Market Day

The days are full and I will need to do a catch-all post soon to get current, but I thought I'd take a few moments tonight to share some pictures from our trip to the market in Cap Haitien yesterday. (Melissa let me get a nap this afternoon and now, even though it's 11:00 pm, I'm still pretty awake!)

I haven't said a thing here yet about a pretty significant person in our family's life here: Ma Louis.  She cooks for us three nights a week - typically Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday - and goes to market for us on Fridays and brings all the fresh fruits and veggies back to the house afterward.  She is a fantastic cook and has such a sweet spirit and we all feel incredibly blessed to have her working with us.  (Since everything is cooked from scratch and there's no such thing as a Kroger a few blocks down the street, it would be literally impossible for Melissa and I to both work fulltime at Cowman and keep our family fed without Ma Louis' help.)

But Melissa has been itching to visit the downtown market firsthand and to see with her own eyes what is available in town and what is not.  Let me assure you, we both came home yesterday afternoon with a new appreciation for what Ma Louis accomplishes every Friday!

With our limited understanding of Creole and my timidity about driving in downtown traffic, our trip would not have been possible without the help of Melissa's teacher's aide (and friend!), Rose, and her husband, David.  With them as our tour guides, we were bound both to go elbow to elbow with the locals and yet avoid having to pay a much higher "foreigner price" for the food we wanted.

Rose and Melissa, ready to start shopping.

Most of the sellers had sidewalk space to spread out their wares while others walked among the crowd.  Most were not smiling - this was serious business and you can't smile and haggle over price at the same time!

Dried fish.  They smelled about as appetizing as they looked.  ;-)

Lots of careful consultation - and slow mental math - went into each purchase.  Figuring exchange rates does not yet come naturally to us and it's all a bit extra-confused by the fact that sometimes you are given a price in "goudes" and sometimes in "Haitian dollars".  There are five goudes in a Haitian dollar and 43 goudes to the American dollar.

Melissa considered getting a papaya, since we haven't had any yet, but the price wasn't right.

Almost burned my ankle on this makeshift grill - those are the tips of my shoes in the lower left hand corner. If this had been Indiana corn, I would have bought the whole lot.

After lunch at a bakery downtown and then saying goodbye to Rose and David, we came home with plenty of fruits and veggies to get us through the next week. 

Every bit of produce here has to be soaked at least ten minutes in bleach water before being stashed away in the freezer or fridge.  Here we have some peppers, tomatoes, green onions, limes and eggs all bathing together.

Nothing quick and easy about any part of the process, but a sense of accomplishment when we were done!

And I used to gripe about going to Walmart!  ;-)