Day 8~ A relaxing Saturday, Market and an evening walk
A morning to sleep in but of course that doesn’t happen. I wake up and do my usually morning routine. Coffee and breakfast. I have a package of instant oatmeal, it hits the spot. I’m usually not very hungry immediately after I wake up. After, I get ready for the day. The plan is to go to the market with Perrine just for fun. We are told that Saturday is the day to go. It’s very busy and gives you a real feel for what it’s like. We decide its baking day. I have brought a box of brownie mix but while looking through the food, I found 5 packages of brownie mix. We plan to go on a picnic tomorrow and we would like to have some to go with us. So initially, I make 3 packages and it’s not enough to fill the pans. So, I make the other 2 and now we have 5 batches of brownies. Perrine and Megan get busy making more banana muffins. The batch she made a couple days ago are now gone. The house smells like baking and it smells wonderful.
Perrine has some things to do so we wait for her to finish up and while we wait I blog. Ali gives Cindy a haircut and the others call their families or hang out. Celeste is helping the cooks make lunch and dinner because she wants to learn how to do Haitian cooking.
It’s time to go to the market and Megan decides she would like to stay behind. We get on the awaiting moto’s and head into town. But first, we stop at the hospital real quick cuz Perrine needs to do a dressing change on an old gentleman who lives on the hospital property. She can’t find him, so we head out to the market.
It is so congested and full of people. Selling all types of goods. We are dropped off as close to the market as possible, it’s too busy to go all the way. Little huts set up with clothing, food, shoes and other misc. items. We walk in and have a few items we are looking for. American snacks and flip flops for Megan, cashews and soy milk for Sara and ice cream to go with our brownies. Winter would also like to find some sunglasses. It’s so crazy busy but we find the shoes and the cashews really quickly and head out to look for the snacks and the milk. We walk a few blocks and arrive at the store we have gone to before to buy rum and snacks. Once we are done there, we walk a couple more blocks and get to the store that has ice cream. Its air conditioned!! We grab 4 pints and split the cost. It’s a total of $15 for 4 pints of ice cream!! It's ok because we want it and it will be nice to treat the house staff with ice cream. We have an ice pack we brought and an insulated bag to put them in to transport them home without melting. We call for the moto’s to pick us up and they arrive quickly. Back to the house we go and we let everyone know we have the treats! We are all so excited to have a nice dessert tonight.
Lunch is ready when we get back, a meat, potato and dumpling soup. As usual, it’s very delicious. I make a piece of bread and butter to go with it. After lunch we just lounge around. I call and talk to the family. I miss them terribly, but it sounds like they are doing well. The next week will go quickly and I have mixed feelings about that. I love being here and helping out, but I also have a family and a job at home that depend on me.
Dinner is spaghetti noodles with a non-tomato based sauce, deliciousness! Then it’s time for brownies and ice cream. Everyone was in heaven. Lots of mmmmm’s happening lol. Plenty to go around as there are 5 batches.
After dinner, Perrine, Ali and I go for an evening stroll. We don’t go very far because its already getting dark. As usual, we have a crowd of children following us. These ones live across the street from the house and live with their aunt and uncle because their parents have passed away. This is very common in Haiti, orphaned children. It’s a nice walk but we head home.
The rest of the night we call or skype our loved ones and rest. We go to bed and do the usual routine. Oils, malarone, blogging and tucking in the mosquito nets. I love my team and have bonded well with them. It will be hard to say goodbye at the end of the week. But for now, I say goodnight.
