Monday, April 28, 2008

Pestel

Everytime I'm with Uncle John in Haiti there are sure to be a number of adventures. These past few days I've had a blast getting to spend time with my brother, cousin, uncle and friends. On Friday we made the 17 mile (approx 1 hour) drive to Pestel. Pestel's a neat port town with a lot of character left from the French colony days. It almost reminds me of a third-world version of New Orlean's Square in Disneyland. Cool old buildings, very colorful. We met with a doctor who is the medical head of this region of the country to discuss the healthcare worker training program with him to get the seal of approval we need to continue. The meeting was an amazing success and we have his backing for the program. After the meeting, we had a little time left before we had to head home, so what else do we do but hire a boat and head out on the water to visit one of the nearby islands.Our 'Taxi' didn't go very fast so we had some time to relax and enjoy the ride.
It was cool getting to see some of the coast, especially the many different boats in all shapes and sizes and degrees of repair - I'm not sure if it will show up very well with such a small picture but these sails appear to be made up of garbage bags. We stopped to visit a man and his family John met two years ago. This man has a plot of land only accessible by either what looks to be a very steep foot path or by the water. On this property there is a large cave extending into the cliff-side and a bit of flat land next to the water covered with rocks. For at least two years this man and his family have worked to make this into a 'beach' people will want to pay to come visit. The man breaks off huge rocks from the inside of the cave (where he and his family are living, by the way), his son breaks them up into smaller rocks and the man carries the small rocks out onto the 'beach' and smooths them out. They are also working to build some kind of shelter on the beach to give it more of a resort atmosphere. I'm not sure if anything will ever come of this beach but it was pretty amazing to see the vision this man had and the amount of work he's put into it.Once we arrived on the island, we weren't able to spend much time, we just walked for a bit in one of the villages, talked to a few people and played with the kids. I was impressed to see a school on the island and the evidence that many people had recently gotten medical care.

On the way back, most of the boys decided they couldn't be this close to the Carribean Sea and not go swimming.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wonderful, wonderful!!
I love you so much!
Mom