Tuesday, 1 November 2011

Fort Jaques and Halloween!

So we had been planning all week to go to Fort Jaques with our most trusted tour guide, David. We made the plan to meet at 9am on Saturday morning and he would take us to our desired destination. Come Saturday morning, Katie and I woke eager to go on our adventure. We met David at the agreed upon meeting place and headed on our trek. It took us only about 30 minutes to get to the town and then about 10 more to get to the Fort. Outside the Fort there was a small market with only a couple of stands, but the food smelled delicious! We "toured" around the Fort and recieved a little history about it from a man who walked around with us. The Fort was built to protect Port Au Prince some years ago. We walked around the walls toward the front of the Fort and as we turned the corner, we saw an amazing view! You could see the majority of Port Au Prince from the walls of Fort Jaques. It was gorgeous! After we took pictures and stood in amazement for a minute or two, we headed back around and stopped to pick some guava. This time it was ripe! We could just pinch and it would break open to a pink, juicy center! So deilicious! We ventured around the mountain side for a little bit until a man approached us with a very large gun. He seemed to be friendly, but I still got scared and ran up the mountain chasing David as fast as I could! After all the running and climbing, we worked up an appetite and decided to try some local fare. We got a plate filled with akra (a spicy, fried, legumish thing), french fries, fried sweet potatoes (which are white here), and some beef. The entire plate was filled and it only cost 50 gourds, about $1.25! A great little lunch for Katie and I, and of course we shared with our favorite tour guide. We hung out for a little bit and chatted with some locals while David joined a pick up game of futbol with some other children. When he was finished, we decided to head back to Wings. We got back around 3pm and were pretty tired from the days activites. The next day, we woke up and got ready to head to St. Joseph's for church. We were informed the night before that we would be riding public to town! We gathered our gourds and walked up to the market area to catch our van to town. We crammed about 17 people, give or take a few, plus the driver into what I would condsider a 12 person, at max, van and headed down the hill. We arrived safely at our transfer spot, picking up and dropping off a few people along the way. We made our transfer into a tap tap and headed to our final destination. We arrived at the street to St. Joseph's and KC hit the button to let the driver know we needed to get off. We headed down the hill and when we reached St. Joseph's we were greeted by a few vendors trying to sell us more stuff. They always know when blancs are coming to visit. We were introduced to Pam and Wayne, a couple from Canada, who work for one of our sponors. We were also reunited with Geoffrey and Stephen who spent the week in Jacmel at Trinity House. We headed to church and it was lovely as always. On the way home, we stopped by the Gaint Superstore and picked up food that we needed, then made the journey back up the mountain towards home. We had a fairly relaxing evening. We attempeted to watch Hokus Pokus in honor of Halloween, but it took about 7 hours to download, so we decided to watch it Monday. Happy Halloween! Monday was a normal day for us since Haitians do not celebrate Halloween. We had class as usual and Stephen cam up for the day with Pam and Wayne to check out Wings. After luch was fed, we had a minor tragedy. I was in the room and I heard Stephen run up the stairs shouting for Wayne. Pam had fallen down the ramps of death! "We think she broke her ankle" Stephen informed me. We all rushed to her and found all of the staff and most of the children crowded around her. KC, Renee, and Gary made arrangements for one of our drivers to come pick her up and take her to the hospital. They medicated her with some Tylenol, gave her some ice and a boot, and put her in a wheelchair. They carried her down the stairs to the waiting van and sent her on her way to be checked out. KC went with her to translate. We tried to go on with the rest of our day, but all the commotion kind of sent everyone into a frenzie, making any afternoon activities impossible. Katie, Kerin, and I decided to call it a day and go watch Hokus Pokus. In the middle of our movie, Renee surprised us each with a gallon sized Zip Lock full of Halloween candy! It had Snickers, Baby Ruths, Skittles, M&M's, Butterfingers, Mr. Goodbars, Milky Ways, Crunch, 3 Musketeers, Starbursts, Hershey's, Milk Duds, and Reese's! We were in Heaven! We each ate about half our bag of candy and then headed to bed with upset, but very happy tummies! We were also informed that Pam broke 2 bones in her ankle and also dislocated it! Poor lady. We pray for a speedy recovery! We woke this morning not knowing what to expect of the day, since it is a Haitian National Holiday. Well it was a pretty relaxed day. After morning prayer, all of the kids were crammed into the TV room to watch some dancing and music. Katie and I equated it to watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but it was probably nothing like that. We had Katie's favorite lunch today, dumplings with bean sauce and we each got an extra dumpling, compliments of our good friend Alcindor. We hung out with the kids this afternoon and rode some bikes. Katie and I just finished an Insanity work out and are getting showered. We are going to have leftover dumplings for dinner and top off the night with some more Halloween treats!
P.S Jacky, the director of Wings, came home today after a long tour with the dance troop!
Giant avocado! And that's only half!

Tebowing


Stunna shades



 
View from Fort Jaques


Katie jump roping with some local kids


Our Sister

Candy and Hokus Pokus!

1 comment:

  1. Wow the fort trip looked like a great time!! Glad man with gun was friendly! But good you made a hasty retreat! Speaking of treats so glad you got Candy treats and a spooky movie!! Yea:)) that agava looks so good bet it was a real treat! You both look great and am glad your exploring the country and still having fun!! Be well and hugs to both of you!! :)))

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