Saturday, October 07, 2006
Two weeks
I've been here two weeks today, and I just did laundry for the first time! All of the clothing I brought only occupies the space of about one square foot.
Today Mark (Purdue grad), Andrew (one of the Spaldings) and I went into town to go to the convenience store. Saturdays (like most days) are crazy because everyone is out in the street. Traffic was nuts today, even more so than the chaotic mess that it usually is, and we took a "shortcut" down a busy pedestrian street being used as a market for vendors. Needless to say, the going was slow but successful, although we did pass a particularly stinky section of the market where they were slaughtering animals. Our approximate 5 mile drive ended up taking about an hour in each direction. But the salty fried plantain chips (lengthwise) we purchased from the street vendors were a tasty treat.
Twice I've purchased groceries since I've been here and twice I've miscalculated the amount I was purchasing versus the amount of money I had with me. Today my bill was for 939G (gourdes) which is approximately $187 Haitian dollars and approximately $24 USD. The monetary unit of Haiti is the Gourde but it's way confusing as some stores list prices in gourdes and some in Haitian dollars - there are 5 gourdes to the Haitian dollar, and approximately 8 Haitian dollars to the US dollar - so in some stores you have to perform two calculations to figure out what you will be paying. What's worse is some stores list prices in gourdes but when you check out they give you the price in Haitian dollars.
Three guys from the states came in this afternoon - they are optometrists and will be assessing and distributing eyeglasses to school kids who need them over the next week. I haven't met them yet so I don't know anything about them.
Tomorrow Mark and I are going into town to attend Renald's church. The Haitian physical education teacher from the school was supposed to come with us but we haven't been able to get in touch with him. I think it will be an experience for sure and I'll report back later!
# posted by A*Dub @ 7:33 PM 
