Haiti Journal Entry #6

Sat 04/10/10

Saturday was a bit of a lazy day for us. I was able to "sleep in" til 7am (thanks Dad) and we lounged around the rest of the morning. During this down time I took to my favorite part of the house, the outside balcony, and laid down in the sun for awhile with my ipod singing me to sleep. I did not use sunscreen for the entire trip and today it finally caught up with me. My feet were as red as a strawberry.

For lunch we all piled in the truck and went to a Baptist Mission. They served "american" food and I destroyed a submarine sammich. After lunch we put on our tourist hats and walked around the facility. We checked out the gift shop, a small museum, and a little zoo. Right outside the mission were some street vendors. My dad warned me about how persistent the vendors were but you don't really get it until you've done it. I had walked maybe 2 steps outside the mission and immediately 3 vendors came out of the bushes and started putting things in my face. I had sunglasses on which I think helped me because they could not tell which one of them I was looking at. I had already purchased all that I was planning on earlier in the week, so I had no intention of buying anything else, I just wanted to take a looksies. Every time I moved they would follow me, telling me to come look at their items. After saying "no merci" so much that it began to sound weird to me, I fled to the safety of the mission. Wrong. Realizing that some members of the team had bought some items, they followed us in. I took refuge in the areas that were unoccupied by vendors and waited until it was time to leave. Poor Doug (RN) has the unfortunate quality of not being able to tell someone no. He took his time and talked to every vendor trying to barter with them to a price that Doug wanted. After buying his first item, the sharks smelled blood in the water and they all came surrounding Doug. I think he had to buy another suitcase just to pack all his new items (jk).

We were able to spend the rest of the day at the house being lazy.