Well from my previous post it almost seemed like Spring Break was nothing but work for us. However, Lorraine and I did get our hands into some fun.

The first piece of fun we experienced was going to the beach. Now, to set this up I must say that we live no more than a quarter of a mile from the beach, but the beach by us is not a beach you would take friends for a chance to get your feet into some sand. First of all, there is really no sand, because up to the very edge of the water there is dead coral. And more importantly the beach is completely covered in trash and there are pigs roaming through and munching on this trash. To this I must say that I am not kidding, and I am telling the truth. All this to say that this Spring Break beach trip would not just be a walk up the road to hang-out with the pigs, but it would be a journey to another part of Haiti that has a sandy beach.

In order to make this journey, everyone who went (and there were a bunch of us) needed to fit into a big ford truck. For the ones that could not fit in the cab, there responsibility was to ride on the back of truck. I decided to be a gentleman and let Lorraine ride up front, and I offered to ride in the back. I did not truly mind that much, though, because I excited about the adventure at riding to a new area of Haiti in the back of a truck. As it turns out, the journey to the beach took about 45 minutes to an hour. We drove through Port-de-Paix, drove literally through a river, drove through the country, and finally arrived at the beach. The vegetation in the area where the beach was looked very similar to the vegetation that we experienced on a daily basis in Arizona. This, I think, was a little surprising to both Lorraine and I; because for the first time since we left Arizona in January, we saw a cactus.

The beach was pretty nice (as you can see from the pictures below), but still not as nice as what I am used to. The water is beautiful and clear, but there was not much sand at the beach at this time. We through the frisbee, we laid out, and we swam, but we could do none of this without an audience. Because of the color of our skin we are quite an attraction anywhere we go in Haiti, and because of our skin color people also just assume that we have money. This is something that we have just had to get used to since we have been here in Haiti, because being a spectacle takes time to get used to. Even though, in can get annoying at times we also understand where the people are coming from, and we never feel threatened by the people; for they are all sweet and good natured people.

On the way back from the beach, we started to have a little trouble with the brakes on the truck. Obviously in any place or situation, this is not good, and especially so if you could have seen where we driving and what we were driving on. Anyways, on our way back we returned back to the river to get ready to cross, when all of the sudden our brakes went out and we crashed into a fence. Yikes! Luckily, at this point we were not going very fast at all, and no one was thrown out of the back of the truck; we were all just scared. I need to make one other observation about the back of the truck: in the back of the truck we road by sitting on this side of the truck. This is not something I was used to, and is not something I necessarily want to get used to. After riding there and back on the side of this truck, my rear felt like I would need to carry an inflatable donut around with me to ease the discomfort. Eventually, though, I got used to the ride, and this helped the overall trip to be very fun and very eye-opening.

Posted above this post will be some other pictures from our beach journey. Spring Break Shenanigans Part III will be coming soon.