Haiti Day Five

Haiti Day Five

The Tarantula. And Observations, Ruminations, Rants and Raves

Okay, I made fun of the other guys about the tarantula. Returning to my room at Operation Blessing, I spotted a big spider on the wall. The size of a can of Skoal.
What do you do with a tarantula?
I knew the answer was #1, kill it.
But it was big.
And I thought someone said they can really jump.
So I went into the main house and asked Eric, “How do you get rid of a tarantula?”
“Broom. Kill it and sweep it out.”
No problem. I saw a broom en route to Eric, and thought the same thing.
I stood wielding the broom.
Just swat it violently like Tim did at new Missions.
I swatted it. It flew off the wall, and onto the floor, by the bed.
I think.
I jumped pretty high when the thing went down.
I peered at the floor by the bed.
No spider.
Picked up the sheet, hanging almost to the floor.
No spider.
Get down, on hands and knees, and peer under the bed.
Hope it’s not right behind the sheet!
Nothing.
Looking deeper under the bed, I see a dark spot at the wall, halfway down the bed.
Spider? Or not?
I can’t tell.
I sweep the object toward the foot of the bed.
Spider! He runs back to the spot!
Omygosh. Breathing heavy.
I need to SMACK IT and KILL It.
But it’s so far under the bed, I have no purchase, or leverage.
I sweep it again and run to the foot of the bed, but he scuttles back to the spot.
Wipe the sweat from my brow.
Okay. Sweep violently, so the spider is way out in the center of the floor, then SMACK IT before he gets under the bed.
Sweep! Smack!
I got him. Sweep him out the door onto the concrete.
I wonder if he’s dead.

Observations:

Haiti is really a mess. It was before the earthquake. Way worse now. I wonder if it will get better.

For all the help, there doesn’t seem to be much in tangible results.

This time the return plane was 80% whites. I remember flights when I was one of eight. Lots of people going to and from Haiti.

I need to be careful about judging and negativity. I complain about Lexus SUVs all over Port-au-Prince, but Eric drives one. The back story? They found a late model one for $15,000. Better than a new Toyota for $50k. Or in Haiti, it is probably $80k.

Ruminations:

I wonder what happens if relief efforts built a city like Del Webb’s Anthem community in Las Vegas? Not exactly the same, but 5,000 acres, and it would house around 120,000 people. (Four times as much density as Vegas). They just buy up a chunk of PaP and bulldoze it, starting at one end of a street and keep demolishing to the other end. Then they rebuild and put the same people back, in the same spot, with the same size of building, only with suitable construction methods.

I know Haitians struggle for food, but why are the cows so thin? They eat grass all day like American cows. It must be crummy grass. All the animals are gaunt, except pigs and goats.

Why don’t Haitian farmers implement something with a wheel? It was discovered a few years back. They use hoes and picks, and once in awhile a bull pull a plow.

Isn’t it interesting that the Haitians dress better than the Americans? Most men wear slacks and collared shirts and nice shoes, and the women wear dresses and skirts. The whites dress like slobs.

Haiti has almost no garbage service, no sewer systems, little and sketchy electricity and Haitians run around with cell phones all over the place. Prepay, of course. No mail service to speak of, either.

Rants:

Can’t we get something done in this city? I know, I already have addressed it, but it drives me crazy.

Walk to the Caribbean beach, watch a beautiful sunset, and see plastic pop bottles floating in the surf, and washed up onshore. Hate that plastic!

Everyone seems to be greedy. Doctors w/o Borders shipped some pickups to Haiti, and got held up for ‘not doing the paperwork correctly.’ Right. For three months. Doctors knows how to do it. They do it all over the world. Someone wants a payoff. Picking up a shipping container? Get ready to pay confiscatory rates. The price of food has tripled since the quake.

Raves:

I don’t know if you can beat a Haitian sunset. Throw in a thunderstorm, and you got a visual banana split. With nuts and a cherry.

Haitians are beautiful. The little girls (Really little. I call them ‘carry-on kids’) are so cute! I want to stick them in my carry on and take them home. On little girl at the church service came up behind me and ran her fingers through my hair. So I did hers, too.

These people are tough. We drove by sites that were crushed in the quake, and rail thin Haitians with shovels were clearing the debris to get steel to rebuild.

What a wonderful country. What a mess. How sad. So many reasons and obstacles to overcome to rebuild and make it better than before. Haiti needs a lot of help, a lot of money, and a lot of prayer. So let’s do something.