How we get around

Hey everyone!

So I was super nervous about my very first blog post. As you all know, my husband is an expert blogger and although I will not be able to meet his expertise I will surely try my best.

For the past couple of days we have been working on settling into our new community here. And what a community it is! We have been welcomed with open arms, kind words and genuine love. It is amazing to be part of a community that cares about us so much already.

One thing that we have had to learn is how to get from one place to another. The family we are living with owns a big blue truck that we all pile into the back of when a big group of people needs to go somewhere but when that is not available we need to find other modes of transportation.

There are things called “tap-taps” here which are generally old pick up trucks with benches in the back, they are usually packed full of people and only cost 5 gouds (the currency here) which equals about 12 cents. The name “tap-tap” came from the way that people indicate they have reached their stop and they want to get off. They take their goud and tap it against the side of the vehicle and the drive stops and lets them off.

There are also Moto taxi’s where a Haitian driver will have at least one of not two people riding on the back of their motorcycle. We rode them last year when we were here and discovered that 2 Canadian people on the back of a moto is a lot heavier than 2 Haitian people… We bottomed out a lot.

You can always walk from place to place, but where we work most of the time is about a 45 minute walk from where we live ( and we are not slow walkers). So the mode of transportation we decided on was…….

 

Bicycles!!

Our friend Kez took us to her favorite bicycle repairman in the market and he showed us his selection. Usually when a white person shows up in the market and cannot speak Creole well the price increases dramatically. Thankfully Keziah speaks Creole “like a rat” (which we learned means VERY well!)  So she got us a pretty good deal.

 

Now that we can go places on our own we are starting to get the feel of the town, learning what streets are where, and feeling like we are really living here!

 

Thanks for keeping up with us! We will do our best to keep you updated regularly!

 

Ange