It's always fun to have visitors here from the states. It seems to get us out of our ordinary routine typically & helps us have a little bit of much needed fun. While we've only been back for a few days, the last few months & weeks have been pretty stressful and after a last minute trip to TX before returning we found ourselves here flat out! With the board members here for a week, we've put most of the unpacking & organizing aside to show them around, spend time getting to know each other better and talk about the future of Apparent Project.
This weekend we are all on a brief retreat together at Club Indigo up on the Cote de Arcadins, one of our favorite places!!! I've never lived somewhere where you could leave home and find yourself in such a starkly different, absolutely breathtaking and magical place in a little over an hour (depending on traffic!).
So yesterday we took our group downtown into Port Au Prince to tour the city, stopped at the iron market to shop and headed up the coast and out of the bustling city for the quiet and rejuvenating northern coast. Unfortunately our trip took more like 3 hours due to an epic Haitian BLOKIS. I don't know if I can do justice to how these situations happen, but they are usually the result of a minor stoppage that becomes monumental because impatient drivers tend to start adding lanes to get ahead on both ends and then you have to wait for 5 lanes going in each direction to reduce to one or two at the slow down again in order for anyone to pass in either direction. It WAS one of THOSE days!
Hugo & I chilled in the back with the luggage trying to keep cool & drink enough water to replenish what we were perspiring off. Have to say that I felt a little like a kid again - sleeping on the floorboards of our old Chevy II on a road trip - while napping on the bench seat in the way back, reveling in the freedom from seatbelts here. Finally we broke free & Ted shuttled us on up the coast with his refined Haitian driving skills.
Tomorrow...we'll share a little more of the BEAUTIFUL side of Ayiti!
