If you've been around you know that these things are:
1. Mosquitoes
2. Electricity (lack thereof)
3. Roads and Traffic
4. Heat and Humidity
5. Inability to find specific things/items we need
Since you only hear about those things when we have negative things to say, and since we are all guilty of being giant babies, it is important to note that for the last two weeks a few of these things have been exceptionally better. (#1,2,4)
- We have noticed the mosquitoes are much less insane right now. Three weeks ago I was frequently in melt down mode over mosquitoes. All things being relative, the current mosquito population is uber tolerable.
- At our house we are getting ridiculous amounts of ED'H (Haiti provided electricity). Laundry is always being done, people are allowed to make toast, life is good.
- Truthfully, as far as summers go, this one was not that hot. Here we are in October and things are more humid - but after a summer like the one we just had we will keep our weather gripes to a minimum. An old Haitian man in the countryside once told us that November 21 is the date that Haiti gets lovely and cool .... After a few years of paying attention we decided he is right. Only fifty days away. We've got this!
Our singular BIG gripe right now revolves around the flooded road (#3) that we must travel to go anywhere. Keeping hobbling old vehicles operational is difficult enough on the regular variety of crappy roads. If we turn left we travel in deep water to get to Beth and John's house, the store, or school. If we turn right to go to the Harbor House or the Maternity Center, or John's office, it is just more of the same. The water is coming from somewhere near the U.S. Embassy. Apparently some land there is being developed and they rerouted some water ... it now pours constantly into our area. It seems that the entire Port au Prince area is dumping its run-off on Tabarre. Mmm, Delish.
In order to meet Beth (on foot) for a run I would need to take my running shoes off, wade through knee deep water without knowing what I might step on underneath said water, then figure out where to balance myself to get them back on again. I gave in and drove to her to run on Saturday. Instead of the usual Saturday-sighting of a dead goat hanging from a tree, we saw a cow being skinned about two feet from us. On a related note, I'm becoming a vegetarian.
Numerous cars get stuck in this mess of deep mud and water every day. This means that to exit our neighborhood onto this road it could take anywhere from five seconds to five hours. This seems to make planning somewhat difficult. We all know "on my way" means exactly NOTHING these days and "See you in five" .... ? ? ?
As you can see by the photos, Brit G. at Heartline decided to scoff at the road turned river and found her own way to travel it.
I'm not super fond of rats or Cholera so I don't think I'll try this myself at any point. Mad props (and best wishes for copious amounts of bleach and Cipro) to Brit for laughing at (with?) the ridiculous excuse for a road that we all travel daily.
