The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I meant to blog yesterday but between the busyness of yesterday, coming back to the Guest House at 7:30, eating dinner, and then having a long chat with Bryan... it didn't happen. However, yesterday was fairly eventful so I still wanted to blog about it. So here I am! Early Monday morning Beth update! w00t!

So yesterday was... (for the most part) good, but it also had some very strange parts in it that were not so good.

Starting at the beginning of the day, it was all good stuff. Robenson (one of my boys) came to visit me yesterday morning after breakfast and I got him to do his Michael Jackson dance for Oge. Hilarious. I also introduced him to some of the members of a group staying here for the week. He had a good time interacting with some new people and teaching them the patty cake game that I taught him.

Around 8:45 Bryan and I walked down to the Methodist church on Freres Campus. It's a middle to upper class church so it was HUGE and beautiful. We were soon joined by Mike and Nate and we all enjoyed the gorgeous singing in the gorgeous church together. They even sang a song that I knew in English! (I think it's called Agnus Dei.) Since I didn't have the words in Kreyol, I actually sang it in English so I could sing along. It felt good to finally know what they were singing! Haha.

After that we went back to the Guest House and prepared for our beach day of fun. Since Nate is here visiting, Mike wanted to do at least one fun thing while he's around. We decided to go to "Wahoo Beach" because we had heard it was fun - a sand beach with a live DJ. Awesome. So Mike, Doug, Bryan, Nate, Petersen, Donette, Ablamy, Davidson (as Donette and Ablamy care for Davidson and we wanted him to join us on this fun trip,) and I all piled into the van with Ablamy as our driver.

However, it was during our trip to the beach that the first bad thing occurred. I saw the first dead body I have ever seen in real life. And it was gruesome. We think a woman got hit by a car walking come from church as she was dressed in a nice blue dress. Also, there were several people gathered on both sides of the road looking at her body as well as a man with a rifle standing nearby to direct traffic to move around her. I wish I never saw it. Nate said that he didn't see her because he was paying attention to the man with the gun. I noted, "You're lucky. It's not really something you can un-see." That experience kind of put a damper on my mood, and the mood of the entire van for a while. Luckily, though, we soon found new things to laugh about and talk about and were able to put that picture in the back of our minds - although I do not think it can ever be erased completely.

About an hour after that traumatic experience, though, we arrived at Wahoo Beach. After parking we went to their restaurant - which is where the 2nd bad thing happened. The service at this place was TERRIBLE. Like, beyond bad. It's another long story, but it certainly put us in a bad mood. Luckily, though, there was the amazing Argentina/Mexico game on TV at the time so that put us in a better mood. Seriously, if you did not watch that game - you missed out. Also, if you did not watch that game in Haiti - you missed out. Haitians root for either Argentina or Brazil so it was a ton of fun to watch it with a room FULL of Argentina fans. Each goal was such a joyful experience it's hard to describe. By the time Argentina got their 3rd goal it was a full on celebration as everyone was fairly certain at that point that Argentina was going to win. Luckily, they did end up winning 3-1 and I am now an Argentina fan since USA is out of the World Cup.

Once the 3rd goal was made, I took Davidson and we got changed into our swim wear and then met up with Bryan, Nate, and Petersen on the beach. Davidson can't really swim so he was clinging on to me in the water at the beginning. He was cracking me up at how scared he was to let go in the water. Adorable. Donette, Doug, Mike, and Ablamy soon joined us in the water. We swam around, threw a soccer ball around, danced to the music provided by the (really good) DJ, and just had a generally great time. It was a good stress reliever. Relaxing, fun, cool time.

However, on the beach is when the 3rd bad thing happened. Two French men who had too much to drink got into a rather big fight. At first it started in the water, but their friends broke them up quickly and it never amounted to anything. However, they went up to the bar/DJ area and got back into the fight and started throwing punches. Apparently one guy also found a board and hit the other guy in the face with it. It was kind of scary, and none of the staff at Wahoo stepped in to calm it down. The guys friends kept on trying to hold them back - but they were drunk and angry so it was difficult. At this point to "create some order" one of the security guys at Wahoo fired a shot into the air. The whole beach went silent at that point and people started frantically moving out of water. No one knew where the shot came from at that point and so people tried to move back on land to figure out what was going on, as well as get to place where it would be easier to get away if things got out of control. Once everything calmed down, though, people got back into the beach, the music resumed, and people went back to having a good time. Crazy.

Around 5:30 we packed up and headed home, right as the rain started to come in. Overall, it was a great day - full of joy, laughter, relaxation, and friends. But those three things mixed in there just made it... strange. I'm hoping today will be less strange - but just as great.

Sending love your way,
Beth

P.S. Pictures from Wahoo Beach can be found here.