Tuesday, Aug 7th - late afternoon of my first day.
Wow – I could really get used to this.
I have been introduced to Monica who is the lovely, petite French woman who set up everything before I arrived. I am sure she has done the same for all the other American teachers who will be arriving very soon, but for now, I am feeling extra special in my private apartment high on the hill overlooking the city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti aka PAP.
This morning I woke up to the most beautiful sunrise which now gives me a point of reference of “due east”. There was a smokey haze over the city and I’m not sure if every morning is like this. What I am sure of is that all night, I kept smelling a light smoke in the air. It wasn’t heavy enough to alarm me (hmm, are there smoke alarms in my beautiful apartment? – I’ll need to add that to my check list). I think that possibly the smoke is coming from the locals burning . . . something. (I’ll need to ask about that). But after, an amazing heavy, hot water shower, I had a great cup of Haitian coffee that some ladies have told me, is so awesome that I may never go back to the “old stuff” again. I believe that they may be right. My family calls the coffee that I drink, “cowboy coffee” – you know the nice, dark, thick beverage that falls in to the cup, lump after lump? Well, this stuff was even better than that!
So, a few minutes after my morning rituals were complete, I walked out of my bedroom in to the living room and there stood a lovely Haitian woman, with her husband and the security guard on the other side of the “locked” sliding glass doors of my front porch, at 7:30 in the morning! They introduced themselves and stated the purpose of their visit – all in Haitian Creole. Not only did I not understand them, but they did not understand me. I knew that my new boss, Marie had mentioned that a wonderful woman would be stopping by in the next few days to ask me if I would like her services of cleaning and cooking so I assumed that was who was standing in front of me. I mean, really, you gotta love the initiative and enthusiasm! After an interesting few minutes of two, one sided conversations, I guess by smiling at her, I agreed to have her help me since the next thing I knew, she smiled back, walked past me and went straight to the kitchen, wrapped an apron around her waist and began washing the “clean” dishes that were in the cupboard.
The next wonderful and amazing thing that happened was that the beautiful Monica arrived to pick me up with her driver and as we drove through the hilly, walled city of Peguy-ville and Petion-ville, to get to school, she pointed out different points of references that I would be interested in such as places where ladies from Dominican Republic perform the most amazing hair treatments and nail spas where Haitian women create beautiful amazing French manicures! She did a quick “state side vs Haiti” price comparison which led me to my next thought, “I have died and gone to heaven”. While I am in my state of shock of all the great businesses and the progressive commercial activity that I can partake in, she then proceeds to tell me that she and her family go to their beach house on weekends and do fun things like ‘beach and boating”. (Only, my two favorite activities in the world. . .) Hello, God, are you listening? Thank you for an amazing first day in Haiti. This is going to be a very easy lifestyle to get use to.
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