A Trip With Friends

Last week finished up with our vision trip visitors (Earl and Ron) heading back home after spending a week seeing the work we are doing here in Haiti.  Wednesday we took them to visit Barb's school in Saint-marc and see her ministry there.  On Thursday they went to the Artibonite valley to do filter deliveries and installations with our workers.  Friday, we stayed at Clean Water for Haiti and did work around the base before we headed out to Club Indigo for their farewell dinner.  They seemed to really enjoy their time here and were very inquisitive and engaged with the things going on.  When I wasn't working with them, I was trying to finish up the skid plate for the new van.  After drilling some new holes, welding a front plat on, and rust proofing the sheet, Chris and I finally got it installed on Friday afternoon.  This was good timing because Saturday was going to be the first road trip for the van.

On Saturday morning, we all got in the van at 6:00 am to get our visitors to the airport.  On the way we picked up Bobi and Elsie from Canaan.  After dropping off Ron and Earl at the airport, we continued to Jacmel.  Jacmel is on the southern peninsula of Haiti, about two hours Southwest of Port-au-Prince.

We had been planning to take this little vacation for a couple weeks and it was a great time to get away with some friends and relax from our typical work environment.  After getting to Jacmel and seeing our two lodging options, we headed to the beach before checking in anywhere.  It was a public beach and was pretty busy compared to what we've become accustomed to.

Some kids on the beach playing soccer....they were good.

Jacmel may be one of the few places in Haiti that still has a little tourism going on...I don't think people come from outside Haiti to visit, but it seems like people that are already in the country come to relax there.  While we were swimming, we had random people ask if they could take pictures with us.  One UN soldier from Nepal asked me if I would be in a picture with him.  I'm not sure why he wanted a picture with a complete stranger, but I agreed and became a little uncomfortable when he wrapped his arm around my waist and started smiling.  I went along with it, but I wasn't about to let the situation escalate any further.

My new friend...notice the hand behind my right arm?

One of the coolest things we did on the weekend was an excursion to Bassin-Bleu.  Leslie, Elsie, Bobi, and I rented motorcycles (they came with drivers) and headed up into the mountains.  On our journey we had to cross a river that in parts completely submerged the engine on the motorcycle we were riding.  We also had multiple spots where the train was too steep, muddy, or unstable that we had to walk up and let our drivers try to navigate the path on their own.  After we took the bikes as far as we could, we hopped off and walked the rest of the way with a guide.  There are three different basins that make up Bassin-Blue and in order to get to the highest one with the waterfall, we had to tie off a rope, use it to navigate past some rocks, and then swim into a cove.  The water in the top basin was over 70 feet deep and was perfect rock jumping.

We jumped in here and swam to the left to get to the waterfall and rock jumping spots.

Leslie, Me, Bobi, and Elsie at the mouth of the first basin.

The rest of the weekend we walked around the town, did some body surfing in some pretty big waves, and ate at local restaurants in the area.  We got back on Monday afternoon after running some errands in Port during the morning.  On Monday night, Bobi, Elsie, and Mark stopped by to surprise me with a little birthday celebration.  We had cake and I even got some gifts....it was fun to hang out and completely unexpected.  That night we also found out that Tuesday was a Haitian holiday, which meant that our workers wouldn't be coming in the next day.  I haven't found a calendar here that has all the holidays on it yet....everyone seems to just know when they are, and we usually don't hear about them until a few days before one is coming up.

Yesterday, I spent a good deal of the morning trying to get caught up on emails and other things on the computer.  After that I worked on a project I had been planning since coming to Haiti.  I put new hand grips on Chris' dirt bike and then spent a few hours getting brake fluid and fixing the brakes.  I finally took the bike out for a ride and I must say it was liberating.  The thing is a beast and with the throttle being a little sticky, it can be a tricky bike to get used to.  I posted a picture of the bike a long time ago, but to recap, the bike is a 600cc dirt bike that swallows the potholes of Haitian roads like they don't even exist.  In the couple weeks I have left here, I hope to use this to run errands whenever possible.