On the road...

Hi everyone!  We can't believe it's already December, and that our week here at the missionary home in Cap-Haitien is coming to an end!

We ventured through the country with the Casavants to cross the border into the Dominican Republic.  This was not a trip we were necessarily banking on happening, but we're glad it did.  For one, it was nice to spend a couple of days relaxing on the beach, and it was equally nice being in a country that feels like home...

But we missed Haiti the whole time we were there!

I'm afraid we can only upload a couple of pictures - coming to Cap reminded us we are in a third-world country as the internet connection and cell connection are not as fabulous.  Our next stop is staying with a Haitian family so we're probably going dark...and we'll really be reminded we're in a third-world country.

On to the pictures:

FINALLY! About 30 minutes outside of Port-au-Prince we saw
proof that we were on an island! And the color of the water
proved we were in the Caribbean! Yay!

At the summit of our first mountain pass,
making our way north to Cap.

This is Luc.  He and his adorable wife are special pioneers in a little
mountain town called Plaisance.(the name totally fits - such a sweet little place).
There are two of 12 publishers in a tough territory full of vodou.
We had lunch with them in their cute little house surrounded by banane trees.

Our delicious lunch of fried banane (plaintain) and poul payi (local chicken),
picklies (spicy cabbage slaw) and my favorite, fresh jus grenadien (passion fruit juice)

This is how cassava is made.  Cassava is root vegetable that is widely used
in Haiti.  You take the root and grate it.  Then you squeeze out the sour juice, which
I believe to be toxic from what I've been told.  Once grated, the cassava is spread out in
a circle on a griddle over charcoal (pictured above).  As is cooks, the excess is brushed off, and then
the cassava is removed from the griddle to be gobbled up by all of us.  SO GOOD! We love
cassave douce, which has sugar, cinnamon, and coconut added to it.

Approaching Cap.  See the mountain in the middle? Look really close,
See that rectangular box, that looks like the Arc?
That, my friends, is the world-famous Citadelle!

Items are still transported by donkey and cart here in Haiti.
But the funny part? This picture was taken as we were driving on the main
highway here in Haiti.  The equivalent of I-5.

THE BORDER:

Oh the stories we have about crossing the border from Haiti into the DR... I was afraid to take pictures because, well, it's illegal back home, but the "security" of this border was frankly laughable.  Appalling in that it was equal parts corrupt and equal parts ridiculous.

To leave Haiti and enter the DR in a vehicle is not for the faint of heart, nor for the weak.  I personally recommend doing it only if you insist and only if you plan on having a martini afterwards (or during, we don't judge).  I am neither confirming nor denying that bribes occur frequently at the border but at the end of the day are useless.  The next time we cross, I plan on videotaping the whole thing.  It was that ridiculous.  

We waited for TWO HOURS to get papers for the car signed.
Apparently is takes two people to do the job of one person.
And apparently they need to take lunch at two different times.
Just revisiting this make me want that martini I was talking about....

Once we crossed the border, we stopped at ate at a sketchy chicken stand (I'm still shocked we all didn't get sick!) and then happened to miss where the highway was.  So we took a dirt road through beautiful DR countryside (which is far cleaner and far better organized) and ended up crossing a river in our car.  I wanted a picture, but everyone used up all of their patience at the border...understandable.

So after a total of about 10 hours of driving, through mountains and rivers and dirt roads, we made it to Puerto Plata...and FINALLY made it to a beach!

We spent our five year wedding anniversary in a place we never imagined we would visit, on a trip we had always dreamed of taking...couldn't ask for more.

As always, we send our love and thank you for joining us on our journey and for your wonderful comments - every little taste of home makes everything that much better.

Derniers jours en Delmas

Warning: the following contains a boatload of pictures.  We find them very funny, so we hope you enjoy.

Adam and his favorite service partner, Sister Peyant. 

This is a house on the same street where we meet for Sunday service.
The front door is seven inches away from an eight foot deep by 30 foot long hole.
Our brave faithful brothers are doing a return visit on seven inches of dirt.

This is the new, almost-road leading to Sunday service.  It's been like this for a year.
As you drive up to park and then walk into the neighborhood, you have to look down
to make sure that you don't park in a bottomless hole that is not marked nor covered.

Adam in front of a typically colorful tap tap.

This huge leaf was triple the size of me and covered in dew drops.

Getting to Sunday service is a challenge.

Dinner!

A still-functioning electric pole.  Look closely. It's levitating.

Hoping this bread fruit won't fall on me.

Preaching in a lottery store.

Here comes a tap tap.....

......loaded with live chickens.
Doesn't get any fresher than that.

We lost power for a couple of days to find out that someone had disconnected
our power to mooch off of us.  Guy and his neighbors used a wooden ladder
and bare hands to reconnect the wires.  Totally safe and definitely to code.

Pooped after a long few weeks of service.

Our lovely stay at the Casavant's (a.k.a. the Four Seasons Haiti) ends this evening.  Our first month here in Haiti has been busy, loud, quite dirty and definitely awesome.  Cap-Haitien, here we come!

Kenscoff

Our first week with the Casavants included a nice little trip to Kenscoff, a little mountain town about 40 minutes north of Petionville.  Petionville sits at the foot of the mountains where Kenscoff is hiding from the hustle and bustle of the greater Port-au-Prince area.

Adam getting his shoes shined outside the door, after a long day in service.

See that little ramp with a truck on it? That's a car wash.

There are three basic forms of transportation in Haiti: the tap tap, the moto taxi and car taxis.
I'm relatively sure death follows a ride on a moto taxi.

Behind me is a colorfully painted portion of Petionville.

After we drove through the center of Petionville, we began our long climb up the mountain.  It was so beautiful - so lush, so green.

Haiti is beautiful.  Ayiti or Haiti in English, is actually an indigenous word meaning
"land of high mountains" - a very fitting name.

On the climb up, through various little villages, we passed by hundreds
of children leaving school.

Views like this almost made me forget how stupidly hot it is here.
The nice thing about Kenscoff was the temperature: 80 instead of 95.

Here's the Kingdom Hall in Kenscoff.

The climate in Kenscoff was very different - we climbed several thousand vertical feet to find a place similar to home - lots of pine trees and grass, and a nice cool breeze.  I would have taken more pictures, but the higher up we got, the more stares we got - let's just say that in Petionville we stick out, but in Kenscoff we look like aliens.

After a nice, peaceful trip to Kenscoff, we came back down to the real world:

Yes, friends, behold a truck piled 11 feet high with unsecured bags of stuff.  Barreling down the road and swerving to avoid killing people. Tilted at an angle defying gravity.  Welcome back to the big city I suppose.

This week is our last in Petionville.  Next Monday we're headed to the Dominican Republic for a wedding.  Apparently it will be quite the road trip, so we're excited.  But fear not: more crazy pictures to come, including the promise of how nutty getting to the Sunday service arrangement is and how meetings are a source of sheer entertainment and proof that people are flocking to Jehovah's organization.

  

Pigs

Hi everybody!  Our schedule in Haiti consists of service Wednesday through Sunday, with Monday and Tuesday left for cleaning, grocery shopping, and lately building furniture:

If it looks to you like Adam is up to no good, your assumptions are most certainly correct.

Service has been pretty interesting.  The heat is so incredible staying out until 1:00 seems like you've climbed Mount Everest.  Even our friends say it's really hot for this time of year.  We're talking 34 degrees Celsius  which I believe to be around 93 degrees Fahrenheit, with about 95% humidity.  A weather website has casually likened it to feeling like 135 degrees.  I'm sweating just typing that number.  So it's good to keep busy walking so you don't notice. :)

One of Guy's new studies, Roody, lives on the top of a winding, bumpy hill.  His small cinder block hut has a gorgeous view of the moutains and the city below.  Guy drew pictures for his kids and a neighbor's kid and...well...you can see where they ended up. 

Guy and I walking over a mound of rubble to get to a sister's house for Sunday service.  More pictures to come of the craziest "road" we walk down to get to that house .

Posing with Daphne for a picture out in service.

One of the many things I love about Haitians here is when you walk with them.  For instance, take Daphne, pictured above.  We spent the morning working in service together, me stumbling through Kreyol and Daphne patiently listening and correcting, and then launching into a story of her own so easily.  As we walked and as she talked to me, she grabbed my hand and held it the whole time we discussed something.  I've seen tons of people do it here, and felt really honored to be walking down a rocky street, stepping over massive potholes and chickens, holding hands and laughing despite our language barrier.

Adam standing in front of an alive mapu tree.  I'd post a picture of a dead one, which is breath-taking, but apparently its favored by those who practice Vodou.  Let's avoid that whole mess. And before you say anything Dad, its Vodou and not "Voodoo".

And now for my favorite corner of the neighborhood: the garbage dump.  Complete with pigs. Big pigs.  

We pass by it almost every day, and I still laugh hysterically at the absurdity of it.  Sometimes there are goats and chickens, but the pigs rule the sty.

Off to help with dinner and finishing drinking my tall glass of fresh lime juice. Thanks for checking in!

Preaching with Goats and Watch Towers...

 



Here is the Kingdom Hall.  Our congregation is Petionville-Est, and the other congregation is Pernier. 

 

Working door-to-door on a very typical street (minus the people...I'm actually wondering where they all are...I've found that no matter where you go, you're surrounded by people.) 

 

Look at that face!!!! There are goats EVERYWHERE! This little guy was so cute we couldn't stand not taking a picture of him.

 

The service group for the morning (minus Adam and Dorine who were on a return visit.)

 

So far, if I could choose one picture to sum up Haiti, this is it.

 

On the right is a missionary and his partner for the morning preaching to a woman.  On the left, Dorine and I had climbed up a rickety spiral staircase to "knock" on the door upstairs.

 

Service could not be more different in Haiti than back home in Seattle.  While our service back home is relatively productive, we've been blown away by the response here.  Everybody is eager to talk about the Bible.  Service starts at 8:30 every morning, and once the groups are formed, we all head into the same area.  There aren't really addresses here, so we follow the brother's lead on how to work the doors.  And frankly, when I say doors, it's a mix of doors, pieces of tin, gates and just a cloth hanging over a doorway.  Most people are sitting out in the open air, as their home is far too hot to stay in for the day.  People are out and about and walking at all time of the day.  It's so easy to strike up a conversation - if you actually speak Kreyol, that is! 

 

Every street is a mix of rocks, garbage, sludge, goats, chickens, flies, plastic and dirt, and garbage...lots of garbage.  Dust is everywhere!  It's pretty cute that every time we try to chat up with Haitians in our still very limited Kreyol, they always ask <Eske ou vin abitye ak pousye?> which means "Have you gotten used to the dirt?"

 

Guy and I walked down this rocky hill and went to a little cinderblock hut with a patchwork canvas "roof" and a piece of lace covering the door way.  Typically, you call out to let them know you are there.  A little old Haitian woman with caps on what few teeth she had left opened the curtain and invited us in.  Her hut couldn't have been any bigger than 60 square feet, with dirt floors, one plastic chair, two buckets, a small coal burner and a little bed.  She had dirt floors and was walking around barefoot.  Her only other possessions were two goats tied up outside grazing on the sparse grass.  That was it.

 

Petionville-Est has 120 publishers and Sunday meeting the attendance was 258. 

 

We're humbled and grateful to be here...minus the dirt... :) 

Arrival in Haiti and Bethel

Hi everyone!

Despite the wagers my parent's were making, we actually made it here!  We started our night with a delayed flight to Florida, which naturally made me crazy.  Sure enough, our late flight ended in some lost baggage once we arrived in Port-au-Prince.  Watching Adam negotiate with the American Airlines staff was a sight.  He could sell ice to an Eskimo.

Flying into Haiti was breathtaking - such a beautiful country. 

However, the further the plane descended, the more evident the poverty became as evidenced in this picture:

 

We were a little distressed that one of the bags that didn't make it was a bag for our friends, Guy and Dorine Casavant (who are legends here in Haiti, by the way.)  The other bag...can you guess??? Adam's surfboard of course!!!!  After an hour of waiting and filling out forms, we exited the airport to be embraced by Guy and Dorine and Pierre, a long-time Bethelite who came to pick us up. 

 

Our drive to Bethel was overwhelming - we passed several car accidents, thousands of people, a few goats, lots of garbage, and intersections that would make the hair on your neck stand on end.  Sensory Overload!

 

Bethel is beautiful in Haiti.  The best way I can describe is it a true oasis in an intense desert...actually maybe more like a mirage! Our room was beautiful, with a view of the recently added pool and a gorgeous tree.

 

 



After lunch, we received a tour from Charlotte.  Her husband is on the branch committee and they served as circuit overseers in the past.  The ministry is exploding in Haiti - Bethel actually has something like 14 new construction projects planned for the next several years.  One of these projects includes expansion of the dining room to accommodate the many brothers and sisters coming in to help with construction.  I found it interesting that the majority of the commuter Bethelites are young brothers and sisters. 

 

There is an Assembly Hall and Kingdom Hall within the Bethel grounds.  The Assembly Hall looks quite a bit different than ours at home in the States!  It's an open air building - no walls - with hundreds of wooden benches.

My favorite part of the tour was the Translation Department - a very secretive department!  We tried out best to find out when the whole Bible would be available in Kreyol but Jehovah's people are a very obedient bunch!  Sari here in the picture below is one of the translators.  She is in her twenties and along with the few other translators has the daunting task of translating from English to Kreyol.  She snuck us in for a quick peek as no one was currently working on anything but Adam claims he figured out what she was working on...but our lips are sealed!

 

 

<Oh to my friends who don't know, I decided to dye my hair for our trip...reserve your comments for later! :)>

 

We spent that evening having beers with the Assembly Hall Caretakers, who are a lovely couple from Bavaria, Germany. Just like us, they wrote the Branch years ago and came to the country to pioneer with just enough money for a year - and years later they continue to serve in Haiti! They've served as Caretakers for six years, if I remember correctly, and their assignment ends next month.  Before that, they branch assigned them as special pioneers.  They'll be happily re-entering pioneering down south in Marigot, where we hope to visit them in January...or when we get down there...

 

Anyway, we are here now with the Casavants in Petionville, after an incredible day in service. We had to leave Bethel early because, well, Adam's surfboard has been quite the problem - many trips to the airport!  But service today was worth it. I'd love to throw some pictures up, but I should be helping with dinner and frankly want to save some of the good stuff for another post.  We send big hugs to all of you and can't wait to see what you think...it's like we are living in a yearbook here!