Excursion to (the real) Pétionville!

Every second Saturday the volunteers here at GLA get to go out on a little excursion somewhere! Today we went down to Petionville; the actual city of Petionville that is. That made me realize that I'm not sure what the exact name is of the town or region that I'm living in now is... Maybe just 'the outskirts of Petionville'? Addresses and whatnot are all somewhat vague or nonexistant in the Haitian countryside from what I've gathered. I haven't bothered giving anyone the address here anyway, as I doubt any letters/packages would make it here by the time I leave. It took one woman's package a year and a half to arrive here by normal mail, although it was intact when it did arrive!

Anyhow, it was very nice to venture outside of our little area here, and see a bit more of Haiti. Petionville isn't exactly the most beautiful of cities - it's mostly made up of ramshackle cinder block house and torn-up roads - but it's got character. We had some lunch, then went down to the downtown area where the main square and tourist vendors are. There are hundreds of paintings hung up on walls for sale, and the usual assortment of other touristy trinkets.

I'm sure there are some dangerous neighbourhoods, but overall it looked like a decently safe place. We crossed many UN patrol cars driving around town, and western-style stores (even grocery stores) usually feature armed guards and some type of barbed- or razor-wire fencing. The Haitians we crossed paths with were all very nice and polite, and unless they were trying to sell something, usually didn't give our group of 9 white girls a second glance. All of the handicrafts were quite cheap, but the stuff and food for sale in the western-style stores was usually almost double the price you'd pay back home. I suppose that importing small amounts of these 'luxury' goods into Haiti, that only a small amount of the population could ever afford, is expensive. Plus you'd have to allow for expenses like the armed guard, etc :)

On the way back we stopped at a lookout with amazing views of Port-au-Prince down below. You could pick out the Cathedral and Presidential Palace, and the huge cemetary (where apparently people pay to be buried only for a year, after which they're disenterred and 'transferred' to a mass grave on the edge of town). I didn't realize before planning my trip here that the island Christopher Colombus first landed on in 1492, Hispaniola, is the island made up of today's Haiti and Dominican Republic. It's still a beautiful island, although it's probably changed quite a bit since Colombus' day.