Haiti Elliotts: "Labor" Day

In our home state of Indiana Labor Day is summer's last hurrah. It is the last chance at a cookout. It's a day off work (for most), a day off school, and the day the pools close. After that you are staring at a month of beautiful cool fall weather and wonderful fall colors. Here in Haiti, like most, it is just another day. So when I realized that the kids played in the "pool" and we "grilled" that this was our Haitian/American version of Labor Day!

After getting our makeshift grill (nice job on the welding by Amos) cleaned out we had to figure out how to light the charcoal we bought in Chambrun (which by the way named after the Creole word for charcoal). First we tried paper. It didn't work. I asked one of our kitchen staff, Jolina, how they start the charcoal and she ran off to grab something. She came back with a plastic grocery bag. I told her we couldn't burn a plastic bag and cook over it... it isn't good for you. She shrugged and gave me a look I have come to know as "whatever, Blan, thats how we do it". Finally our maintenance manager, Eric, came over with a bucket of diesel fuel and dumped it over the charcoal and lit it up. Huh. Oddly enough the food didn't taste diesely (yup, that is a word). In fact Adam grilled up some of the best BBQ chicken I have ever eaten!

Here we all are at dinner enjoying our BBQ! Next week two of our staff, Clerice and Feiance, have volunteered to grill BBQ Haitian style. I can't wait!