which has resulted in Haiti being significantly less dense than it's neighbor, the Dominican Republic.
A typical housing situation, beautiful small concrete house surrounded by lush vegetation.
On the way to Les Cayes, we were driving down the street and then all of a sudden there was no road. Turns out the last hurricane took it out and now there's a river.
Vegetation and a river running through it. These rivers are oftentimes where people bathe and do their laundry. You will see the villagers all lined up, they bathe and go to work. There still isn't a good water/sanitation program, but then again there wasn't one before the earthquake either.
Chilling in the new hotel room in Les Cayes. See guys? Not Dead!
And I'm in love
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