Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Day Off


Good evening.  Today was incredibly relaxing because it was my day off.  My friend Oriol came to work with me for two hours on my Creole.  Not only was it good to see an old friend, my Creole is improving.  We will work together once a week, and after we are done with my Creole lessons, we will work on his English so that he will do better on his next TOEFL test.  He wants to study music in the States, and in order to do that, he needs to score much better on his next test.
            I took on the local market by myself today.  I successfully purchased bread and cheese for lunch.  However, I paid about 600% more for the bread than I needed to!  I think the lady made more off me than she usually does in a week.

            Me:  “Do you have bread?”—this was for two loaves a bit bigger than a foot-long sub.
            Her: “Yes.”
            Me:  “How much?”
            Her: “Six dollars.”

            I thought was a bit steep for some bread, but I paid it.  What do I know??  I also thought she was trying to scam the “Blanc” standing in front of her.  As I walked away, I heard her laughing with her friends.  I knew I had goofed in some way.  I continued on my way looking for cheese. Here’s the conversation at the next place:

            Me:  “Do you have cheese?”
            Nice Lady: “Yes.”
            Me:  “How many goudes?”
            Nice Lady: “Seven dollars.”

This was turning into an expensive lunch of bread and cheese!

            I counted out seven $1 bills and handed them to her.  She looked at me as if I were crazy and handed six of the bills back.  Aha!

Note to self:  Always ask for the cost in goudes! 

            When I got back to the orphanage, I checked the exchange rate for goudes, Haitian dollars, and U.S. dollars.  There are 40 goudes to an American dollar, and 5 goudes to a Haitian dollar.  No wonder the Bread Lady was laughing at me!

            My afternoon was very uneventful.  I ate lunch and then spent most of the afternoon napping in my room.  It was a cool day with a beautiful breeze, so I was able to sleep comfortably.  I got up just in time for dinner.  I didn’t feel that tired until I lay down, but as soon as I lay down, I knew I was in for a long nap.  And it felt so good. 

2 comments:

  1. Jamie, we all need a day off at least once a week. The nap sounds lovely. We had a lot of snow today. Do you miss it? The cool breeze sounds heavenly. Mom

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  2. Reminds us of the Mexican mercados..but they would tell us that 'always the others are higher than me!' But still we never felt rooked!

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