When our stash of bread, powdered milk, and eggs begins to diminish, we know what's in store ... a ride in the pack of a pick-up truck! Since we don't have our own car down here, or the courage (or craziness?) to pursue our international driver's license so that we COULD drive, we have to track down someone on the base who can. And last weekend that someone was Rodney Gephart. And since Rhodes was in need of some groceries as well, we all jumped into the white Toyota and made a fun day of it =) Ethan Snow decided to come along too. I guess he didn't want to miss out on the adventure of a shopping trip at S.D. By the way, I'm really gonna miss riding in the back of trucks when I get home to the states ...
A view of Ethan's arm. And the streets of St. Marc. I never cease to be amazed how many women wear white down here! In the midst of all the dust and/or mud, they proudly show off their beautiful dark skin and white smiles as they wear the most starch-white blouses, skirts, and dresses. I don't think I'd have the courage to do that. Every now and then I wear my favorite white skirt to our Sunday evening church services. But the last time I did that, we had a pretty heavy evening thunder shower and it received a new brown polka dot pattern all over the bottom edge of ruffles... It's clean again, thanks to the nice washer and dryer we have while we're house sitting for the Nettles. But it definitely makes me not want to wear much other than denims and blacks and browns!
The one and only stoplight in the city of St. Marc. It does seem to bring some order to the chaos of these city streets... However, last weekend, when we were picking up Daryl (Lindsay's boyfriend) and Jay (his coworker and friend, and ironically and old acquaintance from Ephrata Mennonite School days!) in Port-au-Prince, we ran straight THROUGH one of these! I think it had something to do with the fact that our bus engine was overheated, we were driving down a VERY steep section of the mountainous Petionville, and our driver, MacKendy, did not want the bus to break down as it had during his last trip to Port. Thankfully, there was no cross-traffic. So we ran the light, no cops showed up (not that they would for something so menial, especially here in Haiti...), and we continued on our merry way to the Lynx post office.
A typical view of the mid-day traffic in downtown St. Marc. Motor bikes abound, and they do NOT follow any system of traffic rules. At least not any system that makes sense to our Western mentality of order and respect! When Jay and Daryl went into down this week to find wood to install a ceiling in our apartment, they witnessed a motor bike accident right in front of the store. There were two men on the bike, and as they careened around the corner, a young boy (who was innocently crossing the street) was suddenly in their path. They slammed on their brakes, but proceeded to hit him pretty hard, sending him sprawling several yards up the dusty street. Daryl said that the man on the back of the bike ALSO flew onto the ground, but the 'gentleman' driving simply sat on his padded seat, waved his fist in the air, and yelled at the young boy who 'got in his way.' Talk about crazy drivers! Thankfully, the young boy was fine and he jumped up and ran off, with no injuries to accompany him. When Lindsay, Shakinah and I heard this story, after our day of teaching, all we could say was, "TIH." This is Haiti. We find ourselves saying that a lot these days...
Just as a side note, this phrase comes from the movie "Blood Diamond" - a powerful story of the diamond smuggling that goes in many African nations, in this particular story, the nation of Sierra Leone. Throughout the movie, they keep saying, "TIA. This is Africa." We liked the phrase and decided to adapt to our own experiences in this crazy, beautiful nation of Haiti =)
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