Just another day in Haiti

Today was just another day in Haiti. 

Cross town search for a phone. Student protest.  Being offered coconuts.  I didn't think much about it, because to the people who live here, it was just another day in Haiti.  But to those not fortunate enough to experience a day in Haiti, I want to give a glimpse of what a day can be like down here.

photo: www.digiceltt.com

This morning, a coworker and myself set out to get a phone for the clinic.  Here in Jacmel, as in most of Haiti, we don't have land lines.  We were going to the cell phone company store, Digicel, in search of a "cellular phone" that imitates a land line phone. My coworker had called ahead to one store location, store #1, to see if they had the type of phone we wanted - they did not, and told us to go to a different store, store # 2.  When we went to store # 2, we were told that they did not have the phone and we had to go to store #1 - the store we had first called.  We were hesitant, but we went anyways.  ...They didn't have the phone. But they said we could find it at a different store, store #3.  So we went to store #3.  Which, in order to find, required a walk through the busy public market.  And yes, you guessed it, they didn't have the phone either.  

This is Haiti.

photo: www.haitian-truth.org

So we had to settle for buying a pay-as-you-go sim card (the only cell phone plan available here) for 50 gde (~$1 US).  Then we went to our guest house where we retrieved the old "Haitian phone" I had so that we could use the new sim card in it to call our patients.  But en route to our guest house, we were held at a stand still for about 10 minutes as a group of 2,000 - 4,000 student protestors were marching in the street.  "Demonstrations" or "manifestations" as they refer to them here are very common. This one happened to be about the lack of teachers in the public school to teach the kids.  A lack of teachers because the teachers have not being paid.  This is Haiti.

None of this seemed to phase me much, as people who live here know, This is Haiti. 

    jiwadamaibali.wordpress.com

However, I was taken aback by something that happened to me in the afternoon. I was out with our director and two other staff members looking at potential property for our organization.  After the owner showed us the property, he asked if we wanted coconuts to drink.  We politely said no.  He asked again, and we generously declined again.  And as we were leaving he jokingly, yet seriously, said that he wasn't happy with us because we didn't want to drink any coconut water.  So we finally gave in and took him up on his request.  Immediately, one of his guys proceeded to climb the coconut tree - barefoot with nothing to help him but a machete to cut down the coconuts.  Making sure to cut down enough for everyone there to drink - myself, our staff members, himself, and his family members.  It really was a great moment. It was something that could only be explained as, This is Haiti.