What a Day!

          Today I lost my battle with patience.  Gertrude is out of town for a few days, and apparently the workers take that to mean that they don't have to come to work if they don't want to.  That really threw a monkey wrench into the plans for the day.  Benoit, the driver, didn't come to work today, which meant that we had no one to drive us to TeacHaiti School of Hope.  Bless Rosie's heart, she worked hard with her her aunt Suse to get a hold of Jude or Alexi to drive us.  I had hoped to leave at 8:30, but we didn't take off until 9:30.  We stopped at Quisqueya for the worker there who was supposed to lead us to TeacHaiti, but Miquette was out of town and no worker was available.  The gate guard cornered two kids to ride with us to show Alexi how to get there.  That ride took another 30 minutes.  All in all, we didn't get to TeacHaiti until just after 11:30.  Just in time for the kids to be packing up for the day.  Just like my timing last week!  Very frustrating!

Jewelry Beads

          We told the workers at TeacHaiti that we would walk back to the market and then grab motorcycles back to Delmas 75.  They thought we were crazy!  The secretary, Chantal, had called Miquette to let her know that we had arrived with supplies, and even Miquette thought we were a bit nuts.  She offered to call her cousin with a tap tap to drive us, but I said we would be fine.  Even with all our protestations that we would be fine, we didn't mind walking, in fact, we wanted to walk, one of the workers walked with us.  His name is Stefan, and he's 21 years old. He lives in Petionville with a brother.  He has 11 siblings total, but three of his brothers live in the States.  They were given up for adoption because his parents couldn't afford to keep them.  In fact, they are looking for an adoptive family for the youngest, who is two years old.  They don't get to stay in touch much with the siblings in the U.S., so we promised to try to contact one of them via Facebook.

Lunch at Kokoye

        Next comes a big shout out to Laura Abraham!  She sent money so that Rhonda, Susan, and I could have a nice lunch at Kokoye.  This time I tried a Haitian dish--poulet djonjon (chicken something).  I don't know what "djonjon" is, but it was delicious.  We also had Kibby Frit (Fried Kibby) as an appetizer.  Don't know what that was either, but it was way good.  We sat outside in the courtyard and relaxed.  I had another real Diet Coke.

Poule djonjon

          Okay.  This is where I once again lost my battle with patience.  Gertrude had said that she would find us a car and driver to take us to Jacmel tomorrow.  The first one fell through.  Then she had Patrick find us a car and driver.  Patrick offered to rent us a car and find a driver, but the car would cost $270 for a three-day minimum.  He also suggested that Oriol could drive us in his tap tap.  I said that I would contact Oriol.  So today I was texting  Oriol to see whether he could do it; he said yes and then asked whether I had already found a car.  I explained that Patrick suggested the tap tap.  Oriol said that his tap tap couldn't make the trip.  At that point I called Gertrude (and I not-so-nicely let it slip that Benoit didn't show up to drive us this morning--I was being snotty, I know) to see what she could do.  Numerous phone calls later, we had gone through Alexi her brother driving us, Inspector Alex driving, or some other friend of Patrick's.  At this point I was fed up.  I just wanted something to go right.  I was tired of playing phone tag trying to find a ride that everyone had known that I needed for over a month.  I realized that I should have just had Patrick reserve the car last night; however, I didn't.  I decided that I wasn't going to wait around anymore, so we took a tap tap to the Hertz car rental place.  As we were getting off, Patrick called again telling me that he could get me a better deal, the car would be delivered later tonight (I would have to drive someone home to Tabarre and then come back, or I could go to the place in PAP and pick up the car myself).  I thanked him profusely, but I just wanted a car NOW.  I didn't want to get off to a late start tomorrow as we did today.  My voice was becoming snippy, and I didn't like the way I sounded, but I just wanted to have some control over what was going on.  Long and short--I rented a car for the trip to Jacmel, and I DROVE IT BACK TO GERTRUDE'S!.
          Yes.  I drove in PAP for the first time.  It wasn't too bad, but I still don't want to drive too much in the city.  However, if Oriol doesn't show up on time tomorrow, I may just head out to Jacmel on my own (with Susan and Rhonda, of course).

Guess only one foot gets a shoe!

         Susan took this video from the tap tap we rode in today.

If any of you want to read a slightly funnier, more adult take on the days with Rhonda and Susan, check out Rhonda's blog at www.yodawashere.blogspot.com.  I think you just might laugh out loud!