Do you like going downtown? If you live in a big metropolitan area my bet is you likely don't like having to drive downtown. Too much traffic, too few parking spaces. It just isn't any fun and you probably stay away unless you have some pressing business there.
I don't often have to travel to Centre Ville, or downtown Port-au-Prince, but there are occasions. Yesterday was one of them. There are certain stores and items only available in the crowded streets of downtown. We are holding seminars for the teachers at the schools on Lagonav. In order to buy the government curriculum for the each grade we had to go to Maison Henri Deschamps.
Of course, just getting to Port can be an adventure in itself. After the recent storms the potholes are worse on the highway. With the bridge in Monwi open, north-south traffic has increased a lot. Crazy bus drivers, tap-taps stopping right on the highway to make their pickups. And today there was a broken down bus angled at 45 degrees right across the highway. Remember this is Route Nationale #1, like your interstate highways or the 401. Everyone slows, goes around on the shoulder. No was working on the bus. My guess it will be there when I next make the trip.
The traffic as on every trip to downtown was terrible. I passed the wharf area with people selling vegetables and wares on the ground beside the road. Stop and go, stop and go. Once on the downtown streets it was even slower. There is barely enough room for one, much less two way traffic on the roads. Parking is hard to find because everyone has set up there stalls in the parking areas. There are even trucks parked with stalls set up around them. Don't know what happens when they want to get out.
I pick up the man who is helping me get the materials I need, Samuel. Once we meet it is time for us to find a parking spot. we go several streets down, and try to turn around. The traffic is making that a losing proposition. So I just decide to park facing up the side street. Doesn't look like any traffic will be coming down as it choked with market stalls and people. We make our way to the bookstore. The streets are covered with mud and filth. The recent rains seem to have swept everything onto the street and there is stays. We walk on sidestepping puddles and trying to keep clean.
And as it turns out even this bookstore doesn't have everything we need. Seems to always be the case. You just can't find everything you need in one place shopping in Haiti. We get the books for grades 1-3 and 6. They might have the others next week sometime. When next week? Not sure, maybe Tuesday. Time for plan B.
Outside the school bookstore there are tons of people selling school supplies. Pens, notebooks, chalk, everything you can think of. Is there someone selling the curriculum. Turns out there is, and after a bit of negotiation on the price and him going off to get the books we go home happy.
One more errand before go home. Heather needs eggs. Usually we buy flats of 30 eggs in the local markets. They are cheaper there than at the grocery store. The regular stops don't seem to have them today. As I drive on the road out of Port-au-Prince I search for someone on the roadside with flats of eggs. I see some and stop. Now the fun starts. First the lady doesn't want to sell the whole flat. She only wants to sell them one at a time. Then she was 50 Haitian dollars for the flat. I know this is 10 dollars too high. She won't budge so I leave. In Cabaret I got to the market and find the eggs I am looking for. Mission accomplished and at a price I know is fair. Home at last.
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