Thursday, January 3, 2008

Oh what a day Thursday was, after breakfast and devotions the fun began. Cara and I had planned on taking whoever from the group that wanted to go, to Laforge to hike 30 minutes up a mountain to see an ex-voodoo priest’s house that has been turned into a house of prayer. Well since it had been rainy and windy all night everyone thought that we would cancel. Little did they know that we were in Haiti and unless you are driving through a river or sailing you keep your plans so the trip was on. Also leaving the mission that day was a very daring group from Tomoca, who was planning on going to Tortuga. There was a break in the rain and the clouds and we all thought it would be ok so we sent them on their way. Back to Cara and me, who counting us and the interpreter had 11 people which was a small group considering there were 141 people at the mission this week. We did not have a truck available to take us to the church in Laforge so we just walked downtown to catch a tap tap. When we got to the town square there was a bunch of mopeds parked waiting for people to get on so I thought it would be just as easy that way so I sent everyone on a moped to the church. Mistake number on was taking a moped with this many people. Mistake number two was not getting a price for the ride. Now to give you a little background, we are talking about maybe 2 miles from start to finish. Cara and I have both ridden mopeds that route before and paid between 4 and 8 Haitian dollars each way, so I did not think to ask how much. So after a very interesting ride through the mud and water we arrived at the church ready to hike. Here is where the fun began, because I had 9 Americans with me and apparently because of the rain, they wanted 20 Haitian dollars a person. This was absolutely ridiculous, so me a Jocelyn (the interpreter) argued with them and tried to negotiate a more reasonable price. I started with what it should have cost and even made it up to 10 Haitian but they simply were looking to rip us off and were on their way to the police station when the Haitian gentleman who donated the land for the church came out and talked with them and just paid them to get them to go away. I was very angry that he paid them because the chances of them actually going to the police were very very slim and then they would have had nothing. Oh well though, at least the Americans got to see an interesting situation. After all that excitement was over we started the hike up the slippery mountain side to see this house of prayer. When we got to the top, we did not find a nice house that, according to a few people, you could stay in overnight and pray if you wanted. We found a run down, dirty; building that was in no condition for visitors. There were two buildings to the side of them, one looked like a kitchen area and the other was kind of a fellowship hall. Both of those buildings had paintings in them that to me looked like gods that the voo-doo priest would have worshiped. In the fellowship area there was a circle in the middle of the room, where sacrifices or rituals would have taken place, if in fact it had been used for voo-doo. After about 30 minutes we took a group photo at the house and headed back down the mountain. Because of the pricy ride there we had to walk half way back to the mission so I could get us a less expensive tap tap ride. We took a different route home through the rocks and the river. Just as we got to the market and we were waiting for everyone to catch up we could see the rain literally moving toward us and it was so funny to see everyone frantically trying to get their ponchos on before they got wet. There was one other girl there that had been to Haiti before and her, Cara, and I just watched and laughed because we knew that was what happened in Haiti during the rainy season and that it would not last very long. Back at the mission we showered and had lunch and for the rest of the day kind of just hung out at the mission and organized some of the stuff that the groups had brought in. Shortly after we returned the group from Tortuga returned safely and just before the water started to get to choppy. For dinner the four past and present interns, Elevus, and Rolgard (the two full time Haitian staff members) ordered out from a Haitian restaurant and went down to the Grants house and hung out and ate away from the group because Friday two of the girls were leaving. It was really fun to just be away from everyone and enjoy some Haitian food and laugh about past times. After devotions we all hung out in the dining hall for a while then the people that had to leave in the morning went to finish packing and went to bed. The rest of us hung out until about midnight and then called it a night. Peace.