Monday, October 1, 2007

Ok so today was officially the start of the rainy season, and it did rain at about 2am so I believe them. I got up today with the impression that I would be in St. Louis by like 3 or 330, so I took the tent down, put my sleeping back away, and packed my bag. After breakfast, we were going to go to this private beach/cove area and hang out, but Miss Pat had a few things she needed us to do first, and since she hardly asks for anything we had no problem doing them. She and Teresa made some homemade bread, which was doubly good because Teresa wanted to learn how anyway, Melissa ran the Clinique from, 8-1030, Mike and I fixed a bed frame, and Erin helped with all of the above, and also photographed the whole morning for us. At 10 Mike took Erin and Teresa to this private beach on the four-wheeler, came back got me and then went back and got Melissa, and the 5 of us hung out at this private beach for about 2 hours before we got T-stormed out. The water was SO clear I could not even believe it and the coral was amazing, Mike and Teresa took their snorkeling gear and we all got to see the fish, coral and critters on the bottom. What an amazing time this was, and to boot we also got to see the monument that Christopher Columbus left when he touched down in Haiti so long ago. When we got back to Miss Pats we found out that the truck that was coming to get us got stuck in the mud and had to turn around and go home because of the rain so we decided to just stay another night in the far west, which was ok with everyone but Roland because he is a city boy. At about 445, Mike, Vogley, and I took the four-wheeler out to see if we could find the mission truck since we had not heard if it had gotten free yet. We did not find it but we did find the place where it was stuck and the tire tracks leading back to the main road. Having gotten that piece of information we took the long way home to test out the four-wheeler a little more. It is amazing how muddy you get on that thing and how hot the steam off of the muffler is. We got back at about 545 and got much needed showers right before it began to rain again and got all the leftovers around for dinner. At about 630, this young man showed up with a cut on his hand from a machete, he got while he was gardening. Melissa stitched him up goo though and sent him on his way. After dinner it was Shanghi time again however because of the lack of sunshine today we did not get to finish because we ran out of power. I think the most amazing part of the far west was the crabs, which were so big that sometimes I thought a kitten was running across the floor. The Haitians get really excited when one is spotted because these are so big that there is a lot of meat and it must be really good. So it was an early night for us all, which after today turned into a blessing. So I caught up on my journaling and put my tent back up and headed to bed. Peace.