How is your spring so far? I heard that in MN and WI there's been a bunch of snow and sub zero temperatures. It's been pretty cold here too, only reaching the low 90s. Can you even imagine? It's frigid.
Here's a sunshiny spot to my week- our great friend E was here! She arrived on Saturday and it was such a treat. It's been really lonely here, even with my friend W who lives three doors down. E arrived at around 2 on Saturday afternoon, and we had a little adventure getting to the airport. Our driver was a little late, so we took a "shortcut" that ended up taking longer than it should have.
We wound up on a side alley that had a Saturday afternoon market. We basically had to inch our way up the street, passing vendors with all their vegetables and fruit basically in the road (keep in mind we were in a huge car!) and eventually we had to do a very slow Y turn to go back the other way. It was so cool to see the things they were selling. All the produce was on one side of the drainage ditch: stacks of green bananas and limes, tiny heads of garlic and jewel-like tomatoes in woven baskets, beans in tall sacks, radishes and carrots in feathery green bundles, pearl onions rolling around on burlap. On the other side- trash. So much trash. That's one of the things about Haiti that I've had the hardest time getting used to. The garbage is just unbelievable.
On our way to the airport, I got a phone call from a number I didn't recognize. That's not very unusual, since I get about six unknown calls a week from Haitians who just have the wrong number. I figured this call wasn't any different, but I answered anyway.
"Hello?"
"Hi, this is customs at the airport- we have a lost passenger waiting for you?"
I felt my stomach drop. E was lost in the airport? She'd never been out of the country before and now she was lost in the Port au Prince airport! How was I going to explain this?
Then suddenly on the other end of the phone, I heard in the background, "I'm not lost! I'm not lost!" and then the "customs agent" started to laugh. Turns out it was our friend and neighbor, R, who had arrived at the same time as E and was pulling a prank on me. Luckily I had given E my Haitian phone number before she left! R explained that he had arrived back in PaP a day early to surprise his wife and son, and had run into E in the waiting room (where all US Embassy folks go in the airport to wait for their baggage etc). She had explained who she was meeting, and he decided to play a little joke on me. All in good fun, of course.
The whole week E and I got to spend quality sister-friend time together, even if it was just doing stuff like painting our nails or watching a movie. She came to REBUILD with W and I a couple times, and also had some meetings with people at the Embassy that are in the medical field (she's going to be a doctor). It was so wonderful to have her here. Dinner conversations were really interesting- since she's a biochem major, we talked about things like evolution, DNA, cancer research, all sorts of cool sciency things. We've decided that she'll be our family doctor once she's out of med school.
E left yesterday afternoon and we miss her already. Almost every Sunday night for the past three years, she would come to our house for dinner and a movie. For a week, everything was almost normal. Or rather, what used to be normal. Now it's back to the new normal, and I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet. Still, I must get on.
In other news, some more of our HHE arrived- but it turned out to be just my mom's china and some other random stuff. No books for Sophie yet :( On the bright side, we've discovered an awesome pizza place about five minutes from our compound. It's run by a family of missionaries who open their house on weekends, and they make all the pizza themselves. It's nice to have a spot like that that's so close! It's almost like having Domino's. Well. Not really. But it's close enough.
Another tidbit- I've had street food twice now! We're not forbidden from doing that, just urged against. The first time I was with two of the girls from REBUILD and we had rice and beans with stewed okra, fresh tomato and onion, and a chunk of chicken (I think it was chicken). I didn't eat the meat- wasn't brave enough for that- but the rest was pretty dang good! It needed a little hot sauce though ;)
The second time I had this thing called pate. In the US and in other countries, pate means that fancy spread with liver and stuff. Not here. Here it's a fried pastry kind of like an empanada that has shredded chicken or beef, peppers and onions in it. It was absolutely delicious, even though a few times I found a less than edible piece of chicken in mine. I'm proud of myself for taking the risk! (a small risk but a risk nonetheless).
Also, does anyone know how to reverse a typewriter ribbon? My typewriter has stopped working and I think it's because the ribbon needs to be flipped or whatever. I'm afraid to touch it in case I break it. Suggestions are appreciated, actual knowledge is preferred.
Cheers,
Soph
No comments:
Post a Comment