Rumbling through the streets of Grand Goave in a15-passenger van, I contemplated my surroundings. We had a couple hours to reach Port Au Prince, with lots of time to observe.
The smell in the air was the most powerful: a mix of car exhaust, rotten mangos and something indescribable mixed in. It filled my head with each breath.
The sounds of Haiti if you are driving include a great deal of honking – it seems the biggest vehicle gets the right of way and everyone else scoots around whatever car they can in the opposite lane of traffic. Drivers honk at just about anything in their way. Pedestrians definitely don’t have the right of way here.
Our driver Juliom whipped past motorbikes carrying anywhere from one to four people, close enough you could reach out and high five them. He honked at ambling bikers to get off the road and slowed down as we caught up with Tap Taps full of people piled inside squished shoulder to shoulder. Some sat on top, the wind whipping at them as they hung onto metal railings. Delivery trucks also seem to be passenger vehicles here. We watched as one man leapt onto the back of a truck using a knotted rope as support, flipping his body at least four feet up to the bed of the truck as it bumped along the road. Not exactly Canadian standards of safety apply here.
The other thing you hear a lot of is ‘Blanc, Blanc!’ People shouting ‘white, white’ as Justin and I sat in the second row of the van looking out. We’ve heard this phrase often since arriving. It’s a novelty having a group of white people. When we were in Mirebelais with the team from Chilliwack’s Southside Church, we heard this shout even more. Sometimes the team leader would smile and call back, ‘Yes, black!’ Many giggles from kids would quickly follow.
Along the sides of the road, there were always people. Some areas were teeming with people – women carrying buckets and baskets and bags on their head; children playing naked in the streams and along the roadsides, and men on their way to work, or sitting in the shade because there is not enough work for all. There is more than 80 per cent unemployment rate in this country, so there is a lot of sitting, and waiting, and wandering that seems to happen here.
Haiti has been an interesting country in which to start our Pockets of Change project. We had been warned of the dangers that exist in this country, and I believe there were angels protecting us as we walked and drove and slept in this country. Yet at the same time I saw such hope and such vision from the Christians here. They believe in a God that will save their land, and that’s encouraging to me. Yes, there’s poverty, spiritual darkness and many other problems. But God is bigger than all of that. And the Christians in this country know it. Praise God!
beautiful hope of Christians there, they know the size of their God