I started the project with the kids this week. There is/was a huge pile of mulch which, as I was told, had been there since January. It butted up against the fence that enclosed the playground so as children would climb onto the pile they could easily lean over and topple over the fence to the road. My days at the ISC have established a keen playground paranoia. So, to avoid the days, weeks, months it would take to go through the levels of who decides and who actually executes, I started ripping bags of mulch open during recess. The kids, who have absolutely nothing to play with on the playground (except for one area of playground equiptment for 150 children at once), were all for it and soon we had the immediate area surrounding the pile appropriately covered in mulch (4", right Susan!). I noticed thereafter, that the mulch was in fact for underneath of the playground equiptment and slides to pad falling children. So, I started dragging bags over and the kids were quick to run alongside me and help me pick the bag up and take it to the slides. Where they began to stab the plastic with splintered pieces of mulch (whatever, their own ingenuity at work) to open the bags, spread them, throw the empty bags in the trash, and run to get another one. It was great! Free labor right here at Lycee Jean Baptiste!
So, I decided to finish the task this morning. I asked the gardeners to borrow a wheelbarrow and shovel and went to work after breakfast. At 9 am the sun was already baking and sweat began to run down my back just pushing the wheelbarrow to the playground; this would be interesting. I started to shovel and move the mulch and then the head chef, Marc Antony (indeed), appeared from nowhere, took the full and heavy wheelbarrow and started unloading it and then filling it with mulch again! Then came Patrice and then came Karin. Finally a gardener, Jean-Claude came and we were five. What I thought I would be coming back tomorrow morning to finish, was completed in 2 hours. And, I have to say, looks amazing. Then we got our fresh eggs from the gardeners from our local chickens.
We treated everyone to a cold beer at 11 am and of course a heavy round of dominoes ensued (the losers had to hold branches in their mouths while playing). We peeled Patrice and the vainquer Karin away to head to the largest outdoor market in north Haiti. Genevieve knew the routine but I was completely unprepared for the mental sharpness of the vendors as I tried to bargain and convert in my head three times as well as the throng of people, being pushed and pulled in every direction and trying to find space to move into as wheelbarrows barreled past and mobile vendors hawked oranges and piment in the walkways. Blanc, blanc, blanc was all I heard. I was the only white person there, in the midst of thousands and thousands of people. There was nothing to do for the sweat, it was running down all of our faces. The 'outdoor market' is literally just tarps thrown up on posts, most of which you have to lift up as you stoop under to walk through the stalls. The produce repeats: tomatoes, thyme, piment, papaya, passion fruit, oranges, garlic, onions, shallots, parsley, okra (I wish I knew how to fry), star anise, cloves, salt, bags of rice and dried beans, odorous dried fish. Then, live chickens squawking in the heat on their bellies with their legs tied, completely docile. Passing men carrying slayed chickens by their feet, raw meat, raw chicken feet, crabs with their claws tied shut by long strands of grass, an open-air mill. It was like being on a race track and trying to make sense of the sidelines as you race by at 200 miles per hour. Pictures don't do it justice but I've posted a few just to show something. We didn't even visit the entire market. A whole other side has fruit and then other sides have other things. Once you go in, you don't know where you are, where you came from, or how to get out. It's amazing.
Needless to say, as we hopped on a tap tap (a small pick-up with metal racks on the sides to hold everyone in as they sit/stand wherever there is room) for the ride back to the school our top priority was an ice cold Coke. We stopped at Gregory's (who is our handy man at the school) store at the entrance of our school and got some tall, glass bottles of Coke to go. I stuffed the bananas and bread we bought into my face and urgently made it into the shower and a/c and to stillness. The Coke was amazing and I can't wait to cook my findings: beets, thyme, garlic and shallots. All for way under $5. Oh, also found a hand-made wooden mortar and pestle that Karin helped me bargain down from 20HT to 15HT which is about $1.87 (divide by 8 for USD) (multiply by 5 for Gourdes, so 75 Gourdes). Pas mal.
Well done Em! The playground looks much more inviting with a soft layer of mulch. And beers around at the end. The children must have been very docile:) The market place looks almost Biblical with the fish and fruit and the poverty. You must be learning soooo much about living life without the trappings.
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