GPzMike Abroad

 Day one of Mental Health Break. Out with Tom Clear who happens to be the father of Sinead, HODR's Project Coordinator (my boss effectively). He and I realized our mandated breaks were coming up at about the same time so decided to do it together - safety in numbers and all that jazz. I'm actually a tad early on my break but it's a good time with regards to the school build schedule as we are ramping up to begin school 4 but not quite ready to break ground.
 
 The day began with Tom and I discussing how we were going to get to Jacmal, what hotel we were going to stay at, etc. The further along we got with the conversation, which included Sinead and Matt (he's moving up from Team Leader (my title...er...if I have was to have one, that is) to Project Coordinator when Sinead leaves in a few weeks), to more we realized we really did not want to travel 60-90 minutes in a bus that's of extremely questionable roadworthiness that's overloaded beyond any semblance of what's considered reasonable (both by body count and by cargo) up a twisting windy mountain pass. Two days prior a bus and another large vehicle (dump truck or something) went head to head: 15 dead and 37 carted off to what passes for a hospital around here. Passing on a blind curve or somesuch. A week ago the same sort of thing happened in the same area.
 
 We decided we'd much rather take our life into our own hands so we asked Matt if we could borrow his 125cc motorcycle. He was very gracious and immediately said 'yes'! Out I went to give the bike a mechanical going over: chain, tires, brakes, etc. By 11am we were outward bound and down - two grown men with two overnight bags lashed to the back of a chinese built 125cc POS motorbike. The bike was overloaded and unbalanced and minimally built to begin with which made the handling less than crisp. In fact, each steering input was followed by a lengthy pause to allow the rest of the frame to decided whether or not it wanted to follow suit.
 
 So away we sailed to get lost, retrace our steps, bumble along asking for directions, nearly loosing the packs (and losing one of my sandals for certain...grr) to the janky roads but with only one or two mildly close calls we were safely in Jacmal. The Mountain Road section was actually rather fun once I got the tempo of the road and the bike (complete with ribbed tires...lol).
 
 The trouble with driving here is not so much that nobody cares about passing lanes (there aren't any) or uncontrolled large intersections or every type of vehicle known to man from pedestrians to bicycles to man-drawn and oxen-drawn carts to motorcycles with anywhere from 1-4ppl with babes in arms or 10 or so 20' lengths of rebar slithering along behind the bike to overloaded 'tap-taps' (mini trucks like nissans and such with benches in the back and as much humanity as can be crammed in them riding on tires with cord showing or wheels that go wobble wobble down the road) to busses and mean big nasty looking Mack dump trucks to massive UN convoys. No. None of that is all that tuff to handle. It's their lack of adhering to the correct side of the road, or of even 'hedging their bet' toward their side of the road that creates such havoc. They'll drive down the wrong side of a divided road, they'll meander all over the highway at will or a huge dump truck will pull out to pass a bus passing a tap-tap passing a motorcycle on a blind turn with pedestrians all around. Granted this mostly happens at 20-30 miles an hour, but I've seen it happen at 50 as well. Besides, can you imagine the damage a big dump truck could do at 30mph to a small Toyota pickup with 20 people hanging off the bed? Or if they can't merge into traffic on their side of the road they'll get up to speed on any side of the road they can get to and then try to merge. Or they stop in the middle of the street to drop customers from their tap-tap.
 
 In the time I've been here there have been at least 2 big accidents I've heard of with busses and passing and head-ons and the like. The result: nearly 30 dead and 50 or 60 wounded. Sometimes the roads are reasonable and like our country roads...but you can come around a corner and there will be a 100 yard section of rutted, muddy, washed out dirt and rock...no signage. Be on your toes. In the town of Leogane it's really bad but even in other town it's not uncommon to be going along and realize the man-hole cover/grate is missing from the middle of the street...and clearly has been for months.
 
 Now it may all sound like doom and gloom, but for all the wackiness that seems to be going on out there, it's remarkably ordered in a chaotic sort of way. Horns are a way of life. In California you'd get a ticket or get your ass shot or at least flipped off and beat up for using the horn the way they do in Haiti. The horn is used liberally to indicate your presence, to alert others to your intent to pass, to warn when coming around a corner (never know whats around the bend: oxen or pedestrian or semi), or to demand some room at an intersection when you are pulling out. Turn signals are seldom used and since I've not figured out why some folk drive with various turn signals left on all the time I tend to not trust anyone's signal. But the horn you can trust. That is their form of vehicle to vehicle communication. I've seen very few arguments or fights or road rage - everyone moves over best as they can and makes room for the other vehicles. Heirarchy is based on size but nobody seems to use their size to intimidate others - it's just a fact of life that you should make room for the Mack dump truck with wobbling wheels and questionable brakes bearing down on your mototaxi (motorcycle used as taxi service). If you have to take to the dirt shoulder then so be it and the pedestrians don't mind...they just slow and make room for the motorbike. It seems to work. Until it doesn't then all hell breaks loose quite readily.
 
 There is much more to tell about our first day on break as we had a fantastic meal last night with even better company. I will relay that story from our new digs later today...once we find the new digs. We have heard that there might be an ice-cream shop in town...like with chocolate ripple and strawberry and the like. And a'hunting we shall go!