Culture and Language Training!

On September 6th we left our house early in the morning and travelled three and half hours northwest of Port-au-Prince to a town called Belladere.  The last hour of the trip consisted of travelling on rough, bumpy, gravel roads instead of the first two and half hours that we travelled on paved roads.  We are thankful that things have improved a lot since the last time Randy and Karen made the trip.  The last time that they went most of the route was bumpy and rough and that included going through the mountains.  We are thankful for the progress that has been made on that road. 

Belladere is situated in a valley of mountains.  No matter which way you looked you could see mountain peeks all around you.  The valley was filled with lush vegetation, banana trees, corn,sugar cane and many other types of trees and bushes.  Over the course of the three weeks we went on many walks through the many different pathways and even to the top of one of the mountains.  One of the things that really intrigued Chloe were the amount of animals that were there.  There were dogs and cats, horses and donkeys, cows and mules, pigs and chickens.  She loved going on the walks and pointing out the animals, "Hey mom, look there is a ti cabrit!" (goat) or "Hey dad, look at the bull and all the cows walking past our house!"  One day a lady with her donkey stopped by the house to sell us some charcoal in order to cook our food.  Chloe loved the donkey and wanted a ride so Mindy asked Guilen, (the lady who owned the house we were staying in), if it was ok.  Chloe ended up going on a ride up and down the street.  We also went to see a beautiful waterfall.  This was where our electricty was suppose to be made.  When we got there the generator was broken, hence the reason we did not have hydro for the first nine days.

Market days in Belladere were Wednesdays and Saturdays.  The 'downtown' of Belladere turns into almost like a huge beehive.  Everybody knows where everything is, people know other people and where to get the best prices on everything.  It was nice to sit on a chair and watch people, listen to the sounds and smell the smells.  It is a was amazing to watch and listen to people barter on prices for fruit, which motorcycle taxi to get on to, and just greet each other as if they had not seen each other for months.  One day Guilen even took us to the Dominican Republic where she goes every Monday and Friday.  The market there was even bigger than the one in Belladere.  Crossing the border into the Dominician by foot was quite the experience.  Coming back into Haiti we just walked over the border, nobody checked our passports!  As far as we know, the Dominician Republic still thinks we are in their country.

For the three weeks that we lived in Belladere we lived in a quaint house right beside the main busy road.  The house consisted a living room, a dining room, two bedrooms, and a bath room.  There was a front porch we we could sit on and play a lot of casino (the one card game that all the Haitians play.)  In front of the house there was a 'general store.'  Guilen sold a lot of different things out of her store.  It was great because Cornelius was still able get his daily intake of coke.  In front of the store was the kitchen where our spaggetti breakfasts were made and our daily lunch of rice was prepared.  Throughout the week we spent a lot of time playing casino, playing in the sab, (which is sand), doing Chloe's homework, and reading some books.

Throughout the three weeks we were there we also had Creole lessons three times a week.  A local pastor came in and taught us words and sentence structure.  Mindy picked up a lot more Creole than I did and on the whole it was good to watch how Haitian teachers teach. 



Chloe and Mindy doing our laundry by hand!



Our laundry drying on the roof top.



The view from the top of our roof.

Mindy on a motorcycle!



At least our driver had a helmet.



The water used to generate hydro for three nearby towns.



A house on the side of the mountain, close behind the house where we stayed.



The view looking from hill behind our house.



Chloe loved this chicken, she named him Supper because we were going
to eat him for supper.  She spent a lot of time playing with him before we
ate him.



Chloe having a good laugh while playing
with the other girls.



Our family picture.

Chloe loved playing in the sand on the one of our
neighbour's roof tops.

Chloe with her new friends in the sand.

A storm rolling in, the lightening was beautiful.

Chloe loved her ride on the donkey.

Our bedroom for three weeks.
(The fan was mainly to tease us, as we only had electricity 4 of the 22 days we were gone).

Our host family and some extra children that live with them too.