Yesterday I am going about the normal things that I go about: cleaning the house, playing with the munchkins, making lunch (gahlee I’m such a house mom), when I realize we really don’t have enough food lying around to feed ourselves and this group that’s staying with us. So I talk to Tashi (who is staying with us long term now :) and we get Fifi and head off to Carrefour to go to the market. Fifi is our super awesome nanny/housekeeper who is this sweet old lady that hasn’t had a job in years and is so happy to come in. She wears the same checkered hat everyday and floral print button down dresses. I LOVE Fifi.
So the three of us leave the house with this reusable Walmart tote. I am SO excited to be the only white person; I feel like this is Kathryn getting to do Real Haiti. Instead of going the usual way, straight out of the gate Fifi takes us down this path through some grassy lots that shortcuts to the road. We pass a tent and someone’s house before getting to the main highway. Usually we have to wait awhile or walk a little bit to catch a taptap, but one passes almost immediately and we flag it down. I swear its because we’re with Fifi, she is too cool. Tashi and Fifi crawl into the taptap and squish in while I end up getting stuck on the end seat. Oh great, the blanc (what Haitians call white people [pronounced blaah, really unflattering]) gets stuck hanging out of the back of the taptap. I think about how hard everyone is going to laugh when I fall out and get hit by a motorcycle or something so I proceed to death grip the handle above me and the rail holding me in. I soon realize that this actually is a really great seating arrangement; I usually don’t fit under the taptap roof because I’m too tall. This way I don’t have to crouch down, I can breathe air that doesn't smell like armpits, and I get a wonderfully unobstructed view of the countryside and towns. It’s a very enjoyable ride.
We soon make it into the filthy grime hole that is Carrefour. I have really come to dislike that place – no offense to my friends that live there. I pay the taptap driver and then follow Fifi and Tashi along the side of the road crammed with vendors, people, chickens, oh, and filth. Tashi stops at a stand selling rice and beans. She asks me what kind of rice I want, I don’t really know, but she buys a whole bunch of this greenish-brown rice and fills the Walmart tote halfway. It already weighs what I estimate to be around, oh say, 100 pounds. I get to carry it, yay. We walk a bit further and suddenly Fifi ducks into an alley way. I get really excited, it seems my Real Haiti adventure is heating up. We squeeze through this narrow passageway and then it opens up into a full-out market place. I feel like a giddy kid going with mommy to the grocery store to buy goodies. I try to wipe the stupid look off my face because everyone is looking intently at the only blanc for miles around.
Our first stop inside the Real Haiti underground market place is the meat section. I am all at once thrilled and horrified by the meat zone. There is raw chicken just sitting out everywhere and the people selling it are practically sitting on top of it. I stand in the middle of the walkway in between tables covered in chicken parts while a voice in my head is screaming, “SALMONELLA! SALMONELLA! RUNNN!” But I do not run, even as my eyes gaze upon chicken feet for sale (meaning someone must buy them and eat them) and then I see something else… some amorphous meat shape next to the chickens. I can then make out a snout on one of these meat shapes and realize it is part of a pig face. I ask Tashi what the heck that is about, but she continues to select chicken parts that will later be our dinner. (I would be totally afraid to eat this, but I’ve done it too many times to count before I actually knew where it came from and have been totally fine.) She puts some raw chicken into a plastic bag and we continue with our shopping trip. Next we run into a man selling beef. He has this massive slab of cow that he’s just hacking away on. He cuts off something for us which we then plastic bag and keep going.
Tashi then goes to buy vegetables which I have been asking for and I stand off to the side. Two girls start talking about me to my face, but in Creole, so I’m like ???? They seem to be saying nice enough things by their body language though so I make a nice white person face at them. They probably called me ugly or something... My attention is then grabbed by someone talking very loudly. I see that he has a megaphone and is carrying a speaker that is playing a hook and beat. He’s rapping about something and people are dancing. I think this is really awesome and can’t help but laugh. I want very badly to join his little parade and dance along, but that could get crazy, so I refrain. I ask Tashi what he’s rapping about. She listens for a minute and then tells me that he is in fact rapping about soap. Soap??! Hahahaha! I find this hilarious and can’t help but stand there and laugh as I watch people dancing to this guy’s rap about soap. I then remember this one time I saw an Oxfam caravan going down the main highway with a truck carrying giant speakers. They had a similar sort of rap going and I asked Megan what that was about. Turns out they were driving around rapping about washing your hands to prevent Cholera. And there you have Haitian PSAs.
Anyway, a few stalls and a gillion plastic bags later, we are absolutely loaded down with meat, fruit, veggies, and a coconut that I really wanted. Its getting to be too much for the 3 of us to carry so I figure that this trip is about to be over. We emerge from the Real Haiti secret underground marketplace through a hole in some tents and are back on the main road. That is when Tashi decides that we need to buy a watermelon. Yes, a watermelon. And then she tells me that Fifi isn’t actually going back to the house with us and we will have to carry all of this stuff back, just the two of us. I don’t think we’re going to make it, but Tashi is like, “No, we can do it. I show you.” The three of us drag the all the goods across the road to catch a taptap just as it starts to rain. I then see my first white person of the day – a man riding shotgun in some SUV with his video camera up and rolling. I’m embarrassed. Meanwhile, the first 7 taptaps or so that drive past us are not going to Gressier, but eventually we catch one that is fairly empty and pile in all of our stuff.
It’s a nice ride, we never got too overwhelmingly crowded. We drop Fifi off, I string together a sentence in Creole to tell her that I’m happy she came with us today and am proud of myself. We then head into Gressier. When we get into the “downtown” area, its down to Tashi, myself, and some other random person. The driver then yells at us and does an abrupt u-turn in the road. Oh great, he decided he’s going back to Carrefour and we are not quite yet home. Somehow, Tashi and I manage to get all the stuff off the taptap, watermelon included, and try to consolidate our bags so that we can cross the road all in one trip. I don’t know how we do it, but we actually get everything across the street the first time and into a taptap that soon comes along. We know that we won’t be able to carry this stuff from the road to our house so we make a plan. When we hop off near our house, I run down Fifi’s shortcut path to the house and bring 3 boys back with me and we all carry the stuff home. And the day ends happily with a delicious meal of rice and beans with a side of mango and fresh squeezed juice. I have yet to eat my coconut, but gee am I excited!
Real Haiti secret marketplace mission: accomplished.
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