Tuesday, July 17, 2012

1 year later...

Our House
So we have finally moved into our house! A week after our one year of marriage anniversary – so that means our entire first year of being newlyweds we had about 8% of our belongings and we lived in temporary housing – woo! I think we can surpass anything coming our way in the future – go us. Our house is amazing! Tropical colors all over the walls – we have enough space that we don’t know what to do with (as we have only lived in small NYC apartments and the Oakwood apartments), Jonathan has his man-cave and I have a dance studio and we have a huge backyard/patio! Mardigan loves it – he thinks it is his kingdom and loves being out there chasing the rats, gecko’s and now playing with these almond pods (yes the nut) that fall from the trees.  We have a 12 foot wall surrounding just our house with a gate (we honk when we need to enter). We have guards 24/7 at our house. We take care of them and give them food and drinks etc and they are great with Mardigan! It took him two weeks to stop barking at them all the time but once he realized they were just “Charlee Bear Machines” (aka. They give him treats all the time) he has stopped barking at them! Even when they walk around every 30 minutes in our yard to check the perimeter, he doesn’t mark anymore which is great J

After all that being said, this morning Jonathan and myself showered from a bucket!! We get cistern water delivered routinely but either a)something is wrong with our pump or b)we are out of water…unfortunately I think it is option A which might take longer than just a refill, so wish us luck.  We used our Gulligan water (we get about 5, 5 gallon containers delivered once a week)…other than that our skylights leak and the stairs get covered with water (but I’ve heard from others here that their ceilings leak as well) when it rains but that’s it! Can’t complain about anything else – we are very happy about our new life in our house and to finally have some privacy, and Mad Mardigan is beyond ecstatic to have a yard for the first time ever in his life!

Gunshots
Brief story before I continue - the week we moved in there were demonstrations and protests up in and on the way to our neighborhood of Juvenat.  There is an IDP Camp (tent city) very close to where we live and something happened with the government that they were going to have to evacuate for whatever reason so the people went on a week-long protest with burning tires and throwing rocks etc. That same week (our third night at our house) I sat up in bed and hit Jonathan and go “Those were gunshots!” A house very close to us had an attempted break-in and there were four gunshots. A little scary.

Driving Update
Driving has not changed here - Still the same. The Tap-Tap’s and other Haitian drivers don’t understand the concept of merging and using mirrors or checking before you pull out into traffic so an SUV continued to merge into us while we were driving. Huge mark on the car. Driver sat there and hid until they thought we drove away but unfortunate for them, my husband pulled over into Belvil Entrance (for anyone who is here/knows) and we waited for them to drive by, pulled out behind them, and got their information. Now – in Haiti, there isn’t much that they will do about this, but it is good that Jonathan reported the incident for our purposes and also if this guy is ever caught again, because the time limit ended and he never reported it he will receive a ticket.

Lovely incident at a local gas station (we get our gas at the Embassy) but Jonathan’s colleague decided to get gas at the gas station convenient for our errand running in lieu of driving an extra hour just for gas…good decision until the confrontation! So about 40 gourdes = 1 US Dollar. I don’t remember what the issue was exactly but the gas pump guy tried to only give us about ½ of what we had paid for…then the security guard with the huge gun has to come discuss and it just turned into a big deal.  Meanwhile, the driver is out of the car – we are at a pretty populated intersection (the other day I called it the Metro Center stop for Tap-Tap’s and Motorcyles)…anyhow, stressful situation but we ended up with the rest of our gas!

Housekeeper
Our housekeeper, Marie, is amazing. She does everything for us and is sweet as can be! She loves Mardy too, which is tres importante.  Marie has a six year old daughter and considers herself the ‘Mom” of her sisters’ kids as well – her sister, Roseline, has two teenagers. I helped find Roseline a full-time housekeeping job so now they have double their income a month! Another unique story – as Americans there are many things that we view as trash and garbage that are useable and great finds for Haitians.  While we were unpacking it was not only Christmas for me and Jonathan, but also our housekeeper Marie. We gave her clothes, a small window air-conditioner, picture frames, containers…anything that was something we didn’t want or use anymore, she took it. She even takes things that I literally put in the garbage…it’s sad but it’s just a difference in our life and culture. I don't know if she keeps certain things or sells them but I don't care if they are benefiting her life...Now I know when I have empty Ziploc plastic baggies and empty sauce, oil bottles to leave them out of the trash. She is such a nice lady.

One of our guards Karline speaks little/very good English, Creole and French.  Karline is Mardigans favorite after Marie...he loves her, haha.  Marie and Karline call Mardy - "MARLY" instead of the D they say L - i dont care because he still somewhat listens to them.  I want to practice my French and maybe start Creole so after work on Wednesdays I am going to go out to the guard shed and practice with her. Wish us luck! She also has a little daughter and it is the splitting image of her, too cute! Maybe Mardy will start to be bi or tri-lingual!

Food
New obsession is Conch! Or as they call it here – Lambi! I absolutely love it…and I am going to attempt to make it/grill it at home so I will have a recipe coming soon for anyone in any Caribbean Islands or coasts and able to get Lambi…But another happy thing is that we started to buy the local seafood and don’t get sick from it. Very excited as it is about ¼ of price of the imported seafood, and just as good! Food hasn’t been too much of a problem. Fruit here is phenomenal and Marie makes us Creole dishes sometimes for dinner and it is delicious!!! She also makes us fresh squeezed juice all the time, she will rotate between Orange Juice, Passion Fruit Juice and some sort of fruit I don’t know…she also buys vegetables we’ve never heard of and cooks them for us - they are all good. One in particular is called Mirliton – very good! To me it’s a cross between a potato and an onion – sweeter and looks like an avocado, but I guess it’s like a pear squash/vegetable pear. Speaking of avocado’s – we have a steady supply of them and they are delicious here. Marie keeps us stocked up on all fruits and veggies so we never run out! J Love it! And it is usually only about 10-12 dollars a week.

I’ll end with Go Team Edward! (for any of my friends reading) – I know this is 5 years too late…If you got to the end of this I will add pictures later...

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