Beans and Rice

On Thursday morning Lucho and I went over some of the things that Give Love needed and I got ready to go into down town with my friend Joseph -who I met last time I was here at the Grassroots United base. Joseph came to the house and we took 2 taptaps which finally put us in Kafou Fey.  

There we bought some rice and beans from a street vendor and then went back to his place to eat. I met his neighbors and we watched them play casino (kind of like playing dice here). When it got late I bucket showered in their communal showers (shared with about 30 people) then we went out to visit some of his friends who were in the area where he used to live. Josephs home was completely destroyed in the earthquake and he had been living in a room that had been constructed our of tarps and corrugated iron which in total was about the size of a double bed up until last month.

His friends were really nice and along the way we had plenty of compliments as its not usual to see white people walking around especially at night -seems crazy not to as its the only bearable time to be outside and everyone was really friendly!!

The next day he brought me to his mums house, she lives just outside of PAP in Kafou usually but she sells imported goods in the market usually stays in Port-Au Prince Monday to Friday to be closer. The trip took about and hour and on the way I saw a man on the street who had fainted. It was pretty surreal, the people in the marketplace had dragged him from the street (his head still half in the street & hanging off the curb and arms spread open) they were pouring water over his limp body to try and wake him. Joseph said that it is a very poor area and he had likely fainted because he was so dehydrated.

His mothers house was up a very (very very) steep hill that was severely damaged by water, the view was incredible. She and her partner and 2 young children met us at the door of their single room house. Joseph showed me around their small garden (it looked more like a jungle with mangos, plantains, beans and corn) while his mother finished cooking the beans and rice on her small coal stove. It must have taken her about 3 hours to cook and she refused any help at all but I did manage to persuade her to let me help with the fresh ju de citron (tastes like lemonade but the fruit looks more like oranges). 

Josephs mum brought out two heaping plates of beans and rice, Joseph was just as excited as I was -apparently beans and rice is his favorite food (funny to hear because there's not much else on offer and he likely grew up eating it every day). His family disappeared inside to eat so I asked Joseph if they wanted to come join us (I'm still trying to work out what actually happened here...) His mum came out and took my spoon, she proceeded to eat two bites from my plate and then two from Josephs, letting out a big "mmmm!" and with a huge smile on her face she went back inside. 

I had to be back in Delmas 33 by 5 for a conference call with the directors of Give Love so we headed out around 3. On the way back a man on the bus talked about Martelly and the problems with school systems in Haiti. From what I understood there are vey few teachers in Haiti so most of them work between the national schools and private schools. The problem is if they are working at both schools (which most are) they will usually spend more of their time at the private schools to ensure that they keep their jobs there as they don't make enough money to live on at the national schools. A woman who boarded the next bus we took acted like a walking advertisement- she was selling beauty products and products that would protect against stds. As amusing as it was to be in a real life infomercial it was pretty concerning too as this was likely the predominant source of information about health to those on the bus and a great deal of it was hugely misinformed. 

None of the buses go near to the place I'm staying at so we took a moto (motorcycle taxi) instead. We still managed to get really lost but finally made it a few minuted before 5- turns out we passed it 3 times.  The conference call  (which ended up starting at 6 anyway) went really well & afterwards we started drafting the proposal for a grant. 

more to come!