The Market, Manba, and a Moto

The market for our area is a 6 dollar (Haitian dollars – so this is still less than one US dollar) moto ride away, in a district called Ka Fou Pwa.  It is on every Wednesday and Saturday, and I had been wanting to go for a while now.  Saturday morning I went with Guilene, one of the Haitian women who is sort of the boss of Matana while Mahalia and Raymond are away.  She speaks a little English, and combined with my tiny bit (but steadily improving) of Kreyol, it makes for just enough understanding between us that we can communicate decently. 

I went to the market mostly just to see it, but also with a short list of things Liz and I needed, including: mangos, passion fruit, oranges, eggs, Haitian peanut butter, toilet paper, D batteries for Liz’s fan (which I’m very jealous of), and sunglasses for me (because my one pair has so many scratches now its hard to see out them).  I probably should have thought this list through a bit better before I set out to buy it all and only brought a purse, but luckily Guilene had her backpack and helped me carry the heavy fruit. 

Abbey and Liz had warned me about the market, with regard to the unpleasant smells and sights I would experience; and I’ve been through some markets in villages in Poland with my grandmother so I wasn’t totally unprepared for it.  Still, I saw some parts of dead animals I never ever wanted to see, and I smelled some smells that words could never describe.  I definitely regret not getting a picture, and maybe I will get one at some point in the future. But there were just so many people, and so much movement and chaos I just couldn’t stop to take out my camera.  Plus, with how narrow the isles are, how fast Guilene walked, and how low hanging all the tarps and ropes are, I couldn’t take my eyes off where I was going for even a moment.

We were actually very successful at the market, with the only thing not found being the Haitian peanut butter (manba in Kreyol).  When I expressed how disappointed I was about this, Guilene, much to my delight, suggested that we just buy peanuts and she would make it for me.  This turned out to be a great activity because after she and the other girls roasted and salted the peanuts, Guilene came to get me and Liz asking if we wanted to go down to the neighborhood grinder to help her (because she has a bad wrist).  We were very happy to help, and it was really, really fun.  Haitian peanut butter’s secret ingredient is the fresh whole peppers that get grinded in with the peanuts; and it makes for the most delicious, slightly spicy, smoky, nut butter I’ve ever had.  I seriously need to start making Haitian peanut butter at my house (probably a food processor would do the job, although I’d honestly prefer the grinder).

Some of the cool murals at the park in Arcahaie

After gorging ourselves on our manba, we decided we needed to do something different and entertaining for the rest of our Saturday afternoon.  With Santho’s help we arranged a moto to pick us up and drive us to downtown Arcahaie, where there is a nice park and views of the ocean.

The ocean and a nice little donkey

We really just wanted to drink a Prestige (Haiti’s only beer brand) and sit by the ocean.  However, once we got down there we realized there was a soccer game going on, and this meant that all the bars and eating places were full of drinking men, so we took a walk around the big central park instead to try and come up with a safer plan.  We ended up calling one of our translators, Smith, (whom I’d run into at the market earlier) and he came to meet us in the park.  Smith probably speaks the best English of all the translators I’ve worked with here so far, in large part because he lived in Canada for almost 10 years.  With him by our side, we were brave enough to walk through some neighborhoods towards the ocean, and discovered a little tiny building that sold cold beverages, kind of like a walk-up drive through.  And, it was perfectly situated right on the edge of a little row of houses and less than 200 meters from the water.

We were able to get a beer and walk out to the water, where we discovered that while there was no beach to speak of, there were piles and piles of discarded conch shells (and trash of course).

Conch graveyard

After our little stroll by the ocean, our moto driver came back for us, and I finally got a picture showing how we squeeze on these little motorcycles and ride around.  #Blansandwhich? ;)