Impressions of an outing in the city

Just got back from an absolutely fabulous outing. We went to the bank, a hardware store, the roofing warehouse, and a camera shop. Our driver, Alex, is fantastic. The streets are so busy with cars, bikes, carts, goats, etc...and several lanes of traffic going every which way, with it somehow working out most of the time. Lots of honking, lots of lineups...Canadian drivers would just not do well here- you have to be super aggressive! I really mean that...Alex didn't take no for an answer; he just merged into oncoming traffic, and people slowed for him to let him in. Lots of people being cut off, left right and centre. Oh, and, hehe, a cyclist came out from around traffic right in front of us- Alex braked, so the hit was fairly gentle, and the cyclist got over to the sidewalk. Alex asked him if he was OK, and he said yeah. No yelling, no one angry about anything! Alex was so useful at the bank. There was a huge line-up at the bank, and Martin had to do some credit card banking/cash advances to pay for materials. Alex said there is always a big line-up at the bank; very few ATM's in the country, so you have to go to the teller. Alex used to work at the bank, so he took Martin's information and just went to the front of the line-up...I felt white & privileged, and not very good, actually, but it sped up the process considerably, although we probably still spent 40 minutes in the bank. At some point, a managerial looking fellow came up and took me to the 'VIP' waiting room with comfy chairs, far less people. Then I felt more embarrassed!

I'm going to put in lots of photos below, but a lot has happened today, so I'll blather on for a bit longer. The shopping trip took longer than anticipated, so I didn't end up working at all this afternoon, but I was able to meet with a (new) friend, Osprival Descomme (of Centre d'Intervention Jeunesseand Richard Gosser (of Partners in Progress). Thanks so much, Janet, for making this very important connection! Janet put Ospri & I in touch when she found out I was going to Haiti. Ospri is Haitian, but has been living in Toronto for several years now. He has been coming back to Haiti for the last couple of years, building schools out of compressed soil-cement bricks (I think they said 5% cement), out of a hydraulic press. Ospri & Richard are doing amazing work in communities, in teaching communities to build more sustainably, have access to clean water, and have communities involved in agro- ecology, by resurrecting farming technologies of the past. It was such a great honour to have both Ospri & Richard come to our site, where we could discuss what Builders without Borders are doing, and to share ideas about best building practises that are suitable to the climate, is seismically appropriate, and culturally appropriate. Rather then arriving and building a bunch of homes with imported materials (which is being done all over the place here), the idea would be to be part of a community, to discuss the various possible methods of building that will hold up to earthquakes, and use local materials. That was an awesome meeting, and we were going to have them join us at a local restaurant for dinner, but they weren't able to. I'm disappointed that, due to my flight delay, I wasn't able to go visit their jobsite. They were holding a plastering workshop last week, and I sure would have loved to take part in it! Martin & I are talking about going there on a road trip with Alex, our trusty chauffeur, one day, to see the school they have built.

We did go to dinner, and met up with Val (don't know her last name) and Kevin Rowell (of the Natural Builders in California). Kevin has been in Haiti for 9 months, and he had been involved in the Builders without Borders straw building. He's involved in some pretty high up government fundraising efforts for Haiti, and is a well respected natural builder (he has a company back in California), and has done a lot of work in materials testing in addition to building. All in all, I met with a lot of really interesting folks today, and saw a lot of amazing sites. Read on, if you want to hear my first (rather touristy sounding) impressions of my outing in Port-au-Prince.

Things I saw today:
•(Mostly) women walking with gigantic heavy filled baskets on their heads- so incredible!
•Mattresses being pushed along the road in  a wheelbarrow
•Police pulled over a taxi bus, and the police officer went to the car window, sporting his machine gun
•One woman with a really heavy load balanced on her head busied her other two hands braiding her hair
•Singing vendors- so wonderful to see!
•Very few stop signs or traffic lights, but traffic seems to work somehow (mostly!)
•Colours, life, joy, busyness
•Oh yes, and we hit a bicycle!

Andy Mueller & Martin Hammer in front of the tarped 'Ti Kay Pay' house we're constructing.

A few animals on the side of the road (sometimes in the middle of the road!).

Cool art on hung on the walls, for sale. 

OK, remember how I was going to avoid all the x-mas decorations, etc.? Look 

at this frosted snowman, atop a hardwarde store roof in Port-au-Prince- grrr! How the heck

does a snowman end up in Haiti?!

This is a tap-tap cab in Haiti. The tap-taps are generally quite crowded, and this one is 

parked in front of a hardware store- the one fellow is passing up what looks like a roll of sheet metal, or stove pipe, before climbing up to join other passengers. Imagine carrying that home on the bus?!

I just can't fathom how you can balance such large containers, with hefty

weights, on your head! Practise? Necessity? I'm in awe!

Alex is truly an awesome driver. He kind of chuckled when I put on my seatbelt, and 

I explained how it's the law in Canada, and I'm quite used to it. He said it was the law in Haiti too, but everyone ignores it. He then went on to explain how one time he was in a serious accident, and he was wearing a seatbelt and it saved his life...but he still doesn't routinely wear one! I took this photo because as you'll notice, Alex is on his cell phone while driving the standard truck, and when he shifted gears, he reached across with his left hand to manoeuver the shifter. Talk about multi-tasking!

What looks like quite  fancy house- quite a contrast to the tent villages, and shanty shacks I saw on our trip through the city.

***Uploading photos takes quite awhile here, so I'll post more of my excursion tomorrow.