Kim Priore

Sak pase people!  I am coming to you live from my new favorite place in Pignon, the AIRCONDITIONED cyber cafe next to the hospital.  I’m thinking of having my mail forwarded here and taking up permanent residence.So I have had many many issues attempting to post the past few nights, I appear to have some kind of vodou curse on me when it comes to computers, but I love you all so I’m giving it another shot.

Saturday was market day in Pignon so my big adventure was taking a ride out to the Pignon by fourwheeler.  There’s this American girl Kara who lives here full time and teaches at Caleb’s school, and she tools around on a fourwheeler.  Y’all, that is the way to travel.  The market was indescribable.  Prior to this I had only shopped with like the women who come to the guest house and hawk you the touristy stuff. This was the actual market where the Haitians shop.  Like I’m pretty sure I got splattered with chicken guts at one point because someone was hacking away at their fresh meat.  The sell laundry soap in these long bars, which when you see them, makes sense for scrubbing.  Their salt is really course and chunky.  There’s these little huts everywhere made out sticks and it’s just a mad crush of people.  Very authentic national geographic feeling.  It was so cool.

The second thing I did on Saturday was take a ride out to the chicken coop my team worked on when we were here last time.  And at some point I’m going to have to go back and be all reportery and write things down for Bright Hope like the professional I am, but for now all I could do was stand there and stare.  You guys, it was so cool to see how it’s grown!  There are three more buildings now, two behind the big coop that are used as clinics for the sick chickens, and one opposite the door (Scott’s door!) that is used for breeding.  (Line of the day from Jephthe:  “Kim, come see how I reproduce.”  Um, ‘scuse me, what was that?)

And speaking of Jephthe reproducing, Mitou and Abdell came home from the hospital on Saturday!  They’re staying at the guest house because he is in the process of moving his household over there, so they can be more involved with the teams when they come, which I told him I thought was a great idea.  And he had their relatives decorate her room all pretty with like streamers and lace over the curtain, and basically y’all some things are romantic in any language.  It was the sweetest thing ever.  And thanks to the quick thinking of my mother and her last minute purchase of a disposable video camera, I got it all on tape!  Woo!  (Those of you who have viewed my first foray into videography with the infamous Trip To Michigan With The Aunties in the RV are anxiously awaiting a sequel, I’m sure.)

So that was Saturday, Sunday was church, which – yes, ’05 team members, is as long as you remember.  Then we took a ride out to Pastor Ismael’s camp in Santiauge.  (Pastor Ismael is the pastor I visited in Queens when Jephthe and Sanon were there last fall.)  He runs a camp for kids on the spot where he was born, apparently it used to be a big vodou area and the church has claimed it back.  We rode out on a pickup truck, which is just as painful and Survivor-feeling as I remember, and then we actually walked back, because it wasn’t that far.  And as much as I miss having a team with me, it’s also really fun to be able to wander around town with one or two other people.  I really dig like just meandering down the street in the late afternoon and saying “bonswa” to people as you pass, the way the Haitians do.

Anyways the rest of Sunday, and today as well, has been veeeerrry boring.  Jephthe went to Cap for the day, so Missy and I have nothing to do.  And I feel bad, like I think the people who work at the guest house and cook or whatever think we’re lazy, but we honestly have nothing to do!  We asked Mitou if we could help with anything, but she said no.  And her English is really limited so I don’t want to press.  So anyways, those of you who are so inclined could pray that I am able to put my down time to good use.  That tends to be when I get lost inside my own head, overanalyze things, get lonely…all of that unhealthy stuff. 

But overall I am having a great time.  My boyfriend Dominique (Jephthe’s 18-month old son) is completely unenthralled by me, which I assured Jephthe was typical of most men in my love life (or lack thereof) and completely normal.  I’m picking up a phrase or two of Creole a day but it is really hard to understand, and very frustrating when there’s no one around to interpret.  Boy do I miss having Sanon here!  But today as we wandered around looking for the cybercafe we met some really nice guys who are going to be going to school in the States and spoke good English, and helped us out.  For the most part the Haitians are really nice to us, although let me tell you the novelty of the communal shower experience wore off really fast and yesterday the laughter seemed pretty mean-spirited and it was just annoying.  I just want to be clean.  I think next time we’ll take Phenes or one of the guys from church down with us as our bodyguard/interpreter.  Experiences I never thought I’d have:  inviting a virtual stranger to shower with me.  Desperate times call for desperate measures I guess.

So that’s all from Pignon folks.  I am going to hit ‘post’ on this puppy, and if miracles are still happening, maybe someone will get to read it.  If not at least it provided some catharsis for me, and hey I still have 38 minutes left in the airconditioning, so that’s good enough for me.

Peaceout from Pignon,

“Blan Kim”