C&C (Craig and Christi) have been in Haiti now for 6 months and they have made many, many, many friends. Sometimes, the friends bring gifts to them because they have helped the Haitians in many different ways. Our friend, O’Dennis, is a farmer by trade.  Yesterday, he brought us 13 avocados and 3 papayas. Today he brought us 12 coconuts and 12 more avocados! We love avocados but we can’t eat 25!!! We will give some away to other Haitians we know can really use them. The papayas are not ready to eat yet……they need to ripen, so we can eat them later.

 

O’Dennis and the multitude of things he brings us. The papayas need to still ripen.

 

Our friend, Shelly, gave us a large bucket of carra peana. They are like Boston Baked Beans………peanuts with sugar coating baked to a crunch. The bucket is half gone….I love them!

 

Carra peana is a Haitian treat for us. It is kind of like a Boston baked bean.

Today is a national holiday in Haiti. They call it Bataille de Vertiere. This day is the day the Haitian slaves revolted against the French and won their independence. Haiti celebrates Independence day on January 1, but this is the actual day of the battle. After this victory, the Haitians built a large fortress on the north shore of Haiti called the Citidal. This fortress was built just in case the French came back……they never did……so the Citidal was never used. If you visit the fortress, you will see cannon balls still stacked up by the cannons very neatly ready to use.

The Citadelle, guarding the northern most city of Cap Haitien. Not a single cannonball was ever fired from the fortress.

Today we visited Bill and Jennifer Cambell at the orphanage. We ate pizza for lunch. Jennifer gets all the ingredients for her pizza in Cap. It was as good as any pizza in Iowa.  After lunch we went to O’Dennis farm to see his crops. We walked his fields of peanuts, corn, coconuts, bananas, and sugarcane.

Team shot at O'Dennis's farm

Team shot at O’Dennis’s farm.

Don’t go under the coconut tree, with anyone else but me…

 

Tomorrow we go out to Savanette for a town party. We will sing, pray, talk and eat. It should be a fun morning. Blessings, Tim and Lucia