Valentine's Day in Haiti

The day started with breakfast on the hotel’s outdoor terrace.  The food is a blend of Cuban and New Orleans Cajun – pretty yummy if you don’t think about cholera and everything else floating around.  I’ve already eaten all of the things that are on my ‘don’t eat’ list, because that’s all that there is to eat.  So far no indigestion…but certainly keeping my fingers crossed.  Just as a precaution, I skipped lunch altogether. 

After breakfast we went to the work program’s headquarters, and spent a few hours preparing before going to the factory.  The drive to the factory made yesterday’s ride from the airport seem like a leisurely stroll.  The thing that most struck me was the total lack of infrastructure in some areas of town.  Street lights are extremely rare, and it took us over an hour to go about 5 miles.  The streets are packed with vendors and people, and nothing seems to be sold inside an actual store.  I even saw a walking pharmacist (not sure he was licensed) selling drugs by the pill.  Pretty much anything you want you can find on the street.  I have yet to see any actual store where you can buy something indoors, and there’s no tourist area where you can buy souvenirs.  The potholes still left over from the earthquake would swallow entire cars, and there are many broken down vehicles left all along the roadside.  I saw a lot of animals picking thru the trash on the side of the road – dogs, pigs, goats, chickens, but strangely no cats.  If I come again I will definitely be packing dog treats.

We had dinner in our usual place on the hotel patio.  Besides a Domino’s Pizza, I have not seen any other restaurant in all my travels thru town.  Food is cooked and sold on the street by vendors, and I would never leave the hotel after dark anyway, even with an escort.  In the middle of my somewhat unconventional Valentine’s Day dinner outdoors with the skyline of Haiti in the background, it started pouring down rain.  It was reminiscent of a FL summer-time downpour, except that it lasted longer and I was in the process of eating dinner.  We ran for cover to the one non-open areas of the restaurant until the rain ended, because the walk back to the room was all open air.  I packed all kinds of supplies for the trip – medicine, food, water, flashlight - pretty much everything that you could ever need, EXCEPT for an umbrella…go figure.  Although the rain was annoying, I had a true appreciation for the fact that I wasn’t down the hill in a tent, which is what 99% of Haitians seem to be still living in over a year after the earthquake.