Getting an Island for My Birthday

            Well, I wish I was getting an island to own, but what I did get for my 30th birthday was a trip to an island off the southern coast of Haiti called Ile a Vache. In order to get there it required a motorcycle, a bus, another motorcycle, and finally a speed boat.

             Our bus was scheduled to leave at 10am, but in order to get a good seat we wanted to get there much earlier. Unfortunately, getting a motorcycle taxi(moto) was proving to be quite difficult, and even when we were able to call someone to pick us up, he was late. The bus company is named Transport Chic(eat your heart out Greyhound) and the estimated ride was scheduled for five hours. We still got there well before 10am, but many others were also already there, so we had to settle for cramped seats up front next to the driver. With Transport Chic, if the bus is filled up before its scheduled departure time, its goes early then, so actually it left around 9am. The journey took us out of the crowded and messiness of Port-au-Prince to the southern countryside of Haiti which features mountains, hills, plains, coastlines, horses, and donkeys. The further south we went the more people there were on the side of the road using donkeys to carry goods or riding horses to travel. The bus did have an air conditioner system, thankfully, but in order to conserve the engine, each time the bus had to slowly crawl up a mountainous road, the strain on the bus made the driver shut the AC off till we going downhill.

            We kept passing town after town, each with their own marketplace or "busy" area by the side of the road. There was one instance we reached a police checkpoint and our bus, along with a couple of others, had to pull over to the side of the road. While drivers were busy showing their papers to the police officers, passengers from all the buses took the time to make their own "pee break" and went outside to urinate near the bushes. Our bus eventually started to ride off leaving one lady behind, so when passengers started yelling, he pulled over again to let her back on. He announced it wasn't a bathroom break beforehand, but it was a long journey and I guess people needed to go. We did come upon a real rest stop which the bus pulled over at to re-fuel as well as let everyone get a bite to eat at the resturant. We had to rush down our chicken leg with rice and plantains before the bus was going to leave. To help us finish our meal quicker, a dog kept sticking its head inside the place looking for scraps. When we were done with the meat, we simply tossed him our bone and let it have lunch too. That bone was chewed in swallowed in less than two minutes.

            It was back on the road, going through more towns, passing by trucks and tap-taps(cabs) with people hanging along the sides, and even the roof. The road itself did have an intimidation factor as along the sides were smashed vehicles to serve as a frequent reminder to drive carefully. The bus was constantly honking its horn around every bend where maybe, or maybe not, another vehicle might be oncoming. The road rules in Haiti are rather laxed as commonly speeding trucks are plowing by on the wrong side of the road or other vehicles are constantly trying to get ahead of eachother. In a little under five hours, we did reach our final destination in the town of Cayes, and picked up the second moto for another three minute ride to the docks where the boat would take us to the island. The area near the docks featured a small public park people were relaxing in as well as some students doing their school work(on a Saturday). There was also a small open air cafe, which was closed for business at the time, that we waited at until the boat was ready to pick us up. As we were waiting, a kid came over to us and asked for money, but we told him no. A few minutes later he walked by again and tossed a small piece of plastic in our general direction, perhaps his revenge for us not giving him any spare change.

             The boat did arrive and it was finally time for us to take the last step to reaching the island area called Vache. It wasn't just an ordinary boat, it was a speed boat, and we were bouncing up and down the entire ride. The seats had cushions, but they were of little use as the contant poundage on my lower half gave me quite a headache. The ride took about fifteen minutes, and when we got there the long day's journey was well worth it. At first, there were mountainous walls which led to a small enclave that had colorful beach-front bungalos on top of clean white sand. The boat docked at the resort, named Abaka Bay, and as soon as we reached the sand, a gentleman approached from the outdoor bar with rhum sour drinks for each of us. Glacing around the area there were lounge chairs for the beach, hammocks to lay in, a basketball hoop, and the feature attraction of the beach with its clear light blue water, soft sand surface, and no rocks/pebbles in sight. Usually most beaches have rocks and broken sea shells upon entering, but not this one, just sand. It is almost as if they vacuum the bottom of the sea somehow. We had a peach-colored bungalo room which was nicely furnished and well air-conditioned. Since fresh water on the island is limited, they requested to conserve water and limit showers to three minutes. They serve three meals a day and we got there in time to catch the tail end of lunch.

            As with most cases where owners are far away from their businesses, in this case the entire family of the people who run the place also live there as well. It was a weekend, so perhaps they have a tradition of converging there on Saturdays and Sundays. The first thing I did after getting into the room and unpacking was hit the beach for some swimming. Upon getting back to the room, we were pretty beat from the trip, the food, and then the swimming, so we ended up taking a nap till it got dark out. Initially, we thought with dinner that all we had to do was show up during the desinated dinner hours and we would be served. It turns out with dinner at Abaka Bay, they wait for all the guests to show up and be seated before serving the main course in buffet-style. As we were walking from our room to the resturant area, I noticed one of the hotel workers coming in our direction, probably on his way to knock on our door and tell us everyone is waiting to eat. When we got there we were either the last or second to last group to show up, so once we seated the main course came out immediately. The dinner the first night was very bland, but it was included in the hotel price, so we ate it up. There was a large television set near the bar area of the resturant that I inspected and was happily able to find out it had satillite Direct TV, so I would be able to watch some Sunday football the following day. After dinner, some people were at the beach lighting off fireworks. We just turned ourselves in and called it a day. The plan was for us to stay there for two nights, spend another night at someone's house, and then leave the fourth day.

             In terms of all the birthday presents I ever received, this one ranks high up there, competing close with the Sega Genesis system I got back in 1992...

The Truth About Roosters

            The image I had of roosters was from cartoons and movies; The rooster on the farm gets up around 5am, makes it morning call to wake everyone up, and then that's it for the day. After spending a couple of weeks in Haiti I've learned that's the farthest thing from the truth. It turns out roosters are ready to make a ton of noise at anytime, be it 3am, 7am, 1pm, 7pm, or even 10:45pm.

           The first noise is the flapping of its wings, no later than two seconds after that the rooster will go into it's cadence. Once that happens, another rooster several yards or several blocks away will pick up on that and do it's own cadence in response. Eventually a domino-effect occurs and roosters are crowing back and forth all over the place. The whole episode lasts for about five minutes, but it feels more like an eternity when its 2am and you're trying to sleep.

           At least I know I'll never want to be a farmer...


          

The View from The Gym

            While I'm in Haiti for most of December, I joined a local gym for the month to have something to do for the day and not feel like I hit a wall on the first day back to my gym in the US. The fee was $40 US for the month, which was fine with me. While signing up, they had me fill out an application, took my weight, and even took my blood pressure. For a second I wasn't sure if I was at a gym or at a doctor's office. The gym itself has three floors with the office on the bottom, the main gym with all the machines/equipment on the second floor, and lastly an aerobics room and the third floor. It's on that third floor where an extra staircase and ledge is built to house the exercise bikes.

            These exercise bikes are litterally bikes with the back tires propped up by some gysmo to keep from the bike itself from moving. I'm guessing due to the frequent blackouts and power shortages in Haiti, it doesn't make sense to have electrical treadmills. These older fashioned exercise bikes are dependable whether there's electricity or not. I don't particularily like exercise bikes, as I prefer real bikes in motion and would rather run on a treadmill, but what I enjoy about these bikes is that they're next to a window which provides a great view of a nearby mountain. There's probably about a couple of hundred little huts and houses sprinkled all over the mountain. At the very top is a large estate guarded by a large wall that wraps around the whole property. For some reason when I'm on the bike I keep looking at that mountain.

           Maybe I'm wondering if anyone goes to the top to ask to borrow a cup of sugar...

Spaghetti to Satisfy Meat and Veggie Lovers

            This afternoon I was conflicted on what to do for lunch, either go out and get something or stay in and cook something. I was close to choosing going, but then the last second a box of spaghetti caught my eye and got the wheels in my head turning. I knew I had some groundmeat in the freezer, but I also had an assortment of vegetables such as peppers, onions, and mushrooms. Not sure how to go about it, I decided to try throwing them all together and see what happens.

            The groundmeat was frozen solid, so the first step was placing it in a short pot with a little water and covering it up. While the meat de-frosted and cooked in the pot, I chopped up a green pepper, a few mushrooms, a small onion, and a little piece of garlic. I opened the pot again and noticed the meat was cooking quite well, so I took a folk to break it up until it was small pieces of chopped meat. I added flavor to the meat by adding some black pepper, salt, oregano, and finally some chicken bouillon, then let it cook more. The next step was getting the spaghetti cooked, so I filled a taller pot with water, sprinkled in some salt, and let the water boil for about ten minutes before adding the pasta. The meat was done and ready before the spaghetti was, so I just let the meat sit in the short pot. When the spaghetti was ready, I strained out the water and dumped it into the short pot. I also placed the chopped vegetables in the short pot and poured some tomato sauce on top, now everything was together in the one pot. I took the folk and mixed everything up a little before placing the cover back on the pot and letting it all cook for another ten minutes. When it was done, I had a balanced mix of spaghetti with meat and vegetables.

             Where would have I found this if I had decided to go out instead...

That Fire Smells Real Close

            For various numbers of reasons, people in Haiti like to set fires and burn stuff. One of the reasons is that there isn't many options for disposing trash in public places, or sometimes dumpsters get too full and there's nowhere else to put new garbage. If that's the case, a pile of garbage will be up in flames in no time. In other cases, craftsmen and curbside vendors need to keep small fires next to them for their businesses and the things they're building or cooking. The moral of the story is there's almost always the smell of smoke and fire in the air.

           The other day I was cooking lunch, and as usual was using a hand towel to help pick up hot items from the stove. Specifically, I had to dump some extra water out of a pot and place it back on the stove. No more than two seconds later I smelt something burning. Again, it's a common smell for Haiti, so I didn't think much of it as first. Then the smell got really strong like perhaps the neighbor's house next door was on fire. Then of all sudden my fingers felt really hot and I looked down and saw that half of the hand towel I was holding in my hand was up in flames. I reacted immediately by throwing the towel to the floor and stomping out the flame. For added measure, I even soaked the towel in the sink to make sure the fire was completely diminished. When I was picking up the pot from the stove with the towel, a piece hanging down must have caught the flame.

          So I guess I can add my cooking to reasons why Haiti smells like smoke...

Starving for Affection

            If we leave the door open long enough, sooner or later we get a visitor in the form of a cat. It's actually the landlord's cat that seems to make the rounds to all the apartments to see what tenants are up to. It even crashed the party we had last week and treated itself to everyone's attention. There's an initial meow noise when it enters, then after if you dare pet it, you'll have to keep petting it for another twenty minutes, at least. In fact, its quite possible it would never go away unless you physical make it leave the apartment. I can't recall seeing a cat craving affection so much.

           I would hate to be around it on Valentine's Day...

           

Smoothie Done My Way

             I'm a big fan of making smoothies, and not having my usual blender or being in another country wouldn't stop me from being able to still make them. Since I didn't have a prototypical blender at my disposal, but instead more of a "salad chopper", I sliced up two bananas up until they both looked like two long rolls of coins. After adding a few ice cubes and a two spoonfuls of yogurt, I dumped in the bananas pieces and sprinkled some brown sugar across the top to add sweetness.

            I plugged the chopper into an electrical outlet and pressed down on the button to make it work, but nothing happened. I plugged the chopper into other outlets, and still was getting no success. It turns out the cover needs to be in some perfect position in order for the gadget it work, so about fifteen minutes later I made the grand discovery and got the motor running.

            That was the only smoothie that ever forced me to think...