Limbe

Often times in the afternoon Cal and I make a trip to Limbe on the moto just to "get out of Haut Limbe" and go to the "big city"! Cal had gotten some work done on the moto, so we went to pick it up. I thought I'd take my camera along for the ride as well.

Driving to Limbe

Limbe River

Limbe River

Cal on the bridge

Other side of the bridge

They have been working on paving the market in Limbe! So exciting! It used to be a basically a big mud pit and hence why I rarely went shopping there. This will make things so much cleaner.

Yes, they do have a cement mixer in Haiti!

First Baptist Church of Limbe, at one end of the market.

Here is Fonkoze where we have our main bank account. Not only are they a bank, but they also provide microcredit to thousands of Haitian women. I like them a lot! Going there is a much more pleasant experience then waiting in the 2 hour plus lines at any other commercial bank in Haiti. Here, all the cashiers know us and get mad at Cal when he doesn't bring me with him! And who doesn't love a purple and orange building?

After picking up the bike, we decided to stop for a snack and a drink. Here's Cal enjoying his chicken.

You may be wondering why I'm all of the sudden posting more pictures? Well, our internet connection has greatly improved so it no longer takes 30 minutes to upload one photo! Whoo hoo! I'll try to keep posting pictures as long as the connection allows.

Road Trip

A few weeks ago, May 18 to be exact (Haitian Flag Day), Cal and I decided to take advantage of the holiday and take a road trip. We had seen on Facebook a picture of a waterfall that is apparently just a couple towns over, maybe a 20 minute drive. So we decided to search for it. By about 9:30 we were on the road on our moto ready for adventure.

We stopped in Limbe for gas and asked for directions to the waterfall, nobody could give us an answer. So we continued on to Camp Koq, the town where the waterfall is supposed to be. We arrived just before the local Flag Day parade started - complete with marching band, so got to watch it go by. After, we still couldn't find anyone who knew the location of the waterfall, so we had a decision to make.

Since it was still fairly early in the day and we had no where else to be, we decided to drive on to Plaisance, which is over the first mountain pass on the way to Gonaives and 22 kms from Limbe according to Google Maps. I had my camera with to take pictures of the waterfall if we every found it, so decided to get some shots of our journey since I really have very few pictures of anything here! The word Haiti (Ayiti in Creole) means mountainous, and from these photos, you can see why!

Limbe River

Catholic Church in Plaisance. Stopped here to buy some peanuts for a snack and then found a mechanic to fix our broken clutch.

Going back down the mountain.

People are often surprised how green and lush it is here when they visit. It isn't this lush all over the country, we are truly blessed to live in such a beautiful corner of it!

Sunday

Sunday morning, I woke up way too early. My tummy was rumbling in a way that insisted I spend more time than usually necessary in the bathroom. This started at 4 or 5 am and I was not able to go back to sleep. I decided that it probably wasn't a good idea to go sit in a hot church for 2 or 3 hours later that morning, so elected to stay home. Cal and I made some breakfast - hoping it would all stay in me, and then Cal got ready for church while I rested and watched tv shows on my laptop.

By the time he came home, close to noon, I hadn't made any more trips to the bathroom and thought it might be nice to go outside at least once during the day. Before lunch, we decided to go for a moto ride to his father's garden in Acul Jeannot to see the baby calf our (by our I mean the family's) cow gave birth to last week. This is a big deal. In Haiti, a cow is called a "Kane Bank" or bank account. You can gain more "interest" by raising a cow and it's even better when you get a calf! A big asset for most Haitians.

Acul Jeannot is a section of Haut Limbe which is probably a 30 or 40 minute walk from our house. Every morning, Cal's dad walks to his garden to work and to check on the cow. By moto, the trip is 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the amount of rain we have had.

The house Cal's dad grew up in.

Before we went to the garden, we drove a bit further so that Cal could show me the house where his dad grew up. His grandparents are no longer living, but the house is still there unoccupied. Along the way, we passed many people making the 40 minute walk home from church in the midday sun. I'm so thankful we have a moto!

it's a boy!

After looking at the house, we backtracked to the garden, and saw the cow and calf! He was pretty cute.

We started on our way back home and along the way we met 2 young boys walking with machetes. I immediately saw blood dripping from one of the boys knees that was wrapped with a dirty cloth bandage. The boys had been in their garden cutting wood for charcoal and were walking home. The boy had cut his knee with the machete. Cal asked if they would be going to the hospital and the boy replied that his mom did not have the money. We decided to drive him with us to the clinic and sent someone else to get his mom.

We called one of the nurses to meet us at the clinic and they were able to stitch up the boy and clean the wound. I can't imagine what kind of infection he would have gotten had we had not passed by him. As Cal says, "God sent us there today". I kinda have to agree.