Honey Bee here. This past summer I took a week away from our hive to go to Haiti with a group from our church. I'm sure you have seen pictures of Haiti in magazines and on the news, but when you are the one taking pictures that could be in National Geographic, it gives you a new perspective on our life in America. I took about 450 pictures/videos so I will be breaking my analysis into several different posts.
The obvious difference when you touch down in Port-au-Prince is that the standard of living in Haiti is far below that of what we are accustomed to as Americans. As our plane was about to touch down in Haiti, we passed over slums. The like of which I have only seen in pictures. That surprised me because I expected the standard of living to be a little higher near the capital city. It was not. As our bus travelled to the Lifeline Mission compound where we were staying, it began to set in just how little Haitians have to "enjoy" in their daily lives.
Please forgive the blurriness of this photo (above) as I snapped it in motion. Nonetheless, this is an example of a roadside market. It is basically a gas station. If you can see the plastic bottle on a wooden stand in the right of the picture, that bottle is full of gasoline for people to stop and purchase. At the stand, they also have basic necessities for sale and even some food items.
This is what an actual road-side market looked like. People would bring their produce to the main road and just put it on the ground and hope to sell it. The most eye-opening market we went to was in the town of Archaei. (For you history lovers, that is the town where the Haitians first raised their flag after declaring their independence from France.) This particular market had the potential to be dangerous so our guide insisted that if we wanted pictures we should give our camera to our Creole speaking Haitian guide and he could take pictures for us. If I would have had the nerve to take my camera, I would have had him take a picture of the raw fish laying on a blanket in the 100 degree heat and I would insert that picture here. You can use your imagination to picture it, but the description of what we saw does not do the odor justice. It was a smell that I hope I never smell again.
This picture shows the tent cities that are about 3-5 miles outside of Port-au-Prince. After the earthquake in 2010, these tent cities popped up as people rapidly became homeless. The government is gradually moving them into the country side so that visiting dignitaries from other countries do not see them.
We did not see many cows while there, but we saw this one just walking down the middle of the road as we were leaving Port-au-Prince on our way to the mission compound.
This is what the majority of homes looked like in the most rural parts of Haiti. There were some rough brick homes in the larger villages, but even they were very basic.
The last comment for this post regards the general unsanitary conditions that I was absolutely not prepared for. You can see all the specks in the vegetation and that is all trash just laying around. It is common practice in Haiti that when you are finished with a water bag (I will explain later) or any other sort of wrapped product, you just pitch the trash wherever you are. I am not always the biggest fan of our government, but this trip gave me an appreciation for aspects of our government that I had previously seen as unnecessary. (i.e. Environmental Protection Agency)
One thing I want to make clear is that after visiting a country such as Haiti, it is easy for us to feel sorry for the residents that live under the conditions I have explained. However, what I will try to reveal in future posts is that the people of Haiti would probably not like to be pitied. Despite the obvious lack of luxury, the Haitians were generally pleasant people that did not complain about the things they did not have. They had the most positive influence on me and I can't wait to share more about them.
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