Where no white man has been before

I can hardly begin to explain to you what I experienced yesterday. This might not make any sense at all but I am going to try.

Ok so the Haitian government is building a road through the mountains to connect two of the main highways in the country. We live closer to the beginning of the road. Mr. Zach got a new truck yeserday and it is a super awesome utility vehicle (they don't even make it in the States) so we wanted to take the new truck as far as we could. We drove for an hour and half up into the mountains and we finally found the end of the road.








The views were unreal. I know it might be hard for you to believe this, but in places, Haiti is so gorgeous. I have been to the Rocky Mountains (even in Canada) countless times and spent a week in the Grand Canyon last year, but today was really different for me. You could see forever and there was just one mountain after the other. The thing is, we were the only car on this road and you feel like you are in a completely uncharted territory, then literally out of the bushes runs a group of half naked kids who live with their families an 8, 10, or 14 hour walk from any sign of civilization. It was bizarre. There appears to be no water source, no market. Nothing. We would pass people in our truck who were walking up these mountains and probably had been all day. 6 year olds carrying jugs of water. A pregnant women with a 25 lb sack of rice on her head. I felt like a speck of worthlessness on this earth. My life is so easy.

Before this road was built in the last few months, there were only footpaths in these mountains. So besides the few small villagers tucked away here and there, very few people have probably been up there. Who knows if many white people have?

As we are approaching the end of the roadwork we saw a group of very old buildings from a distance. When we got down there, we found a path and hiked a little ways up, only to discover it was a fort! None of the villagers around could tell us anything about it, but we know Haiti fought for it's independence around 200 years ago so they could be that old. They were so awesome.











It was peaceful, and quiet, you could just sense that this place was untouched. Everywhere you could see looked like a place where man has not invaded and destroyed. At first I felt sorry for them but then I grew jealous of these mountain people whose life is so organic and no polluted by man's progress. It was like traveling back in time. They have nothing but they need nothing.

You are probably thinking okay Caroline, what is in the water you are drinking down there? But seriously, it is very hard for me to put into words how I felt yesterday. I just wanted to take a million pictures with my mind, but even those couldn't explain.

Why don't you just come see for yourself?



On a completely different note, I did something so incredibly out of character today. I RODE ON THE BACK OF A MOTORCYCLE. I have had the mom gene in me my whole life (example: I used to yell at all the other kids to stop running around the pool for fear of someone splitting their head open) but for some reason today I had a momentary lapse of judgement. We were on our way back from church and Mr. Zach had a meeting in another town so the choices were to stay in the car and wait or ride a moto back home. Guess I just really wanted to come home and read my book this afternoon. Oh and I was wearing a skirt. And it started raining. Good times in Haiti :)