Journals from Haiti

After coming home, we decided to rest for about an hour before going to the market where we’d buy most of our souvenirs.

The market, a little way down the road from the Moores’ house, was a long line of small connected stalls, each with a number. Some shops were completely full of paintings - beautiful, vivid masterpieces of varying colors and styles. Others had clothing, jewelry, stone carvings, and other trinkets. Some had a variety.

I looked at the jewelry and carved turtles in a few shops and said I would keep looking and come back. I wanted to see everything before I decided. I ended up buying some jewelry for my mom, my sister, and myself, and a carved stone turtle, both in other shops. The stone merchant carved my name in the turtle.

We were heading toward the entrance to leave when one of the previous merchants ran up to me with a turtle all ready in a bag, offering it at a lower price. I hadn’t come back, and now I had no money left. I apologized but felt horrible. I’d spoken casually, not meaning to lie, but you really have to mean what you say here.

As we walked out, Pat said there was a U.N. tank approaching. I called “hola!” and waved. Most of them only looked at us and maybe smiled. My eyes followed the vehicle, searching for someone I recongnized. In the back of the tank, one soldier with sunglasses and a familiar face raised his hand in salute.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 4:53 pm and is filed under Cap Haitien. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.