November 9, 2009

I had to pack my stuff up again this morning because I had to take some of it out in order to function for a night at PaP, and in the process forgot my alarm clock on my bed. We had thought that Cyril was picking us up this morning at 7am so Caryn and I were all ready to go with breakfast eaten by that time. We figured that since he had been late picking the group up on Friday, then perhaps he was also running behind today. But then I heard the cell phone ringing and it was him to say that he had sent a text the night before that we were to go to the airport with the team van and his driver would pick us up there. So we loaded up the van that Joel was driving to the airport and tried to get Haitians to rush! At the airport we found our Tour Haiti driver, Jean Jacques Solage, and loaded the bags onto his van and waited for the 8 new members to our team. We also put more minutes on our phone, because that Jolyane kept eating up all the minutes calling her man back home! ;) The team members arrived and we separated the bags and split the group for who was going to Ile a Vache and who was going to the guest house. For Ile a Vache we have myself and Caryn, plus red Karen, Debi the nurse, Travis the painter and Wadson the psychotherapist and Haitian- who by the way is extremely extroverted. I was the unlucky one in the van who didn’t have an opening window, I don’t know why they even had one like that. We had sugar cane, that Wadson bought in PaP, so my first time for that…I don’t overly care for it, I only had a wee bit. The drive seemed longer today with the different group, and with the extrovert :P It started pouring rain I think around grand goave but had stopped by the time we reached Les Cayes…which is also the point where all the girls were about to burst their bladders. It was funny to see how different the wharf situation went this year because the boat was there and waiting for us, and we had all our people ready to go so we weren’t on the wharf more than 5 minutes this time, instead of hours like last time. I had asked the driver to stop along our 4 hour drive to buy plantain chips (papitas), but he isn’t as good as Cyril at finding our snacks I guess, because he didn’t stop once.
The boat ride to Port Morgan was longer than last time because we took a different boat that drove very slowly, so not as fun. I would say about half way across to the island the people sitting at the front of the boat started pointing over to the side, so I thought they saw something cool like a porpoise…but all I saw was a faint rainbow…and then all of a sudden the Haitians are running into the cabin and the captain is telling us to get in…a few moments later it starts a torrential down-pour! Maybe Haitians smell rain? It rained for quite awhile so we had to postpone our trip to sister Flora’s because our boat had no cover. We left the bags there and were told we would have lunch up in the dining area right away. After some Haitian time we had Haitian sandwiches which were just as gross as last year. Then as the rain continued to beat down we figured the bags might not be that protected under the tarp…turns out they were sitting in quite a bit of water…I hope nothing is ruined.
After our lunch we went in the pool which was pretty green and had a little ozoney smell, hard to explain…so we went down to the beach to swim instead. I was a little creeped out at the beach because I think I remember Brendan saying last year there were those spiky urchins…and it was dusk when we were there so hard to see. We made some preliminary plans for our next 3 days: tomorrow voodoo ceremony, Wednesday island beach, Thursday beach hike to anse dufour. Of course, all this for our evening plans because all day will be spent at sister Flora’s. After our swim and a quick change of clothes, our group, minus red Karen, hiked down into the village. We had Wadson and then 2 locals as our guides and protection. It was pitch black down there and we just had small flashlight to light our feet so it was pretty interesting. It was odd to run into a group of people because it was so dark you had to wonder what they do in the evenings and how they get around so well. I made sure to stick close to our local tour guides because if we were seen with them we would be more accepted…it also helped that it was so dark you couldn’t absolutely tell we were white…except we spoke English along the way. I did practice a little little kreyol with one of the guides. I am trying to find Adense from last year. Anyway, we were hiking into the village so we could find a voodoo priest and arrange for the ceremony tomorrow, and we accomplished just that. ALong the way as I was walking along next to Debi, Wadson thought it would be fun to sneak ahead and hide behind a plam tree...as we passed he came running out with this growling scream and tried to grab us! I think I just about landed in Debi's arms!
Back at the resort it was time for supper: salad, rice with the djean djean mushroom sauce, and boiled plantains which are gross, some other white vegetable that was really just plain and a beef legume thing that I just picked at and the beef was really chewy…so, so far the food is not comparing well to Jacmel. :) When we finished supper everyone was feeling pretty worn out, well except Wadson of course, so we planned for bed. I tried to get on the internet but Wadson had beat me to it, and while I was waiting the owner, Didier came in and said he was closing up…so I haven’t been on in a couple days.