Saturday, August 25, 2007

Before I get to today I need to add a few things from yesterday that I forgot. First, I forgot to tell you what happened while we were swimming and why I do not swim with them. The little boys use the edge of the beach as their toilet. GROSS. Second, we got diesel for the big truck and I wanted to share with you all how the monetary system works and how much diesel is here. We paid 250 Haitian dollars for 9.6 gallons of diesel. 250 Haitian dollars is 35.someting American dollars, which amounts to $3.66 per gallon of diesel. Ok now back to the present. Today was a VERY VERY long day. At about 11, Roland, Sony, and I went to Boshawn (again no idea how to spell it). It is in the very far west and took about 2 hours to get there. Mike and Teresa Grant just became full time missionaries with NWHCM and they are going to live out there and minister. On our way there we stopped and got two loads of gravel to take for their house, which is not built yet. On the shore where we picked up the gravel there were Haitians men with like 3-5 gallon buckets going out into the water and scooping sand and dumping it on the shore. Then two men with a sifter would sift out the gravel and make a sand pile and a gravel pile. It is interesting to see how efficient they are without the use of machinery. Once we got to Boshawn, we dumped the gravel at the building site and went a little further down the road to get a couple of loads of big stones. Because we were going to do two two load trips of stone, Roland and I waited at the stone sight while Sony took the first load back to the building site to dump it. About 20 or 30 minutes later a fella comes over to us and says that Sony got a flat tire and is stranded on the road. So we walked to where the truck was and come to find that he hadn’t even made it back to the building site to dump the stones. Apparently a flat tire in Haiti is much more of a big deal than it is in America for several reasons. One, the truck we had did not have a spare tire on it or a jack in it and the tire iron it had did not fit on the nuts to remove the flat tire. Second there is not AAA to help us. Ok on this truck there are the 2 tires in the front and then 4 on the back, two on the drivers two on the passenger’s side. So what they decided to do, was take the flat tire and put it in the back where there are two tires and take one of those tires to the front so that we could drive home. What seemed like a simply solution turned into a four hour process. Since we did not have the tools we needed to fix this flat, we had to rely on the generosity of others. I have come to find out that Haitian generosity only extends until they are ready to leave. Having said that, we had to change jacks three times and tire irons three times. Also adding to the lengthiness of this process is the fact that every Haitian male helping wants to be the boss and has to try everything himself. I decided that by the time we were putting the tires back on it was a strongest man competition, not changing a tire. Oh well, the job got done and because of how long it took we decided not to go get the second load. We just went home, and arrived at the orphanage at 8:30. I then took a much needed shower and ate some dinner and retired to my room. I think I am not feeling well, so I am going to go to bed now. I am taking the day off from food tomorrow since it should be a fairly easy day being Sunday. With just drinking water I am hoping to clean out my system. We will see. Peace.