Most Haitian people get around by TapTap.. These are basically pick-up trucks with a roof on the back, and decorated in beautiful bright colours and always have phrases painted all over them like "Jesus revient" (Jesus is coming) or "L'enfer est réel" (hell is real) or my personal favourite, "Jusqu'ici l'eternel nous a secouru" (this one is too poetic to translate, but roughly means: to this point, eternity has saved us)
It costs between 5 and 10 gourdes for a journey which is about 10-20 euro cents. People pile in and hang off the back of them. Once I got one and had to sit on some man's lap as he carefuly opened my bag without me noticing.. unluckily stumbling upon my stash of tampons and hair clips. Sometimes, like today, you have to kind of run up behind one and jump on while it's still moving, it's pretty fun. Then once on, people always point out the fact that I'm white.. as if I hadn't noticed!
The one I was on today broke down, as they often do, and as I sat there peering out of the back - with everyone around peering back at me - I saw a dude in a big straw hat fill up a bottle from a running sewer and drinking it. No kidding. Bonjour Cholera!
Anyway, then I got out and walked the rest of the way through the hot streets of Delmas, the area I live in, with people shouting "Blanc, blanc!" at me, and women holding their babies up to me, with their hands out asking for money.
The TapTap experience is cheap and fun.. but most foreigners are discouraged from riding them.. safer than a motorbike though!
No comments:
Post a Comment