A Hundred and One Dollars the Easy Way

            A few years ago we placed a bowl on our bookcase that was originally to serve as an area to drop off items such as keys, wallets, chap stick, etc. Soon enough it became an area to deposit pocket change, and it kept building and building over the past two years. Very recently, it got to a point where there was so much change in the bowl, things kept falling out and there was no room to leave a wallet or key set without it likely ending up on the floor. It had come time to get rid of the change, and transform it into cold hard cash.

            To transport the change I used empty Chinese soup containers, it had seemed one quart and one pint was just enough to fit everything. My plan was to head over to the nearby Pathmark, which has the coinstar machine that I used many times in the past, and make the exchange in the morning hours before the place gets crowded. Since I was about to come into some wealth and it was early in the morning, I decided to treat myself to breakfast at the newly rennovated Burger King on the way to the Pathmark. Though it was Burger King and not McDonald's, I had a breakfast sandwich which looked conspisciously similar to an Egg McMuffin. The only real snafu with it is they forgot to heat it up properly and it was rather cold (I even easily took the cold cheese off). I guess if it isn't cooked then McDonald's can't complain they're copying the Egg McMuffin concept.  From there it was onto Pathmark and the coinstar machine. I was happy to see no one else was using them at the time, so I had the whole area to myself.

             When I was gathering all the coins into the containers, I estimated that I had about $50 at best worth of change in my possession. The machine started up and I began dumping in the coins. First, I emptied out the small container, all the coins were accepted except a peso from the Dominican Republic that ended up in the pile somehow. Next was the bigger container which took twice as long to empty than the smaller one. I kept peeking at the machine to see how much money was coming in, and it kept rising and rising. It went from $40, to $50, to $70, to $90, and as the final handful of coins were being processed, it slowly inched its way to the grand total of $101.68 and I was estatic at passing the century mark. When done with the coins, the machine prints out a receipt which must be taken over to the customer service desk in Pathmark to receive the cash. The lady behind the desk handed me the hundred and one dollars in cash, but I was so in awe of looking at the cash I forget when she didn't hand me the sixty-eight cents in coins. Not to make a stink over some coins, I let it go and went to use the Pathmark bathroom to wash my hands from all the money handling. I was happy the Pathmark management placed a sign in the bathroom urging customers to report any conditions that aren't deemed satisfactory, but had no interest in knowing what the unsatisfactory would look like.

             I could care less about iPods, iPads, blue-ray DVDs, the real kudos needs to go to the good people who gave us the Coinstar machine. When was the last time your iPod gave you a hundred bucks?...

Getting a Disease from seeing Dead Sea Scrolls

            For this Holiday Season in New York the Discovery Zone in Times Square was exhibiting the infamous Dead Sea Scrolls, which included a copy of the Ten Commandments. I had saw an advertisement some time ago for this showing, and following up on it there was only one week left, so I decided to make my way to Times Square for the biblical journey.

            There was also something else I was looking forward to on this little trip to the city. Being in Haiti for most of December, it had been nearly a month since I was on a subway and in Manhattan. I wasn't expecting much changes over this time, but it felt nice to be back in the swing. Earlier in the day I had been reflecting that I hadn't been sick in a very long time, and there was something in the back of my mind telling me that being exposed to the subway after a long layoff during the start of flu season would spell bad news for me. Sure enough, I get on the train, and only after a few stops the air seems thick. I can feel something gathering in my nose, my throat, and overall my body temperature felt like it was rising, all the signs one has before catching a cold. By the time the train reached the Manhattan limits I was fast asleep in my seat as all the energy was depleted from my body. I eventually woke up to the sounds of people sneezing and coughing all around me, but luckily my stop was approaching and I got off quick.

           Eventually I made my way to Times Square where the Discovery Zone is located, and simply being in the fresh air made some of my cold symptoms fade. With New Year's Eve only a few days away and typically Times Square the center of those celebrations, I was expecting alot of people to be around, but there were many more than I was anticipating. Plus, there were also stages and platforms built for all the TV shows that will be airing the event in the coming days. With thousands of tourists around, an exhibit like the Dead Sea Scrolls in the middle of Times Square would certainly draw big crowds and long lines, so I made sure to purchase my tickets ahead of time online, which were about $30. I had been to the Discovery Zone twice before, once for an exhibit for King Tut's tomb, and another for the lost city of Pompeii, which was buried in volcanic ash. Both shows were well done and I expected no less for the scrolls display. Getting inside the exhibit only took about a half hour, even though I already had a ticket, alot of other people also bought tickets ahead of time as well.

           The exhibit begins with a brief five minute introduction from a guide who explained how the scrolls were found in 1947 by a goat hurder who threw a rock at a goat that ran into a cave. As the rock entered the cave it made a noise as if it shattered a piece of pottery. The goat hurder returned the next day to see what caused that noise, and inside those old pottery jars were what is known today as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest known copies of the written Old Testament, aka Hebrew Bible. Experts believe they were written about 150 CE - 70 CE which would make them well over two thousand years old. The way the exhibit is displayed, first there's a room with old artifacts dating as far back as 500 CE, these include jars, a bathtub, spear heads, coins, tools, etc. Then there is a staircase which leads downstairs to where the Dead Sea Scroll are on display. They placed parts of them in a circular table, with English translations next to them, and the line wrapped around the table at least three times. Since people took their time reading the scrolls and translations carefully, treating it more like a religious event rather than a museum exhibition, the line was painfully slow and it took nearly and hour to get to see the scrolls with my own eyes. All this time I was on the line, I was still feeling little shades of a cold coming on soon.

            The scrolls were written in neat lettering of the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek language, on a substance known as papyrus. Most of the writings dealt with rules and regulations for the ancient Hebrew tribes. Speaking of which, there was a seperate line to see a scroll of the oldest known copy of the Book of Deuteronomy, which included the even more infamous Ten Commandments. That line was only about twenty minutes and much more managable than the line for the scrolls. All along the walls of this downstairs area were more artifacts on display from that time period such as sandals, pottery, comb, jars, stamps, and more. There was even a mock temple wall, as the real one exists in Jerusalam, in which people could leave small prayer notes that was promised to be taken to the real wall overseas. With the items on display and mainly because of the long lines, I spent a little under two hours inside the place, and to see ancient texts of that magnitude was all worth it. So it became time to get back on the subway and head on home. Then the same thing happened all over again, after a few stops from getting on the train, I start feeling the early warning signs of getting sick. I even passed out in my seat again and went to sleep until I woke up a few stops before I had to get off. As soon as I got home and I had an orange for Vitamin C, or B, or whichever one fights colds. The good news is the combination of the orange and not being in the subway anymore made all my cold symptoms evaporate.

            The Dead Sea Scrolls were well preserved in the caves off the West Bank for nearly two thousand years , but they wouldn't have lasted two minutes on a New York City subway...   

A Painful Return to the GridIron

            When I was younger football was always the game I played the most. There's no need for a hoop or a net or a large field, it can be played in any type of weather, and generally even players with the smallest of talent can contribute somehow. Most of the games I was involved in occured on the streets in front of one of our houses. The boundaries were pretty easily defined as the sidewalks, first downs were reaching a certain parked car, and the end zone was usually a sewer cap or tree/telephone pole.

             Since these early games were played on concrete and tar, there was no tackling and opponents were captured by a two-hand touch method. Though there was no tackling in the streets(except on snowy days) there were still plenty of physical moments, like the time I got hit in the mouth and lost a crown tooth in the back of my mouth(which never grew back). As my high school years wrapped up and my college tenure began, a group of us banded together and would play tackle football on certain weekends on the huge lawns of a mental hospital nearby. The grounds of this area were perfect, except for the goose droppings during certain seasons when geese would fly down from up north to ride out the winter. Some weeks only eight of us would converged, but most of the time these games were well populated with nearly twenty different people playing. There were a number of different characters there as well, one time someone we thought was a mental patient at the facility appeared out of nowhere in the pouring rain and asked to join us. Then there was a group of Dominican brothers we simply referred to as "The Dominicans" we relied on if he needed extra people in a last minute effort to put teams together. I had a few shinning moments in some of these games, but I wasn't as nearly good as I was playing two-hand touch street games.

            These mental facility games were very taxing on the body and it would take nearly a full week to heal, but then by that time it was Sunday again and time to take another beating. There was one person who broke his wrist, there were another two players who ended up in a fight that had to be broken up, there was never a dull moment. Unfortunately, by the second year of college most of the group had fallen out of touch, either from flunking out of the school most of us went to, or simply not wanting to get up early anymore on a Sunday and take a beating. With the group gone, also gone was my pick-up football game career. Of course, there were future games for me sprinkled here and there over the years, including an interesting beach tackle game, but the frequency was infintely less than my more youthful days. This past Christmas, which was celebrated at my uncle's house, my cousin informed me of a tackle football game they were having the next day and invited me to join. It had been nearly ten years since those tackle games I used to play in at the mental hospital, could I take that punishment anymore?

           Without much hesitation or thought, I agreed to play and was looking forward to see if I could still play reasonably well. There was about twelve of us who assembled on the offical football field of New Rochelle High School. It was the first time I played on an actual football field, but we only used part of the field as there wasn't nearly enough of us to play on the normal dimensions. The weather was chilly, windy, with an annoying sun beaming light into everyone's eyes. The ball we played with was bulky and without much grip. All these conditions usually spell bad news when I play, and that's how it turned out. I didn't do much in the game, probably mainly because I was a new face in the group and people likely kept forgetting which team I was on. I had two passes thrown in my direction, which I dropped, but I did have an interception. I made a few tackles, one of which cost me getting kicked in the head, but I also missed some tackles as well. The other team seemed to be scoring more touchdowns on my team and after a while we all just stopped keeping score and just played for fun. I was out of breath about ten minutes into the game and was sucking for air the rest of the hour and half we played.

            My legs were in much pain, and I knew for a fact the worst of it would be the following days as the rest of my body would react as my legs were. Sure enough, in the following couple of days I felt I had the body of a hundred year old. I couldn't move at all, and simple things like getting dressed or rolling out of bed became a physical challenge. It was about the same type of pain from playing in those games ten years, but the good news is I didn't have to also limp to classes for the whole week as I used to. It's hard to determine if it was all worth it, playing for ninety minutes, only to have body pain for the rest of the week. I didn't know the answer ten years ago and I still don't know the answer, but if I kept going back then the answer must have been yes. It was good to be running, sweating, falling down, getting a kick, the stuff I had been missing out on since I left college and entered the workforce of getting home late and using weekends to sleep.

           The only thing I had not missed was the little presents left to us by the geese...

Back in America at Full Force

            Instead of having time to adjust from a lifestyle in Haiti to living in America, I was thrown into a pit of fire immediately. Mainly due to the fact that its the Holiday Season and I had to cram all my Christmas shopping in on day, as well as I had about three weeks worth of bills on hold at the post office just waiting for my triumphant return.

            I could've started my shopping one day sooner and made things less hectic for myself, but on my first day back I was pretty wiped out from the travel, so I just ate Chinese food for lunch and fell asleep on my couch for most of the day. The next day was to be different, my goal was to get it all done in one big swoop. The only problem is that it seemed like the rest of the planet also picked yesterday to do their shopping. I started the day with a hearty meal at TGI Fridays which consisted of a 8oz flat-iron steak and a mudslide. From there it was Macy's, Sears, JC Penny's, and finally Party City to buy wrapping paper. The lines at all these places were long and moving at a snail's pace. I took a peek into K-Mart for some small gift ideas, but it wasn't even worth going in as it was at max capacity. Out of all the stores, I must give praise to Sears for coming through on variety, price, and having the least amount of people in there for shorter lines.

             I think celebrating Christmas should be changed from exchanging gifts to simply eating Chinese food and falling asleep on a couch, costs a heck of alot less...

A Nightmare at 36,000 Feet

            I don't particulary enjoy airplanes and only travel by air if its absolutely necessary. Had there been a pair of rollerskates that would've taken five weeks to get to Haiti instead of only a three hour flight, I would taken the rollerskates.

            The skies were clear in Haiti and New York weather was only supposed to be a little rainy, so I figured I would be able to get through it without a hitch. Usually I'm able to apply mind over matter to get through the fact I would be halfway to space in a piece of machine that shakes as much as an amusement park ride, unfortunately the mind was lacking this time around. The first sign of trouble occured at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport when there was a two-second blackout as I was waiting at the cafe inside getting a cookie. Next, we board the plane and are on the runway to take off, and although cellphones are supposed to be shut off at this time, some rocket engineer decides to keep his phone on and text as the plane is lifting off the ground. I was anticipating the cellphone's signal to somehow damage the plane's internal function and put us into the Altantic Ocean an hour later. Another detail about the take-off from this airport that the plane always make a sharp left turn as its still rising to the sky. In normal circumstances, a place rises straight up and then turns at a certain altitude, but when they leave Haiti to head up to America, its a sharp left turn immediately that isn't too much fun.

            The flight time between New York and Haiti is about three and a half hours, which isn't bad overall, but five minutes in the air for me seems like forever. Intially the skies were clear from the ground, after about the first ten minutes in the sky, we were going into alot of clouds, and while in the cloud the plane would start shaking. Looking out the window to see if everything was alright was of no use as there was nothing to see but the cloud outside. After the captain turned off the seatbelt sign and allowed people to move around, I immediately went to the bathroom to gag and throw up some of the cookie I had at the airport cafe. I had a bad feeling the next four hours where going to be quite rough. The stewardess was sitting in the back reading a book and I was thinking of asking her for a sleeping pill, as requesting to have them just make a quick pit stop in Florida to drop me off was likely out of the question. I figured I should just go back to my seat and see if I could settle myself in as I'm usually able to. That only lasted about three minutes, so I went back over to the stewardess and asked her if she had anything that could put me out, as in the sleeping pills always seen in the movies. They're called movies for a reason, turns out there's no such thing and her only solution was beer or wine to numb me out.

             I declined any alcohol initally as I knew it wouldn't have any influnce on me since all my senses were at their highest peak. Perhaps if she gave me a case of liquor, that would have been different. Some time past, but not enough time. I tried watching a DVD on my laptop, I tried reading, nothing was working, so I went to her again and elected for the mini-bottle of wine. Although it costs $7, she let me have it for free. I drank the entire bottle in the matter of a minute, hoping the quick jolt of alcohol would make me numb fast and fall asleep. That didn't work out for me either. The stewardess passed by to see how I was doing and was quite amazed I drank the bottle so fast. Then I saw her go up towards the front of the place, probably to tell the captain there's a possible nut sitting in 33H. On these international flights between New York and Haiti, annoucements are made in both English and French(which is close enough to Creole). From that point on, almost all of the annoucements in mid-flight were in French only, so as I most likely couldn't hear them and start freaking out possibly. I knew exactly what the French annoucements were as the word "turbulance" sounds the same in both langurages.

             Soon after a few word in French, the plane would start rocking, the seatbelt signal would beep, babies would be crying, I would be in my seat plucking my eyebrows, looking towards the front and waiting for the plane to spiral out of control at any moment. The stewards and stewardesses came around with their fake smiles, as a way to mask the plane's shakiness, to serve dinner, but I refused as i didn't want to be throwing it up five minutes later. Many thoughts raced through my mind as in: there's thousands flights occuring around the world at all times - why should mine have problems, or, there hasn't been a plane crash in the news in quite a while - maybe this will be the one. About halfway through the flight the sun went away and it was completely pitch black outside the window, which made it even worse. Then came the biggest turbulance sequence of the entire ride which had my head in my lap and the even the guy next to me praying in Creole. He likely saw I was a nervous wreck and it was starting to rub off on him. For the rest of the ride I pretty much kept my head down in my lap the whole way. I kept taking peeks at my iPod clock to only see minutes very slowly ticking away.

             A slight euphoria came over me as I saw a steward walk around the aisle with a trash bag, which is usually the sign the plane is about to land very soon. I felt the plane descending and was glad to see the lights of New York underneath instead of the total darkness of the Atlantic Ocean. The plane got closer and closer to the ground, and this was my favorite part of the whole ride. We did have a clean and successful landing, but my chest was still pounding from the four-hour adrenaline rush. Even though I was safely on the ground, as I was getting off the plane and waiting on line for customs, I felt like I was still in the sky battling through the adversity. The custom agent I had to see provided me with some comedic relief as he first asked what my job was, and I told him I'm unemployed. Then he looked at me oddly as if the idea of not having a job and going down to Haiti for non-working purposes was humanly impossible, but I explained I was there to visit my girlfriend who works for Unicef, and he stamped me through. After that I picked up my bag and went to the last customs agent before exiting the airport. With homeland security a top priority, he asked me if I had anything to declare, I simply said "no", and he told me I'm clear to go.

           As I waiting outside for my parents to pick me up in the rainy 50 degree weather, which was somewhat different from the 85 degree weather in Haiti I had a few hours earlier, a gentlemen with an African accent asked to use my cellphone to call his friend to pick him up. He even pulled out money from his pocket and offered to pay for the call, but I told him it wouldn't be necessary as it was a US number. He actually wanted me to describe to the friend which terminal and area we were waiting at, the whole thing stunk like some sort of set-up or scam, but I went along with it anyways like the airplane. The guy on the phone was named "Butro". He even called me back a few minutes later to describe the place again, so "Butro" definately knows my cellphone number for future reference. In the end it must have been legit, as the car came before my parents did to pick the guy up.

             Even if the guy needed to make an expensive international call, I might've not accepted his money anyways, I was just happy at that moment to be alive...

The Plane Ride
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dar2HKImK-0

Ile a Vache Doesn't Make it Easy to Leave

            Who wouldn't want to stay on a nice island with warm climate and nice beaches, but it was time for us to leave. Unfortunately for us, the island had different ideas and getting back to Port-au-Prince wasn't going to be so easy.

            The Abaka Bay resort that took us from the mainland to the island stilled owed us a boat ride back to the mainland, even though we spent the final night at Willem's house. It turns out Willem needed to leave earlier than us to go to the mainland for business purposes, so he took a different boat as we were schedule to take the Abaka Bay boat at 11am. Willem had a boy escort us to the trail from his house to the resort, and he picked the route that was both the shortest and the most physically taxing. We climbed up and up and up again, while carrying bags. As soon as we reached a highpoint, we would look up and see another hill to climb, and it would happen again and again. We just about finished the bottle of water we were going to use for the entire trip home in about only ten minutes. When we finally reached the highest of highpoints, we saw the resort just below us and it offered some magnificant views of the land, but overall wasn't worth the physical toll to get up there.

             We had scheduled to have the boat take us at 11am to catch the 12:30pm Transport Chic bus, which would have been more than enough time to get there and get a good seat. That was the last bus leaving Cayes for the day and I needed to be back the next day to catch my flight to America, therefore it would have been bad and expensive news to miss that flight. Plus, we were just about out of money, so if we missed the bus, we didn't know how we would be able sleep at Cayes or buy new bus tickets if no refunds were available. The ride to mainland by speedboat is only about fifteen minutes. We first sat at the resort outdoor bar to have juice and water to cool us down from the demanding walk to get there. We arrived a few minutes before 11am and were anticipating to leave soon after we finished our drinks. As 11am passed and it became 11:15am and then 11:20am, so we asked when are we going to leave, we needed to catch the 12:30pm bus. Then the person we made arrangements with gave us the great news that they didn't want to make multiple trips with the boat, and were waiting for another group waiting to go to the mainland as well. To top it off, the other group first needed to eat lunch and then be ready to go.

             Something seemed wrong when she started yelling at the hotel staff in creole, and eventually I found out the trouble we were in. Luckily she had the idea of purchasing our return tickets in advance, otherwise there was no way we were going to be on time for that 12:30pm bus. Had the boat left at 11am, as we scheduled with them, the time it would've taken to drop us off at the mainland and return for the other group, would have been well before they were even done with their lunch. It was a case the Abaka Bay management didn't want to use up the any extra gas in the boat's tank. She called the bus company to inform them we'll likely be late and see if they could hold up the bus a little, but that was only going to last us so long. Around 12:06pm she asked one of the hotel staff to ask the group if they were done with lunch and ready to leave, fortunately they were. As we all rode together on the boat we explained the situation we were in and why we were in such a ruch. They were nice enough to offer us a ride back to Port-au-Prince in case we missed our bus and gave us their phone number, but our goal was still making the 12:30pm bus.

            The boat was getting closer and closer to the dock, and as soon as it seemed we'll be alright, the boat's engine cut off and we were stalled in the water. So close, yet so far away. It seemed as if everything was against us catching that bus. The driver eventually got the motor running again and we finished our way to the dock. The next challenge was finding a moto to drive us a few minutes to the bus station. There was one moto who was already about to take a lady, but after explaining our pressing time needs, she was nice enough to defer the bike ride to us. Once we reached the bus station I was happy to see the bus was still there. Just like on the way to Cayes, since we were late I had to take a cramped seat up front next to the driver. By the time the bus started moving the time was 12:45pm, so we got very lucky they held the bus up that long for us. On the road back there was quite alot of traffic caused by a UN truck that was smashed by another large truck apparently. The delays set us back about an hour, but it wasn't a concern as we were still going to make it back that night and I would be able to make my flight the next day.

            I guess my birthday gift to Ile a Vache included drama and action as well...

The Hike for Reasonably Priced Fish

            We returned to our guide Willem's house for our final day on Ile a Vache. The plan was for us to take a long hike to the marketplace to purchase fish and other ingrediants to cook up later in the day. We were to spend the night at his place and then head back to the mainland of Haiti the next morning.

             Like the day before, Willem and his dog met us at the end of the beach at the resort and we walked to his house to drop off our stuff. Walking around the property I saw he had a solar panel used to collect sunlight during the day which could be used to power lights and other electrical outlets at night. We started on the trail and things were going well at first, but we had one slight problem in that the dog kept following us. His property does have a fence, but there's plenty of openings for his dogs to get out anytime they please. Time after time he would see the dog and have to throw a rock or a stick in its direction to scare it back home. Once we thought the dog was gone, soon enough we would turn around and see it trailing us, and Willem would have to make it run back. The dog's last attempt came when we were about 20% into our hike, so the dog certainly knows the island.

            The hike was far more challenging than I anticipated and luckily we brought a bottle along with us. We walked over busted concrete bridges, up hills, down hills, on beaches, on dirt roads, back on beaches again, the trail never seemed to end. What also made it tough was that there were animal droppings of almost every species all over the place, so one must really walk carefully. Plenty of the local people were walking around on that in barefoot, which had me in some surprise. Willem must be quite a popular person on the island as almost every person we passed greeted him and offered a small chat. I took noticed that several of the homes throughout the countryside had graves of their relatives on their own property in mosuleum-style. Since there's no vehicles on this island, that I saw of, the mode of transportation besides feet or boat is via a donkey or horse. Frequenty we would hear a gallop and a few seconds later a person would come buy riding on a horse. Both adults and even small unsupervised children would also be riding donkeys back home with the goods they purchased from the marketplace.

            After about more than an hour of walking we did finally reach our destination, which was a jam-packed affair of people and booths. There were tons of trash on the floor and people were in close proximity passing by eachother. I was warned to guard my pockets very carefully. The marketplace is only open on Mondays and Thursdays, so on those days it seems like everyone on the island has to be there. We bought another bottle of water for our journey back as well as some fried finger foods from a vendor to hold us over. Our main goal was to purchase fish, and fishermen were catching them near the waters off the marketplace so we knew they would be fresh. It turns out two of the fish vendors we asked wanted way too much for their product. In Haiti, almost everything is a negociation when it comes to making purchases, and of course the marketplace is no exception. Unfortunately, these ladies weren't budging at all. The first lady had a whole cooler filled with fish and one would think she would want to get rid of them for as much as she reasonably could, but no. So in reality, we just walked away with some peppers and onions, but not the main goal of fish.

            We returned via the same route we got there with and passed the same terains, complete with animal droppings of course. Willem showed us his grandmother's property he grew up on and he asked some other fishermen we passed if they had any catch to sell us, but they didn't. The dog was happy to see Willem back and Plan B became for us to eat conch instead. As we took a nap at Willem's house to rest from the very long and challenging hike, a woman came over to cook up the food. She made a conch soup and prepared fried plantains, rice with peas, and cut raw onions that had a very spicy sauce on them. Willem sent for a young boy to buy two bottles of soda for us at a nearby vendor a few minutes away from his house. The sun went away as we ate, but Willem was able to provide us with some light from his solar powered generator. For the night, we were to sleep on his bed and he was going to sleep on his couch. Willem had to go out somewhere, but he was to return a few hours later. The first snafu was that it was only 7pm which is far earlier than I'm able to go to sleep. With not enough power available for a TV and limited light for reading purposes, time at night on the island moved very slowly.

            We did have a light in the room, but as soon as Willem returned home and sounded like he was settled in, she turned the light off and all of a sudden there was nothing but pitch black. There could have been a million dollars or a polar bear in front of my face and I wouldn't have seen it. I suggested we have some light as generally its a good idea to be able to see what is in front of you, even at a limited capacity. She was able to use her cell phone flashlight feature and we kept it on near my edge of the bed. Then for some reason something in my head told me to use the light to check the side of my bed against the wall, so I shined the light there and saw the absolute biggest spider outside of a petshop or a zoo I've seen in my life. Granted we did have a mosquito net covering the bed area that was to protect us from bugs, but no net is full proof. I woke her up and informed her of the spider, she was scared to even look at it thinking it was much bigger.

            When she finally mustered the courage to look at it, she complained to me it wasn't big at all and killed it with a shoe. She must have had a bad angle seeing it, as it wasn't as big as a tarantula, but it was certainly much larger than the ordinary house spider she claimed it to be. The thing looked like something that would be used for a Halloween decoration in someone's window. The fact it was initially pitch black in the room and something like that could be walking on my face made me keep that cellphone light on. I constantly used it to check around me and noticed the occasional mosquito or other bug flying around inside the net, just waiting for me to fall asleep. The night was long as it was maybe only 10pm and I still had about nine more hours to go till the sun would rise. Even with the light, I covered my whole body in a sheet and wasn't taking any chances of another one of those big spiders getting on me. Somehow, someway, I eventually drifted off asleep and woke up to little beams off sunlight entering the small openings of the metalic roof. I can't remember ever being so happy to see the sun.

            Haiti could be intimidating in certains regards, but that spider was the scariest thing I ever saw there...

The Thug of Lover's Island

            Day Two of our trip to Ile a Vache in Haiti included a journey to yet another small island fifteen minutes away called Lover's Island. We started the day with our complimentary breakfast at Abaka Bay, which included the first cup of coffee I had in Haiti. Afterwards, we met up with our guide, Willem, who waited for us at the end of the resort's beach to take us into the village and ultimately to the place called Lover's Island.

            The walk to the village took about ten minutes, going up and down hills and passing by various farm animals tied up to ropes. Willem even bought his trusty dog along with him, who probably knows the trail just as good as he does. We eventually made it to the village, which could be described as a fishing community, and first made a rest stop at Willem's house. The dog that was walking with us was a female, and two of her offspring were waiting for us too at his place, especially the younger pup who was more than willing to pose for pictures. A simple motor boat took Willem and us out to the waters and there must have been a small leak at the bottom because the driver kept using a small bowl to scoop up water and toss it overboard. We passed a few tiny islands and fishing boats as we buzzed through the calm waters. There was even one tiny island which was summerged under water, but clearly visible by the white glow above on the water's surface. Apparently, when the tide is high, the land is covered. When the tide is low, it pops out from under water. The island we went to didn't have this same issue and was above water level all year round.

            The residents of the island live a very simple and old fashioned life style. In fact, one small child was scared of seeing me as he wasn't used to caucasians. The homes were mainly little huts made out of leaves from the coconut trees. Most, if not all the children were walking around naked, and the only "clean" water source was a well with sand at its bottom. How people drink that and don't get sick is somewhat of a mystery to me, but I guess it works for them. After walking around a little and seeing the place, we picked up a number of colorfully designed sea shells. There were so many to choose from just laying around on the sand, but we were only able to take a small few with us. There came a point where we asked ourselves where do these people go to the bathroom and there didn't seem to be an outhouse around, well, at the opposite side of the island we smelt something foul and got our answer. Hopefully, none of the sea shells are used for toliet paper as in 'Demolition Man'(1993). Getting back to the good side of the island I checked around to make sure there were no surprises laying around, and when it seemed clear, I went in the water for a quick dip.

             When lunch time came we had a number of seafood delights as in lobsters, grilled fish, and conch cooked right in front of us. For drink, we had a few coconuts cut open for us, and each time we would turn our backs on a coconut, one of the goats would come over to try to drink up the juice inside. Most of the people there seemed friendly, except there was one guy, who was dressed like a LA gangbanger, being bossy to people around him and complaining we should be paying for spending time on his land. The thug, as we named him, didn't say anything to us directly, but he was making his opinions known to Willem and his fellow islanders.  Nothing much came of it, but overall poverty sure had its influence on the residents. One girl wanted to charge money for a number of shiny-looking shells she had in her possesion(which we could pick up on the floor for free), and then another lady wanted money for really no reason other than she claimed visitors usually give her money. After lunch was finished and we were done with our visit, it was time to head back to the main island we were staying at. Before getting into the boat, a group of small children on the beach stopped to pose for pictures. With their bodies wet from the water and the white sand sticking to them, they looked like an African tribe with their war paint on, ready to head into battle.

             Once we were back near Willem's, we made a little detour to the village library that had a few large speakers out front blasting music for people to dance to. I didn't know it was a library at first, but once I went inside and was offered a beer, I looked at the shelves and noticed encyclopedias and other books housed all around. As I sat, two small children, with clothes on this time, noticed my camera and started dancing so I could take pictures of them. They were quite amused at seeing themselves in photos and videos that I showed them. Willem, and the dog, escorted us back to the Abaka Bay resort and with my swimming trunks still on, I decided to go in for another dip in the nice water. As I was swimming, I went out a little further than I normally would have, and while moving my arms I felt something slash across my left arm, which left a red mark. I'm not sure what caused that, might've been a long and sharp tree leaf that was in the water, or some type of water creature I bumped into. Either way, I stayed in closer from that point on. With my goggles and snorkel on, I was able to scan the underwater surface and saw all types of colorful small fish. There were also shells and small pieces of coral laying around the ocean floor.

             Naturally, since we ate lobster for lunch on Lover's Island during the afternoon, that night at the Abaka Bay hotel resturant, they had to serve lobster for dinner...