John Mills and I arrived this morning. John is a close friend from college and and we have shared many adventures over the last 35 years. Riding bikes across Haiti is the current goal.
Because of the situation in Haiti the past 2 weeks, we considered postponing our trip to a later date. And in fact there have been some truly terrifing moments since we have been here---but they all were a result of the car ride out to Desarme this afternoon. Somehow we arrived safely and no pedestrians were hurt either.
It is a beautiful country in so many ways with so many beautiful people. We rested a bit after we arrived and then took a walk to see some of the reforestration projects that are happeining here. Jean Remy, a resident of Desarme began planting trees on a wood lot about 20 years ago and you can see the result. As we were walking through the woods we came upon several large baskets with clothing, ghord shells and some money inside of them. Apparently voodoo practices take place in the woods from time to time. Brian, our guide and host of the Mennonite project here in Desarme said that when people try to drive out an evil spirit they will come here and cleanse themselves. They remove all their clothing and change into new clothes and leave other objects like the money and ghords that have some special significance. We left it all undisturbed.
The Artibonite Valley is beautiful and one of the most fertile places in Haiti. You can see rice and sorghum plants in the valley behind Kurt and John.
Tomorrow we leave for the motorcycle part of the trip. We will wind our way up to Papaye for tomorrow and then on to Cape Haitian on Sunday.
But it is dinner time in Haiti for us and we are about to head off to the town square--a single street light at a crossroad. I am told they have great egg sandwiches there.
Some wonderful girls met us on the hike and offered us some mangoes. They tasted so good. Here the guys are taking care of the natural result of eating those mangoes. Doesn't anybody carry floss anymore?
