I Can’t Believe It!

I don’t make that statement much anymore.  Not since we moved to Haiti.  There are all kinds of things we just don’t expect to see that actually happen.  I have come to realize that if you can’t believe you will ever see it, you might just see it happen in Haiti.  Every trip out the door is a journey into the unexpected and unbelievable.

Take for example three situations from my trip to Port-au-Prince today.  I couldn’t believe it, but then again I could!  First on the drive down I saw recently installed guard rails on the highway.  What, guard rails!  The beautiful new highway that has been under construction between our home and Port-au-Prince now has guard rails to keep vehicles on the road.  So theoretically they trucks and cars should stay on the road instead of going into the ravine or the ocean.  I wonder if painted lines will be next!

As the day went on I found myself coming down the mountain from the grocery store in Petionville.  My experience of being stuck in a bad traffic jam two weeks ago was being replicated.  It was stop and go (more stop than go) for about an hour.  As I was approaching an intersection on the road I saw that a large flatbed trailer with an excavator loaded on was blocking the entire road.  Only one lane of traffic was getting through.

Then it got exciting.  All of the sudden people started running up the road towards us.  They were fleeing something and my heart was beginning to race as I wondered what was happening.  Had someone pulled out a gun?  Was a demonstration starting?  Then traffic started moving again.  It became evident that the truck was cleared out of the intersection.  But as I passed it the scene from the picture greeted me.  The truck had somehow lost brakes and rolled down the hill and smashed into a building.  The overhead wires had been severed and were sparking on the road?  Unbelievable?  Not in Haiti.

The third thing I saw today was this truck on drive home from Port-au-Prince.  The highway is busy with all kinds of truck on the road.  They are often overloaded.  This guy had a 40 foot shipping container on the back of a small flatbed truck.  At least 15 feet of it was hanging off the end of the trailer.  Looks real safe right?  Only in Haiti.  I quickly passed him and arrived home safe.  The unexpected and unbelievable part of my day was over.