the road travelled

Haitians pack into cars and trucks. They also overload dump trucks used for hauling rocks, bottles, wood and people. Rarely does a car make it far down a road without friends and acquaintances hailing a “lib” (free ride). The roads mostly suck too; except for the one that the Taiwanese helped build. This makes for rather precarious situations, as one would imagine. Today, on the rocky dirt road leading to our property (shown above during a dry spell so imagine it now, after a night of torrential rain), a large dump truck tipped over trying to carry a heavy load of cement and rocks. The debacle blocked the cars coming out to the farm from town. Since no one could see what happened at first, rumor had it that the surrounding villagers had dug a trench in the road in protest (they want Pwoje Espwa to fix the road and show their annoyance rather aggressively at times).After breakfast, we made it out of the farm slowly because we got stuck behind an enormous dump truck filled sky high with people and stuff (picture not possible, unfortunately). It looked, at every rut, as though it might tip over, spilling Haitians off the top and into the roadside canals. This happens at times, but when you see the state of even the paved roads and the bridges, one must marvel that it doesn’t happen far more.

This picture shows an unfinished bridge on the Taiwan-Haitian road.
This picture shows a slow attempt to improve another bridge.