Amanda visits!

In early November, our dear friend Amanda braved several wild storms in both Haiti and the US and came to visit. She is our very first out-of-town visitor, and we had a blast with her!

First we went to the Marine Ball to celebrate the 237th birthday of the Marine Corps. It was very elegant and lots of fun, as always. Everyone gets all dressed up and eats well and dances.

Ian, Amanda, and I were among the best-dressed. Yep, that's a real bow tie.

Here's the obligatory prom-style photo. There was no official photographer that we found this time, so there will be no photoshopping of us into a wild and crazy background!

Amanda is lovely!

Military and ex-military personnel usually wear their super cool uniforms and decorations.

And my dress twirled. It's an amazing dress - I felt like a happy Holly Golightly!

The Marines escort the cake in and wheel it up to the front. Tradition says the oldest Marine present serves a piece to the youngest Marine present, and then after dinner everybody is supposed to get a piece. We never got ours, but that's probably because we were dancing.

Here's the cake up close with the ceremonial pieces removed.

















After the big dance, we got down to business and became real tourists in Port-au-Prince. Security is always a concern, but luckily there was an escorted tour of the downtown area, including the Marche de Fer that I've mentioned in previous posts.

From the bus we got to see some of the slumscapes that make up the bulk of Port-au-Prince. The city is hilly and the waves of cinder blocks houses seem to go on and on endlessly.

Then we got to the Marche de Fer. It was its normal, bustling self, and we were instantly picked up by shopping assistants who jump into any booth you stop to look at to tell you how nice everything is and how good your taste is. Amanda and I both got lime presses but no major artwork.

Because we were there only 10 days after All Saints and All Souls (November 1 and 2), there was a lot more activity in the Vodou section of the market than I'd previously seen. There were lots of dolls in varying condition and states of dismemberment and a huge number of strange and complex statues, I guess, or icons.

This statue is called the Three Hands. It's kind of odd because there are, in fact, three hands where you'd normally see two or four. Additionally, and visible in this photo, the island of Hispaniola (home to Haiti and the Dominican Republic) is somewhat larger than you'd expect. Haiti (seen here through the back of the globe) is about the size of Greenland or Brazil in the sculpture, while in reality it is slightly smaller than Maryland.

If you can sell it, you can wear it on your head! Or maybe, if you can wear it on your head, you can sell it?

This tap-tap "Thank you The Eternal/ Son of God/ Adidas" has seen better days. Tap taps are the standard public transportation in Port-au-Prince. They are light pick-ups with raised canopies and benches put in the back that carry as many people as possible as far as needed. They are the bane of existence of most other drivers.

This is the Port-au-Prince cathedral. It was destroyed in the 2010 earthquake. We were able to get out of our vehicles to inspect the damage close-up (though obviously on the outside!). Several of the rose windows still have their stained glass mostly intact.

In an attempt to round out Amanda's experience as much as possible, and seizing the opportunity to expand our own horizons, we spent one day in Furcy, south of Port-au-Prince, and up in the pine forests and mountains. It's amazingly fresh and cool, but you start to get a sense of the environmental degradation and the over-population.

There's a saying in Haiti: After the mountains, there are mountains. It's true for both geography and the socio/ economic/ political situation!

What could and probably should be wild and forested is precariously cultivated.

We saw a few cows and several goats by the roadside on the way up.

This is the pseudo-terraced agriculture that is the norm here. Each ridge is a carefully planted row of broccoli, cabbage, or beans. It's visually stunning but terrifying!

And everything is incredibly vertical.

I documented Amanda, documenting me, documenting her.... Guita had the best idea and just kept walking!

Love the cow!

As soon as you get to a place where tourists come regularly, the car gets mobbed by kids ranging in age from maybe 7 to about 15. All of them are "guides" who can take you to beautiful, special places. We elected to go with the guide from the restaurant we intended to eat at later, and he promised to take us to Bassin Bleu. Now, Bassin Bleu (the Blue Pool) is a very famous and beautiful landmark in southern Haiti. It is comprised of three pools with crazy beautiful jungle all around and sparkling, mineral-rich waters for bathing in. It's also a considerable distance from Port-au-Prince! I asked how far the walk would be, and the guide said about 90 minutes. We agreed to go, doubting strongly that we would see Bassin Bleu even though the Lonely Planet believes these guides. They eventually led us to this cute waterfall in a little stream with two men bathing in it. Our guide shooed the bathers (really, taking a bath, soap and all) out of the pool so we could see it without naked men. It was lovely, but it's not the real Bassin Bleu.

This is the real Bassin Bleu (one of the falls), not my picture. There are one or two slight differences!

But still, we're good little tourists, so we took a bunch of photos there.

Can you say environmental degradation? This is along the main/ only road to Furcy. It's truly a ridgeline road, and there are places where there's a 1.5 lane track with nearly sheer drops on both sides.

Here's the front view of the main/ only road.

I have a 100% photo of yellow flowers policy, and this is a particularly lovely yellow flower.














Then we went back to civilization and Port-au-Prince for a short, self-guided tour of some of the galleries. It was pretty cool, but Haitian art is perhaps not surprisingly expensive!

This says "diabetic cookie" and "diabetic cake." A lot of Haitians have diabetes and high blood pressure and obesity.

Besides a lot of really cool and some very good works of art and handicrafts, we saw a palm tree growing right through a building. You can find just about anything here!

This is a fairly standard traffic pattern in one of the nicer business areas of the Port-au-Prince sprawl. There are maybe half a dozen traffic lights in this part of town, and when one turns red, the ripple effect complicates everything.