To Market to Market...

Market Day

Today is market day. We went into Petionville to buy fruit. On Tuesdays we buy vegetables at a market near us, but Friday is the day to get fruit in Port-au-Prince. The market here is always hot and crowded. Getting to the market is quite an experience. It can be an all day adventure.

An amazing lady, LiAnne, helps us to barter for food. She has the right skin tone in order to get a better price and she speaks the language. David though came along (since school is on break for Christmas) and is now pretty much a translator for us as well. It is amazing how much easier it is for the kids to pick up a new language than for us to acquire this skill.

Goats on a Tap Tap

One of the most interesting things in Haiti is watching what and how various things are being transported. All kinds of bagays (almost sounds like "bad guys") are transported to and from the market. I remember years ago hearing the word bagay over and over again and asking what it means. Apparently it just means "thing", but it is used frequently because Creole has a pretty limited vocabulary. Many things actually do not even have a name. They are simply a '"thing". So, people are always referring to that "thing" or this "thing", but if you do not know the context, you have absolutely no idea what thing they are referring to.

Local transportation is typically by tap tap. Usually people recognize tap taps as the bright colored little trucks, but tap taps can actually be just about anything with 4 wheels that hopefully gets you from point A to point B. This costs around 15 Gourdes (less then 50 cents US).

Of course, if you are transporting your goats or sheep to market, you would pay a small fee per animal as well. We have literally seen hundreds of sheep alive tied upside down on the outside of tap tap and then also crammed in the back of the truck as well. It's quite impressive!

Gourdes (Goo-dz) vs. Haitian Dollars (Doo-laz) vs. US Dollars (A-merry-cane)

The money system is interesting as well. They have Haitian gourdes (goo-dz) that exchange at 43 to 1 US Dollar. But they also equate things based on Haitian dollars. The confusing part of this is that there are actually no Haitian dollars. For example, when LiAnn went to buy fruit, she asked for 500 dollars which is 2500 gourdes. It's an odd system. Everything is referenced in dollars which is approximately 8 Haitian dollars to 1 US dollar or 5 gourdes to 1 Haitian dollar. But again, it's confusing because the only actual currency they have is the gourdes. So, if they give you a price in dollars you have to calculate how many gourdes that is (once you've clarified that it's not in US dollars) and then pay them in gourdes. I'm not exactly sure why they created the Haitian dollar at all, but we are practicing our math skills by using this system. Just one of the many interesting things we are learning!