We went to the art center where a womens group was giving a presentation about child domestic servants. There were many powerful stories, many from a single woman. When she was eleven she was not able to wash the dishes one night, and when the mother of the family she was working for was not satisfied by her reasons, she was hit across the face with one of the unwashed pans. Several weeks later this woman was bathing and did not here the woman calling her, when she came back, the husband took a wire and hit her, leaving bruises for a month. I knew of child servants in Haiti, but I had no idea what a problem it was. One thing I have learned over my visit is how strong Haitian women are. Not only do they spend half the day cooking, but perform ask that would wear out anyone from the States in minutes. Just this morning I came across a woman who lives next door carrying a five gallon bucket, completely full of water on her head, and a gallon jug in each hand. I took the jugs as we climbed back towards our houses, a 20 minutes walk that is very step and very hot.

We eat two meals a day, and though these are extremely healthy and delicious, there is little variation and not a whole-lot. We have a light breakfast of spaghetti noodles in ketchup and hot sauce or a scrambled egg, and the a large lunch of; rice and beans with veggie stew, palenta with bean broth, samosa like pockets of onions with beans and rice, or just strait rice and beans. I eat a lot of rice and beans. a lot. I’ve had meat twice, once the veggie stew had a couple slices of beef, and another time I had half of a fried hot dog with my rice and beans. We eat a ton of this heavy, dense white bread. We tear chunks of and each bite takes a few minutes to chew. There is also a lot of fruit, some amazing mangoes and he best avocado of my life. So exotic ones as well, abico, green shells filled with a sour slime, small cherry-mangos, and massive passion fruits ground into a juice. I had some sugar cane too, that was really good.

Last night my sister went into our portion on the house and spotted a tarantula. She ran back and find Mariam and I at the school, and we returned and told our host mother about it. She laughed and promptly took off her shoe, chased it around the rom and squashed it with a satisfying slap. It was a small one by their standards, only four inches. I later went into our room and killed a few 2 inch cockroaches. These I can handle, but the massive spiders are another matter. Earlier today I walked into the room and spotted a moth or butterfly on the wall with a wingspan of at least 8 inches, more like 10. Chris told us a funny story about a friend in Port-au-prince, when she spotted a large tarantula in her shower she went and found her gardener. When seeing it, he took of his shoe as if to slap it, but quickly stomped on it with his bare boot. Upon seeing the expression on his employer’s face, shrugged and said “new shoes”.