Anyway, as much as possible I had hoped to Vlog rather than blog, but I just dont get on with technology and I cant get the stupid @#$%^camera to download! I have some great movies but only I can see them. You'll have to come round for a drink sometime!
Do you remember the old days when you were invited round to the neighbors for dinner on the pretense of watching their holiday slides? No one owns a projector screen nowadays, do they?
My host and friend is Claire. she is a buxom bar wench from Berkhampstead (as she calls herself in the lonely hearts ads) and she says that no two days are ever the same. Yesterday we were in Esperanza delivering Birth certificates for Haitian adults, some old enough to be our parents. We ask an elderly gnarled haitian gentleman called Lauirison how old he is. '45' hereplies with a twinke in his eye. Upon questioning the truthfulness of this, he replies 'I dont f@#$%^g know and what do I care!!'
No one celebrates your birthday and the months merge into years. Specific age is of no consequence. Its not as if there's a state pension to look forward to!
I spend time with my best little friend Eriason who befriended me about 4 years ago. He follows me around shouting 'Jon Cobb is gay!!!' he loves to goads me into a grapple, and you sense it may be some of the only boyish attention he will recieve that day. He's fiercely loyal to me and I love him to bits. He's about thirteen, seen more of life than most kids should at that age but has a wonderful innocence at the same time. Clare showed her true loving heart by bringing him to the airport to meet me. I was gobsmacked, & Debbie just cried.
Today we went to Ascention which I first visited in 2005. Its fair to say you learn from your mistakes and its a village beset with challenges, none more so than the inhabitants expect every gringo to give them something. You have to keep reminding yourself that you might well be no different if you had nothing. Anyway, lets focus on the positives: The women of the village had set up a co-operative selling clothes and with the proceeds were communally feeding 200 children. I washed up 200 cups, spoons & plates in cold water with the water never changed....The meal had been a chicken broth and by the end I was foraging through a thick layer of soupy sludge to find the cutlery which had sunk to the bottom. Lovely!!
Like I said, no two days the same.
Highs: Seeing my boys and getting the gua gua which is a little minibus but which actually had 20 people in it at one point (3 hanging on the door!)
Low point: Sharing a taxi with a very pretty & curvy girl & her pimp
At last. In the background whilst writing this blog I have actually been downloading to Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAYIXLgNOAo&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64dAIr_AjEM
No comments:
Post a Comment