Haiti - Week 3 Getting tired of rice, don’t know if I’ll ever eat it again in the states. Rice every meal, the only difference is what you pour over it. I do miss milk, can’t find it and probably couldn’t drink it if I did. I have a couple of pics this time. The first one is a tap-tap. This is the local mode of transportation. You need to go somewhere, you hop in the back or on top of a tap-tap with 20 or 30 other people and get off when it drives near where you’re going. How do you think it smells up in there? This one is lightly loaded. I have seen one with the back full and 8 people on top. It’s a tiny pick-up with a camper shell with as much and as many as you can pack in. I saw one go over a speed bump this week and some had to get out of the back so the front wheels would go back down to the ground. The second pic is another common mode of transportation, a Honda 125. They’re not any bigger here, just the small models, but they’ll tote 5 or 6 and get your items to market. I’ve seen everything on the back of a motorcycle including 20 gal fuel tanks (transporting fuel for a generator) to propane cylinders to huge bags of rice. Git-r-done. Americans may use their horns in traffic twice a year. Here, you’ll use it twice in 10 seconds. People are not bashful using them and some with good reason. It’s very common to stop in the middle of the road to let someone in or out, doesn’t matter if it’s a city street or a highway. And if your truck breaks down, don’t bother pulling over, put it on blocks right there in the middle of the street and crawl up under it to figure out how much money you have to save to get it fixed. You may have to leave your truck in the middle of the road for a couple of weeks before you can get it fixed. There is one truck on the way to work (it’s actually on the side of the road) but it’s been sitting there (these guys say) for 5 months with the transmission sitting on the ground under it. Fortunately our project is right off of the national highway. This is the only paved road that runs east/west the length of the country. It is equivalent to one of our 2-lane rural roads, we would not call it a highway. All of the roads off of this one are dirt. In the towns, none of the roads are paved. In the cities, about half of them are paved. In the closest biggest town called Cap-Haitien, there are three traffic signals. Of course, they only work the 3 hours per day that power is turned on so no one pays them any attention when they are on. Besides, when they’re on, you can’t tell what you’re supposed to do because most of the lamps are burned out. There are a lot of carts, burros pulling carts, people pulling carts, even saw a guy pulling a cart with a dead burro in it that he had skinned and was selling the meat (good heavens the flies). There are many things that are optional here. When I say optional, I mean nobody does them. Stop signs are only a suggestion, most cars don’t have taillights at night, virtually no one has brake lights, probably 1% wear motorcycle helmets, cattle and goats are all over the roadways – you have to look out for them. Oh, and it doesn’t matter if a two-lane road is painted for two lanes. If three cars will fit, then it’s a three-lane road, if four cars can fit, then it’s a four-lane road. And you may use the sidewalk if you need it. Trucks have the right-of-way, then cars, then motorcycles, then bicycles, and finally the poor pedestrians. There is no such thing as a crosswalk. If you want to pass somebody, it’s ok if a motorcycle is heading toward you, he will get out of the way. If you need to, get up on the sidewalk and push people out of the way with your vehicle. Women do carry huge baskets on their heads (no hands) just like you see in National Geographic. We have to tell the volunteer linemen that come down to train not to give out stuff until the last day they’re here. One of them gave out chocolate bars the other day and the next day every man, woman, and child in the town was swarmed around them wanting something. It’s a different world. Well, enough for this edition. Next week I’ll give you an update on our project.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 00:04:07 +0000
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