Team Journal 4

Monday July 1 
Written by Marijke Proos 

We celebrated Canada Day in Haiti which meant we had to sing our national anthem bright and early at the breakfast table.

After breakfast we started our first real work day. Our job for the day was making a latrine for one of the local families. We walked to the brick making site where the kids enjoyed playing on a huge pile of sand.

When the dump truck arrived we loaded bricks into it using muscles we didn’t even know we had!

The trip from the supply site to the house was quite eventful because the road was very narrow and surrounded on both sides by cactus hedges.

When it was impossible to go any farther we carried the bricks the rest of the way. After the bricks we brought the sand and the cement over in large buckets. 

A twenty feet deep hole had been dug already and we now helped transport and arrange the bricks for the surrounding structure.

For lunch we ate some type of deep fried vegetable fritters, 

and traditional Haitian pumpkin soup.

Later in the afternoon we all piled in the back up of a pickup for a trip to a nearby market.

On the way we had to cross a muddy river.

Markets are hard to describe.

Strange sights, sounds and smells are everywhere.

Donkeys, goats horses, dogs and chickens mingle freely with the masses of people. 

The selection of products for sale was quite extensive; I saw pharmaceuticals, shoes, candies, beauty products, fruits, vegetables and a variety of unidentifiable meat. 

I bought a pair of flip-flops for the big sum of $3. Derek had fun trying to balance a big bundle on his head.

We also hiked down to the local fresh water supply for the area, a large spring.

Our dinner consisted of macaroni,

freshly made bread (which was very yummy) and avocado.

I might have skipped out on my veggies that night :O. 

After dinner we had the privilege of listening to a local men’s choir. When Haitians sing they use every fiber of their being, the amount of sound they could produced was amazing!
 
As a suitable closing to our Canada Day we had hotdogs and marshmallows roasted over a charcoal fire.