Day 3
Thursday 19th
Our day started with Bryan, Seb and I hopping on the bike (I know 3 up...scandalous!) and motoring up to the hospital to shower and use a proper loo!
Still no running water and we didn't have enough buckets of the neighbours borehole water (which the housekeeper collects from an outdoor borehole ..pumped by hand, every day) to wash.
We then bike over to the collective house (called Construction House as this is where the construction team lived when they were building the hospital) for breakfast with the rest of the ex pat hospital staff. Pancakes (way too sweet -people here apparently add loads of sugar to everything, hence Diabetes being a common disease I believe) and fresh pineapple & homemade baps/rolls.
Then Seb and I had another go at visiting the 'super market' with the housekeeper Nadege. This time Bryan took us all into town on the motorbike on his way to work, 4 up! I know, horror of horrors and not something I would ever have imagined doing! However, it is sometimes the only mode of transport (the hospital shared cars are all busy at the moment) and the locals all get around like this and its amazing how quickly you adapt to local behaviour, or you'd sit at home!
'Moto taxis' is the commonest form of transport here but not with the expats. I realised how un-PC it was for a 'blance' (as the Haitians casually call us westerners) to do this when we went to lunch at the shared house after our town visit and I gaily announced that we'd caught a 'moto taxi' home. There was a collective gasp and dropping of jaws and cutlery! Not that the doctors and nurses are whimps, they are just told categorically not to catch the moto taxis as they are defying death if they survive the ordeal. Probably extremely sensible & I shouldn't be admitting to our irresponsible behaviour but it was fine, Bryan is an experienced bike rider, traffic and road rules pretty hairy but we got home in one piece.
The 'super market' was something else. Like being in the poorest part of Soweto, in SA. Started at the massively busy high street with stacks of small shops and shacks, all selling loads of cheap Chinese products: cosmetics, hair products, wigs, hair extensions, foreign brands of soaps and creams and loads of pills and medicines...unpackaged and with no labels or instructions that I could see. Plastic house ware, cheapy toys, buckets, piles of clothes and shoes, plenty of quite pretty bras and pants, tin buckets, more plastic stuff and still more cheap plastic stuff! The food...meal, maize seeds (popcorn), sugar, flower, dried beans etc are all sold by weight out of big sacks.
Then into the food market which is on bare earth and vendors crouching under low canopies (cheap plastic and cotton sheets held up by wooden stakes.) Flies everywhere, sad dogs wandering around, dirty buckets containing food and just generally terribly unhygienic. Rather pathetic fresh produce, rotting lettuce, Tomatoes...not too bad, dirty cabbages and twisted and sometimes shrivelled carrots. Then healthier looking sweet potatoes , bananas and limes. Some garlic and whilted Spring onions and coriander.
We ended up buying all sorts of stuff... some I didn't even want, like the 6 limes I ended up with, but I felt sorry for the lady selling them. And some stuff Nadej bought without me knowing, as our french/english leads to confusion! Nadej did the bartering and paid with my money (just handed her a bundle of notes in the end!) ...she had a blast!
Then we started trudging home with our wares in the hot sun. Half way back I gave in and told Nadej she could flag down the 'moto scooter' that she had mentioned about 6 times on the walk home! So there we were again, Seb and I, two of the four riders, on a moto scooter....we were certainly noticed by the locals as they're used to riding this way but not used to seeing 'blancs', especially a woman and child, travelling 'local' fashion. (Or should that be 'loco' fashion?)
The afternoon was the opposite in terms of civilisation and activity. Bryan motorbiked & dropped Seb and I off at a smart cuban styled hotel on the other side of town where we swam and then were joined by Lisa, Luther, & family & Luther's amazingly interesting mum visiting from the US. As well as another v friendly ex pat American doctor who had family staying at the hotel. We had a fun afternoon & evening, swimming and chatting and stayed on for chicken and chips.
That felt like a world away from the Mireblais market.
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