A day in the Life . . . Day 1
Probably the most common question that Esther and I get, especially when we
are back in Canada is : ³So, what it is that you do anyway.²
Well, we thought we¹d blog a few of our days in the next little while.
I¹ll start.
Tuesday, August 23
Today was a fairly relaxed day, at least to get started. The plan was to
meet with 3 of my colleagues. We were preparing to head off to the northern
part of the country to lead a workshop on how to run a tree nursery. That¹s
a big part of work here helping communities produce trees through
community based tree nurseries. We would like to expand this work, and one
of the ways we hope to do that is by training other local organizations to
help them get started on the same path.
Our meeting was set for 9, so I headed down to the MCC office here in Dezam
at around 7:30. It¹s about a 15 minute walk from our house to the office,
through the local market which was just getting going for the day. Before
the meeting got started I prepared a few last minute documents that we were
going to use for the training. I also started to gather some of the
materials we would need to help us in the workshop. Our meeting started at
about 9:20. We went through some last minute things and we¹re set to go. I
placed a call to the people from another organization who were to meet us
enroute. They were leaving from Port-au-Prince, to meet us in Pont Sonde,
approximately a 2-3 hour drive. We are only about 30 minutes away, so I
wanted to make sure they were on the way before we left. Well, apparently
they were having problems with a tire and hadn¹t even left yet. So we had
to sit tight for a while. Another call about 45 minutes later, and they
still hadn¹t left. We started to get a bit worried about the time, because
with the rain at this time of year, the roads can be pretty bad. We had a
7-8 hour drive ahead of us, so we didn¹t want to leave late, hit rain and
arrive in the dark. We decided to go ahead without the second vehicle from
Port, even though it would have been preferable to drive together.
The roads were rough, very rough, but thankfully we didn¹t encounter any
major problems. We arrived in Bassin-Bleu, where we were supposed to find a
small hotel to stay the night. The person from the other organization the
one in the vehicle a few hours behind us - said we could get a room there.
Alas, no rooms available. We walked down to the local CARE office because
someone had mentioned that they had a guesthouse. Indeed they did, but they
needed prior authorization from their head office in Port, and besides, they
didn¹t have enough room for all of us. So, we made a quick decision to
keep driving to Port de Paix. (For those of you who have Haiti maps close
by, Port de Paix is on the north coast, more on the western side). That was
another 2 hours from where we were, so we had to get moving to arrive before
dark.
We arrived in Port de Paix. I was the only one in the group who had been
there before, but the last time we had a local person arranging everything
for us, and we stayed in a pretty nice hotel on the outskirts of town. We
didn¹t have the budget to pay $60 US a night, so we had to drive around and
find a place in town. We did manage to find something after a while, but it
wasn¹t exactly the nicest place. I had single room and had to use the
public bathroom in the hall. The bathroom was a bit gross, with only half a
seat on the toilet! It was pretty hot too, but the fan did take the bit off
that. Had a pretty crappy dinner of chicken and banan peze.
So, that was the day. A little office work and short meeting in the morning.
And then 8 hours of driving and having to wing it to find a hotel in Port de
Paix. By the way, Dezam to Port de Paix was exactly 160 km. 8 hours to
drive 160 km. Welcome to Haiti, and a day in the life . . . of Matt.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
A Day in the Life . . . 1
Saturday, August 20, 2005
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