This Past Weekend:

More gorgeous mornings walking to work. And Karlen's little body about to slide off his chair during nap; which he actually did and it barely woke him up. Most of the time, if they fall off their chairs, they just sleep in the floor. Waking them up is a riot because they've only slept for about 45 minutes (which I think is preposterous) and you pick them up from their chairs and have to hold them up for a few seconds until you think they have regained muscle control only to watch them stumble towards the door and collapse into something and slump into the floor, immediately back to sleep.
Another crazy Saturday at the market. Although this time was much better; we got in and got out. And according to Genevieve, didn't get ripped off. I attempted to do the math this time and bargain but occasionally just gave up and threw some bill their way. You want to overcharge me and make me pay about .15 cents instead of .05 for these amazing avocados? Not going to be my biggest battle in Haiti. I bought tons of passion fruit to make fruit roll-ups/leather and it kind of worked out. All I had to do was gut a sac of passion fruit, blend it (seeds and all), sift out the seeds, boil it with sugar and bake on low temperature for about 10 hours (maybe more since our electric current likes to come and go). Papaya is my next trial.
Afterwards Jean Claude, one of the gardeners here who lives in Pont Leocan (the surrounding village) took us on a hike before dinner to the river "nearby" (at times I thought we were walking to Spain) and the rice paddies, coconut grove and mango trees; so....worth it in the end.
Of course we had fresh coconuts and were carried over the rice paddies. We decided we would sell it as a spa destination to make money for the town since the mud is an exfoliant and apparently what anyone in the States would pay bank for if they went to the spa; we just walked through it. And how much is coconut water in the US these days? Right. We figured $500 for the spa day, including being carried across the rice paddies. And $1,000 to come back to our air conditioned rooms at the school with 'local cuisine'. Pas mal. However, the clincher was when our tour guide (Jean Claude's uncle and machete-extraordinaire) took a bucket of water and washed Genevieve's feet from any access mud accumulated during her 'exfoliation', to which Genevieve described as, "I feel like Jesus!" Which, we determined would be the company slogan.
We walked back to school for dinner and from the photo it does look like what the Gates of Heaven could be like. Maybe Genevieve was onto something. Again, another incredible sky and day.
(Greeted by rain on Sunday and a cloudy, overcast, Nags Head-like day today. YES! As I've taught my class to say; with fist pump, of course).