A Day of Firsts

But, really, aren't they all! Each day brings new and exciting things. Today I took my first trip to the grocery store. The store was in Petionville and called "Giant". It was... well, Giant. Seriously, it was two stories tall and I had to get in the elevator with my cart to go to the second floor. I have never been in an elevator in a grocery store before! Other than that it was just like a grocery store in the States. It even had those car carts my kids love.

There were two major differences from stores in the United States:

1. It took an hour to get there.

2. The prices!!!

At home I have 3 grocery stores within 4 miles of my house and countless other stores (Walgreens, CVS, etc). And OH MY, those prices! There were a few items (butter, hot dogs, and bread) that were cheaper than in the U.S., and a few about the same price (pasta, yogurt) but most everything else was soooo expensive. I noticed that if you buy the Haitian brand of things you will pay about 1/10th the price of the American brand (especially in things like laundry detergent). Here are a few examples (prices listed are in Haitian Gourde (pronounced "good"). Current exchange rate is 40:1):

The Gain you see is 952 Gourde or $23.80 US! Oh, and if you prefer Tide, be prepared to shell out a whopping 2171 Gourde or $54.27!!! For laundry detergent! Whatevs! I'm thinking the 50 cent bar of soap about 3 ft down the isle would clean just as well, especially if you are just going to hang your clothes outside on a clothes line in the dusty wind. And how about the price on the Purex that I get at Walgreens 2 for $5? It's $10... for one.

Price check on Pantene. That will be between $8-$9 for one bottle. Huh? Glad I brought my own shampoo and laundry detergent (shout out for Purex all in one sheets!)!

Grapes anyone? A small bag will set you back $9.70. I didn't buy any of those either.

After the grocery we got to go to the bakery (mmmm) and I got this yummy pastry with chocolate in it and a really yummy crepe thing!

Other firsts for the day include seeing my first cockroach. It was gigantic... we'll leave it at that.

I also got to drive for the first time today! It really wasn't all that bad. Normally the driver, Walton, drives us back to Port au Prince from Chambrun and we drop him off near his house on the way and Aaron takes it the rest of the way. About half way back to Port au Prince tonight I realized Aaron wasn't in the truck. He was still in Chambrun on a conference call. It was only Walton, me, and the three kids. Sooooo in my awful Creole (I wish I knew what I sounded like to the Creole speaking folks... I can only imagine how bad it sounds) I informed him that he could get out at the usual spot and I would drive home. He just stared at me. I repeated myself, certain that I was saying all the wrong words and then he just laughed. He asked me in English "You drive!?" I assured him that I do in fact drive, in the US, every single day. He looked like I had just told him the Earth was flat. I'm not sure if he didn't really think I could drive or if he thought I was just crazy. After reassuring him that I could in fact drive, a stick shift nonetheless, he pulled over at the intersection and got out. I noticed he stood at the side of the road watching as I pulled off. I gave him a little wave, eased (if you can ever ease into Haitian traffic) into traffic and proceeded to do what I always seem to do when driving... yell at my children to shut up! Seriously, there are no seat belts in the backseat of the truck so they all think it is wrestle mania back there. I am proud to say I drove the rest of the way home with no incident. It was quite fun. When I drove up to the house I honked the horn for the watchman to open the gate and when he did he had a look of horror on his face. He ran over and started asking me things in Creole that I couldn't understand. I think he was wondering what happened to Walton and why in the world I was driving. I just smiled and nodded and said "wi, wi, wi".

It was a great day :)