by Nichole Coe, MH4H trip participant
The team started the day learning about Haitian time, as things happen here at a different pace than we are accustomed to. The plan for the day was to pour two concrete floors in two different huts. Once again, upon arrival to the first hut, we learned our way and the Haitian way do not coexist. Part of the team started clearing out the hut to prepare it for the concrete, while the other part entertained many children with bubbles, soccer balls, and fingernail painting. All girls love to have their nails painted. The team was able to get half of the floor completed before leaving for lunch.
The Haitian children enjoying having their nails painted!
The plan was to return to the home after we traveled to the market. For those of you who enjoy flea markets, please picture your busiest market and multiply it by 10, and you are getting close to the market in Pignon. On the way, we were able to see many purchases, like a pig strapped to the back of a motorcycle. Let that image sink in for a minute.
While the team didn’t catch a picture of the pig, they did catch this man transporting his poultry by motorcycle!
Walking through the market was very enlightening and troublesome at the same time. Words can’t explain the sights and smells from the market. After seeing much of the market, we went on a walk down to the river. It was hard to believe how many people were in the river washing clothes, animals, and cars or bathing all at the same time, especially considering the number of people in the market.
Leaving the river included hiking up the drainage trench that helps keep the roads from flooding during the rainy season. Woody, one of our translators, kept motivating us during the hike with comments like, “Ladies do this with their laundry in a metal bowl on their head and wearing flip flops.” Quickly, we felt that we could surely hike it carrying nothing and wearing tennis shoes. How the Haitians are agile and strong enough to accomplish that hike with so much baggage stills amazes us.
The team is becoming more Haitian every time we travel the roads in the back of a pick-up. What seemed so strange yesterday is now a preferred mode of transportation, even with 10 people sitting in the back. Some of the best conversations now occur bouncing down the dusty road waving at all of our neighbors.
The team’s new preferred mode of transportation.
Upon return from the market, we learned that the floor at the first house was completed, and the second floor is still on the plans to get done sometime this week. The evening was spent eating dinner, washing off the many layers of dust, and bonding over more stories. After a long, entertaining moment trying to kill a very large cricket, and after we were able to stop laughing, we heard the once quiet goats baaing just like our screams. Even the goats find us entertaining here.
Many thanks for the prayers and support. We really can feel the love of Jesus while here and know that is due in part to your many prayers back home.
If you’d like to read the team’s enlightening story about getting to Haiti, click here.