Our Haitian House

Following up from the previous blog post, I'll try to keep this one a little shorter.  BG and I are having a pretty low key weekend after the first week of school. Although we had to report to school all week, we only had the students for half days Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  The kids are absolutely great and we know we are going to have excellent classes!  There will be a blog post coming soon about school and the kids! :)  There is lots to tell!

A lot of people have been asking me to see the inside of our house, so that's the purpose of this blog post.  We actually have had a maid now for the past week and a half and it has been really nice.  She does a great job and comes every other weekday.  We share her with Amy and Isabelle upstairs.  It's crazy to have a maid, because that is not normal in the states, but it is nice here because things get dusty and dirty very fast.  Especially if we have the windows open, the floors and furniture get dirty with dust.  It's nice to not have to do the dishes too! ha.  However, our days are pretty long, considering we get picked up at 6:15 am to take the van to school and then sometimes don't get home until 6:00 at night if we work out after school.  So having a maid is nice in that sense.  Each of us pay her $35 a month - which equals to her making $140 for the month, however we also pay for her transportation here and back home everyday, which is only about 20-30 cents a day.  I also gave her money the other day and she went to the streets and the market and bought me a laundry basket, clothes-pins, hangers, and avocados.  It is a lot cheaper to go through her to get those things, rather than me going to the store to buy them.  I bought hangers in the store for like $12 or so and she got the same amount for around $5, so it definitely makes a difference.  Soon she is going to start cooking for us as well, which I am really excited for.  We told her that she can make any Haitian food she wants.  She hasn't started yet b/c it's been a hectic week AND we don't have the food she needs to cook. So once we get that taken care of, we will be eating some delicious homemade cooking. :)  More to come on that. 

Anyways... now for a tour of our Haitian house...

When you walk in the green front door (posted on a previous blog post) you then turn left and walk down the stairs to our part of the house.  If you go straight in the green front door, that is Amy and Isabelle's part of the house. 

The nice artwork at the end of our stairs.  You turn right and enter....

Welcome to our place! :) 

Right when you walk in is the living room/dining room.  It is very big.  Panoramic pictures always make the scene look bigger, but this is actually huge.  Our room and full bathroom is to the left and the kitchen is to the right. And then through that door up there is a big walk in closet, another room and another full bathroom.  

Our room :)  Ironically the curtains matched the bedspread I brought. Perfect! :) The air conditioner is above the bed and only really keeps the bedroom cool, which is fine. And we have a full bathroom there on the left, however we don't shower in this one b/c the water pressure is better in the other bathroom! :) 

Our kitchen. I LOVE the colors.  I had to do a panoramic, but our kitchen is long and skinny, so this kind of looks distorted. That door to the right leads to outside and to our laundry....

Laundry out there and then another set of stairs outside. 

Our awesome pantry! Please take note of the spider killer bottles.  I used almost the whole bottle today de-spiderizing our place. 

A small 1/2 bathroom right by the kitchen that we rarely ever use. I've actually never used it yet. 

The spare bedroom - incase anyone wants to come visit! :) There is another air conditioner in here also. Don't mind the broken curtain rod... people were here fixing the cranks on our windows and broke it. Now we are going to have to have someone come in and fix this. lol

The bathroom in the spare bedroom. :) This is the one we use, not only b/c it has better water pressure, but the only mirror in the house is in here. And please, check out the size of the mirror. Not okay! I've requested a bigger mirror from the school. lol. Oh, and a big THANK YOU to Tammy LaRene for getting me a little "owl" to take with me to Haiti.  She gave me the shower curtain!  I love it! :) 

And in case you noticed the two toilets in the previous picture and were curious... haha. A bidet! LOL! And yes, it works.  I had to sit on it the first day! hahaha. I haven't sat on it since b/c it creeps me out a little bit.  It isn't like the bidets at Nakishima! :) 

My closet! :) I love it! It's huge!  Don't worry - BG has a closet in our bedroom that you couldn't see from the pictures. :) 

I tried to get a pic from our window view in our living room. It is pretty sweet.  We look over a lot of small houses! 

Well, that completes the tour of our Haitian house.  We are accepting visitors at anytime! :) As you can see, we have plenty of room! BG says, "just bring a TV". haha.  We are still waiting for a TV from the school.

Piti, piti, wazo fe nich li. 
Little by little the bird builds its nest.
                     -Haitian Proverb

God's Beautiful Creation - A Picture Says a Thousand Words

August 15-17, 2014

Rustik in Furcy, Haiti

I named this blog post, "God's Beautiful Creation" because this weekend that's what we got to witness.  I was told prior to coming to Haiti that Haiti has million dollar views....and that surely is no lie.  This post is also very personal as I found out Sunday when we returned to Port-au-prince that my dad's cancer has returned. We are not sure on the severity of it yet, but are obviously praying for the best.  We find out tomorrow the severity of it.  God is good and will help him through this.  This blog post of our time at Rustik is fitting for the news I received Sunday, as I got to witness sites that most people never get to see in a lifetime.  On our way back from Rustik on Sunday, before I had heard of the news of my dad, I was actually thinking of him and how he was the one person I would want to take to Rustik to see what we saw this weekend.  I know he would be in awe of it.  It is not for everyone, since it is a trek up the mountains in a van, and it is wooded, and you have to be ok with a cold shower. :) But my dad is someone that I know would appreciate the beauty of Haiti.  Praying someday I get to take him here to show him....

Brian, Amy, Bernadin (B), and I were picked up in a van on Friday afternoon at about 1:00 pm. Janvie, one of the school drivers, was who took us.  We paid him extra to take us, since he was not the scheduled driver that day.  The ride was about an hour and 20 minutes and it only cost us about $60 for the roundtrip, split between the four of us.  It was cool because we began to see more of Haiti on the way up. Here are some pictures from our ride up the mountains to Rustik. I am such a "tourist" according to Bernadin, taking pictures non-stop.

Motos are everywhere. 

Beautiful

Little stores on the side of the road.

The first gas station I've seen so far.

Houses on the mountains. (Digicel is their big cellphone carrier here, by the way).

Little market on the side of the road.  On our way up, we went through a lot of different little villages of people. 

I thought this was neat - a big truck full of people drove by with people hanging out everywhere and sitting on the back of the truck. :) 

Also, on the way up, Amy suggested that the driver stop at this place where you can see all of Haiti. :) (Not literally all of Haiti, but a sweet view of it).  So we paid him a little extra to stop at this place.  Of course we got out and took some pics. It was a little foggy Friday, so you couldn't see the water that great. 

Disclaimer:  the rest of the pictures in this blog do no justice and truly don't capture the amazement of what we saw, but they will have to do, I suppose.  

The ocean is back there, it's just too foggy.

The Haitian people love to stare at white skinned people. :) 

Beauty!

Amy and me in front of the magnificent view. 

The rest of the way to Rustik was definitely bumpy.  Toward the end we were actually off a paved road and on rocky terrain   Janvie did a great job driving us and getting us their safely!  We finally got there...and the name "Rustik" definitely fit the atmosphere.  Rustik is known for using recycled objects within the construction of the place.  There were tons of wood, pallets, wine bottles, tires, and etc. around as decoration and part of the architecture.  That is only ONE of the many reasons Rustik is so rustic and amazing. :) Check out the pics to take your own virtual tour. 

The gates of Rustik welcoming us in. 

It had an outside feel inside. :) Check out the lights - wine bottles. 

Don't mind muscles in the picture. :) They had a cozy sitting area. 

How cool is this place?

Overlooking the alluring view of Haiti. 

This is actually one of the rooms you can stay in.  There are about six other rooms here to stay.  Everything here is just so unique. 

And the place that Brian and I got to stay was actually the coolest room of all....the treehouse! Normally it is $100 a night to stay there, but since Amy called for 2 reservations for the $50 rooms, the treehouse was the only other one they had available, so we got it for the $50 rate! :) Thanks Amy and B for giving us the tree house suite!  You guys rock.  Check it out everyone...

Still can't believe we slept in this for two nights. haha. 

Check out the little bridge you take to get up to it. Oh, and check out the view in the background. :) 

Heading up to check it out!!

You lock the door, just like you would a hotel room door. 

Obviously, a selfie was in order!

There was a king size bed in there, that basically took up the entire treehouse. 

Yes, that is a tree going up the middle of the room.

Can you spot the lizard/gecko that decided to join us on our stay.  Hey, at least they eat spiders! (Which there weren't any). 

Oh yes, the tree house even had a bathroom. :) I did have to straddle the tree to pee or opt to sit sideways. lol. 

The treehouse from afar! How cool!

Us from our room! :) 

After we got settled in we sat in the lounge area and ordered a little snack.  We ordered something called Kibby.  Amy and B said it was good, so we tried it. 

Kibby - served with lime.
Basically what it consists of is ground beef in a breaded ball with onions and peppers.  Think of it kind of like a breaded meatball. It was good with the lime on it, dipped in ketchup. :)  We ended up ordering this again the next night too. 

After the Kibby we decided to take a walk around to check out the views.  One of the younger boys that worked at Rustik was our tour guide.  We took a short walk to some extravagant views.  I am still in awe looking at the pictures, thinking how blessed I am to have witnessed such a thing. 

I enjoy the random animals we saw along the way. These goats were SO loud at night at in the mornings.  It practically  sounded like they were in the treehouse with us. ha. 

This is a cow that was tied up by a rope on the side of the road. :) BG said, "you act like you've never seen a cow before," and I said, "definitely not just tied up on the side of the road". :) 

Loved the scenery. 

The mountains are captivating. 

Obviously a selfie was necessary. :) 

Amazing. 

It was interesting to see all the crops planted on the mountain. I believe this was some cabbage. 

The panoramic feature on my iPhone came in handy!

With my adventurous partner in crime. <3

The pictures honestly do no justice and the pictures are still beautiful!

B rock climbing! :) 

Feeling on top of the world. 

Love the new friends we have made in such a short period of time. 

My favorite panoramic that I took! 

Amy and Bernadin. 

BG and Me.

Maybe now you can see why I named this blog post - "God's Beautiful Creation".  Our tour guide was great.  The protocol with the guides is that you pay them to take you on a tour.  What you pay them really isn't that much.  When we got back, we realized there was a basketball court on site.  I thought it was kind of neat, and once again, it fit the "Rustik" theme.  BG and I taught Bernadin how to play H.O.R.S.E. - he enjoyed it.  While we were playing, the younger boys from the village were watching us play.  Bernadin then asked them if they wanted to play and they ended up playing some one on two. :)  I was amazed how these kids played barefoot! Check out some pictures:

This kid lost and had to do pushups :) 

 After basketball we hung out in the lounge area, but didn't make it long. I was falling asleep after a long, wonderful, adventurous day.  We headed to bed fairly early.  I had to take an ussie in the tree house in bed because, not going to lie, we were a little nervous sleeping there the first night. 

lol.

 We woke up at about 2:30 am to two or more dogs barking, yelping and fighting.  It continued for a longtime.  It sounded like the dogs were right below us, but they obviously weren't.  When they finally stopped we went back to sleep, but were awaken at 6:30-7:00 ish to dogs barking, goats "bahhhhing", cows "mooing", and roosters squeaking. :) Nevertheless, it was enjoyable waking up in beautiful Haiti.  We headed down to the restaurant and were served complimentary coffee and breakfast. 

The view from the restaurant Saturday morning. 

Breakfast.:) It was good!  And I'm beginning to love Haitian coffee. 

This little guy decided to join us.  It was begging for food the night before and that morning. 

After breakfast, the agenda was to take the longer tour/hike to a waterfall.  Amy had been to Rustik last year and suggested the hike to the waterfall.  For about thirty minutes we followed a little trail and our guide brought us to a waterfall.  Long story short, the waterfall we hiked to wasn't the one she remembered. She remembered the waterfall being bigger; one where you could swim by it. The one he brought us to was a smaller one, but beautiful for sure.  We asked him if he could take us to the one she remembered.  

We ended up hiking another hour or so LITERALLY down a steep, steep mountain not following a trail.  Let me tell you, it was quite the trek.  But downhill was NOTHING, compared to hiking straight up the mountain!  Being off of bootcamp for almost two weeks, I died!  I had to take numerous breaks b/c it was not easy.  

I suppose it might be better if I let the pictures show the story of our "hiking-a-Haitian-mountain adventure"....  

And the four of us our off to see the first waterfall...Check out the tiny path we followed. 

A pic of Amy and B - to try and capture how steep it was. 

We reached the waterfall - and it was super pretty, but as stated before, it ended up being the wrong one. Still had to get a picture of course! :) 

BG, Amy, B, and our guide. :) A quick note:  Haitians LOVE LOVE LOVE for you to take their picture and then show them on your phone.  You should ask them of course.  Every time we asked our guide to get in a photo, he gladly wanted to, but then immediately wanted to see it! 

When we began going off trail and literally hiking down a side of a mountain. 

I think I'm already dying and we are only going downhill. 

The crew - check out the background...how far we've come! haha

Beauty. 

Stopping to take a pic was a good excuse to catch my breath! :) 

I don't know how Amy is smiling here. I do believe this was after she got stung three times by some type of bee.  At this point we were almost to the bottom of the mountain. You were a trooper, Amy. 

Still a ways to go....

We spotted a little river, so figured we were getting closer to the next waterfall!

Pointing to what we just hiked down! lol. He looks thrilled!

We made it to water, but it was not the waterfall. Keep on, keeping on....

Had to bust out the panoramic. My new favorite feature. 

Me :) Notice B sitting down taking a break. We all kind of chilled here for awhile and took a break. 

WE MADE IT!!! :) How beautiful is this?!  Sadly, it was STILL not the one Amy remembered, so we didn't swim in it.  We did sit down and hang out for a good 20  minutes.  We had a little snack and just enjoyed the scenery! :) 

The four of us finally reaching our destination! 

We did not want to leave our guide out of a picture! :) 

A better view of the whole thing! I could just stare at this picture, it's gorgeous!!!

 The hike back up the mountain was a tough one!  Like I said before, we had to stop and take a few breaks because it was pretty steep and the terrain wasn't the easiest to hike up.  And you know it was a tough hike, when I didn't snap as many pictures on the way up...haha

I had to take a picture of this Plantain Tree, since we have been eating plantains while in Haiti. :) They look like bananas, but do not taste like them. 

We finally made it to a road, but I was still dying walking up the road because it was pretty steep.  I felt terrible even thinking about complaining when I saw this woman walking up the hill carrying this on her head, no problem. That is just like our guide - he had no issues hiking.  He probably could have finished 30 minutes faster than us if he did not have to wait for us.  Crazy how they are just used to it. 

Nice to be back on a trail, almost back to Rustik. 

Had to snap another picture of the awesomeness...and there Amy and B are coming along. 

My goodness....

At one point we had to walk through a little village to get back to Rustik.  I had to be discreet about taking photos here because I didn't want to offend anyone. 

The little village. 

A pretty neat church - even though it was a Saturday, people were in there singing and having a service.  Amy thinks it was a Catholic church.  Pretty cool to walk by and see and hear. 

 When we finally returned to Rustik, we were four happy campers!  We were beat!  We showered and returned back down to the lounge area where we hung out for probably six hours - having dinner, enjoying some beers, and best of all we played the card game Phase 10.  It did get a little heated in the end.  Both Amy and I got annoyed of the boys.  Three games of Phase 10 was enough for us! While we were hanging out Bernadin spotted some celebrities!!  Apparently the next four pictures are of a famous Haitian rap group called Rock Fam... although I have no clue who they are, I OBVIOUSLY still needed a photo:

B with one of the main guys from Rock Fam. 

:) 

More of the crew decided to get in a pic.  I had to throw down the sign they were all doing. lol. #gangsta
There photographer also got a picture like this one - so who knows, maybe we will end up on their website. lol. 

B with another main rapper from the group. 

 Phew!  And that's a rap. (No pun intended). As you can see, once again, we had a phenomenal trip to Rustik and learned to love and appreciate Haiti even more.  Our new friendships are growing and we are beginning to see the hype that is in Haiti.  

As I mentioned in the intro, this trip ended up to be more personal because of the news that I found out when I returned home.  Not only that, but my dad knew of the news for a few days but purposely did not tell me until after my weekend, knowing I was going on a special trip up into the mountains.  I bought this bracelet at Rustik on our way out, and ironically it is a cross, representing my faith and trust in God.   

Through this difficult time of waiting to hear the details of the reoccurrence of my dad's cancer, I wear this bracelet to remind me of that faith and trust in God.  I wear it on the same wrist where my cross tattoo is.  I am asking for prayers from whoever is reading this that the news we find out tomorrow is good news - (that the tumor is encased and no other cancer is found in his body).  I believe God is good and will take care of my dad.  Last night I read Psalm 91 "Assurance of God's Protection" and it was very reassuring.  It ends by saying:  

"Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name.  When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honor them.  With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation" Psalm 91, 14-16

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for the prayers! 


De ye mon gen mon. 
Beyond the mountains there are mountains.
               - Haitian Proverb