David

Cock-a-doodle-do! Hush down, it is my day to sleep in. And I did, until 7 am. It felt glorious. Since the last visitors left, we have been munching on the left overs that they spared for us. So we have been living large on Special K granola, bagels, Peanut Putter, and NUTELLA!! I have a new addiction, an addiction to the creamy, hazelnut goodness. I have figured out dipping pretzels into PB and then submerging the little stick into Nutella, you get a perfect dinner. So today, we decided to play tour guides, or so we thought. Ashleigh and I wanted to take Kerin, Geoffery, and Stephan (the Hearts for Haiti people aka visitors) up to the top of the hill to show off the beautiful view. We all strapped on our best hiking gear and packed our bags. Okay so this is really not an intense hike, for the Haitians, but for 5 Americans who are self proclaimed clumsy, it was a hike. The natives actually go up and down this hill on a daily basis with buckets of water on their heads, pulling horned cows and their children. I have seen this happen. We were already panting up towards just the beginning of the path, and I look behind us and noticed a follower. He came to the front and then became the leader without even speaking a lick of English in his gardening Crocs. He pointed to the gerenal area of our destination and we said, "Oui!" He chewed on his freezy pop and started to guide us. We were about four minutes into our trek and Ashleigh bent down and noticed a particularly neat "rock." She picked and up and felt it was cold. Unusual she thought until she saw David spitting out the ice. Yup, Ash, you just picked up David's rejected ice. We kept going up and around and made to to our destination in about half the time that it took Ashleigh and I the first time. So much for us being the tour guides. We took pictures and decided it was lunch time. We were descending as David pointed and said "Wings" so we took a leap of faith and followed tour guide David towards "wings of Hope" thinking it would be a shortcut. Well, it was actually more like a tretorous, wobbly, skid down to Wing's entrance. Ashleigh took the first fall, merely a flesh wound. It was all downhill from that, literally. David grabbed something off a tree and started to munch on it. I believe it was something to the effect of a Guava. Ashleigh was the bravest and bit into it and spit out the skin and she liked the reddish insides. I followed suite and bit into the skin to peal it and that is far as I got. I slipped and slid and got muddy hands with a shoe full of fire ants. David said, "KT," that is how they pronounce my name, "guade." Pointing at my right foot and I rapidly took off my shoe and shook it like a salt shaker. David was very observant and pointed out a wasp nest and then followed the wasps to an even bigger wasp castle. Being the 11 year old boy he is, picked up a rock and started to motion throwing the rock at the castle and we all kinda freaked out and screamed like little girls and ran away, more like stumbled and slid away. We finally got to the bottom and David said, "Give me one dollar." We were all taken aback but then made jokes about how he scouted out the white people who look easily influenced. That was us. We then decided that instead of giving him a dollar, let's invite him to lunch and get him a meal. We tried to convay that concept and he kept saying, "Give me one dollar." So we figure he doesn't want to be seen with fools like us so Ash grabbed her billfold and handed him a $5, one for each of us. We walk away from "Wings" and David motions that he will come with us to eat. Of course, he knew exactly what he was doing this entire time. We walk to the Baptist Mission, also know as the tourist hotspot and order food. David accepted our friendship and ate with us. We then walked around, shopped, and ran into KC, all with David still at the front. We told KC about our little tourguide and she said, "he is probably expecting something." We responded, "He milked us for what we are worth." David led us back to Wings and KC told us his story a little bit more. This boy was unwanted by his family because he comes from a distant family member and he is troubled boy. He is mischeious and ruffled some feathers. All I could see was that he was an excellent tourguide, watched our backs and feet, showed us some neat nature, and deserved a tip to the amount of at least $5 and a sandwich. He lives right across from "Wings" and I have noticed him sitting on the brick wall, but now I will always remember him as the best tourguide ever.