With my trips back to Haiti becoming more regular with vacation over, I have had more chances to travel to Lagonav. My typical trip takes me to the island on Saturday. I then travel to a couple churches to preach on Sunday and then return to the mainland on Monday morning. This is my typical weekend trip to the island of Lagonav.
After arriving in Haiti Friday I got all my things ready for the trip. Checklist – headlamp, keys, toiletries, shirts ironed, sheets, food. All ready to go. I didn’t sleep real well the night before but there was a good reason for that. The picture at left shows charcoal being made just a couple hundred yards from our house. The trees have been cut into pieces, neatly stacked and then covered with dirt and leaves. You can see the smoke coming out the whole as the wood is burned without oxygen to create the charcoal. All night the very strong smell came into the house. If you have even smelled charcoal being made you know what I mean. Yuck!
Saturday morning takes me down to the wharf to wait for the ferry. You never know exactly when it is going to leave but today I decided to go down a bit later than usual figuring it would still be noon before the ferry left. Sure enough I spent a couple hours waiting, talking to folks, watching people and listening to some podcasts. Those really are bowling shoes. I guess since there are no bowling lanes in Haiti people didn’t know that you don’t usually wear those shoes outside. The outfit works though.
It is now Sunday morning and time to head out to the churches. This morning it is Nan Kafe and Nan Mangot. The town where the guest house is located, Ansagale, has not had any rain for about two weeks. We anticipated a good day of driving with a healthy dose of dust. And we did get that on the way to Nan Kafe. I preached at the service and then it was on to Nan Mangot. We saw the clouds coming but they kept ahead of us. We talked about how if we had rushed a little more we would have been in the middle of the downpour.
Sadly while they did manage Sunday School in Nan Mangot, right as the service began the downpour came and people went running for their homes. The church is far from waterproof. We made our way there and some of the roads were rivers. The rain had ended but the water was running. While I was not able to preach there, we did have opportunity to pray with a woman who had lost her 20-year old son this past week. Death is always near it seems for these folks. We did enjoy a small meal with them. Avacados are in season, along with oranges and cachiman, the fruit at left. Cachiman are one of my favorites and you don’t get them often. The are pointed and green but very soft when ripe. You open them up and eat the white flesh off the black seeds. Very yummy!
And finally we are on our way back to Ansagale. The round trip has taken about 5 hours and taken us over 27 miles of road. We did see a few new sights. One is the improved roads in various areas. Villages have taken the work into their own hands and it does make the trip a little easier. The other sight we saw were some of the World Vision homes that they are building for folks. They have a tin roof, painted wood walls along with a small window and door. They look clean and dry, though probably a little hot inside.
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