I’ll take Potpourri for $500, Alex

Rather than pick some theme or big event that happened lately, I thought I’d just relay a couple of short stories in today’s blog post…

When I’m working at Fonkoze, I have a cubicle that I share with two other older guys and there are about 20 or so people that work in my general open area. Usually there’s a radio playing music in the room with a wide variety of songs from Latin beats to soft rock straight from Delilah. I’ve found over the days that either these radio stations use a set playlist that repeats daily or they just happen to play Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” every single day! Anyways, yesterday as Shania Twain’s “From this moment” was playing in the office, I thought I noticed a different feel to the room. Perhaps a buzz. By verse two it was clear this song was a favorite as the 60 year old (approximately) man next to me was distinctly humming along. And then it gets to the climax of the song. The next thing I realize, the whole office is singing like they’re in the shower or something. “FROOOOOM. THIISSSSSSSSSS. MOOOOOMENT.” Not a care in the world. I was laughing hysterically (in my head of course) at the irony of country music popularity in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. They may not all speak English, but they sure know their 90’s hits.

I passed my first American restaurant today on the road today—Domino’s Pizza. I was out at a meeting up in the mountains where there are more wealthy foreigners living when the blue and red sign commanded my sight. Now I’m not a fan of Domino’s in the states thanks to its pizza’s precarious similarity to cardboard, but after rice and beans everyday, I might just have to splurge and have a slice down here in Haiti. We’ll see how long I can hold out.

On a similar note, the reason the meeting was up in the wealthy section of town is because all USAID and UN contractors are not allowed to come into Central Port-au-Prince (where I live and work) because it’s too “unsafe”. Meh, if you can’t handle a few protests and tear gas, then I’m not sure you’re meant to work in development.

And finally, last Friday I found myself getting rather sick as the day progressed. I mean I felt like crap. By 2pm my body ached, my stomach hurt, and after leaving work, I discovered I had a fever that was approaching 102 degrees. I don’t get fevers everyday. In fact, I can’t even think of the last time I had a fever. This coupled with the fact that I’m a serious hypochondriac meant in my head that I obviously had malaria :). It had been over 10 days since I got here which is the incubation period. I have tons of mosquito bites which is how you get malaria. And the high fever…I was convinced. Anyways, after making a few calls, I found a semi-English speaking doctor who told me to go to a hospital to get tested. I had no idea where this hospital was, how I was going to ask for a malaria test in Kreyol, or how much it would cost. I set off by myself thinking I could do it, and after one wrong turn, I found the hospital. It was miraculously nice (clean and new) and very close to my house. I walked in, laid out my situation in my best Kreyol, paid $12 USD, got a needle in my arm, and got my test results in 30 minutes. It was the easiest hospital experience of my life!! No insurance bills! No long lines! No doctor’s referral! Clean and courteous! And I didn’t have malaria! Within an hour, I was home and already starting to feel better—mainly I think because I managed to do it all by myself in a foreign language. Not gonna lie… I felt pretty accomplished and the sickness was gone in a day. Now the biggest problem is going to be resisting my hypochondriac temptation to get fast, cheap medical tests done all the time while I’m here :)

That’s all I got for today folks! Got any good ideas to write about in the future? Any questions you want answered? Send ‘em my way (via the comment link below) and be on the look out for my reply! 

P.S. As I was writing this post, I got asked to go to a pizza place right around the corner from my house. I gave in. It was way better than Domino’s!