House Hunters Haiti Edition

Conundrums continued. Over the weekend we looked at several more houses and out of those have added a third possibility to the list. Each member of our house has personal likes and dislikes with each. I personally want the kitchen and open floor plan from one house, the rooftop patio with cooler breeze, built in closets, and my own bathroom from another, the two house layout and convenient closeness to the school of another, and the list goes on. If only we could pick and choose and conglomerate. But we can't. Someday life will be perfect and everything will come together just as it should. But in the unbalanced broken present I find it quite amazing that the Lord has shown us three possible affordable options all within 100 yards-1 mile of where we currently work and live. Honestly, we do not want this just to be about our personal preferences. We want to choose the house that is not only a good fit for our family but also a place of hospitality that will be a good fit for others to come and stay. We will have to deal with issues of transportation, electricity, laundry, and personal space in any of the three houses we choose. This is just part of living in Haiti. Our problem is that we can't decide which issues we would rather deal with over others. What we want to know is if you came to visit us which of the following would be your preference? We would like to hear from those who have experienced Haiti and plan to return, those who plan to visit Haiti (us?) in the future, and friends already living in Haiti whom we hope will come stay with us when they come this way to go to the beach. Your votes would really help us make a decision. At least I hope. I really hope we don't end up with equal # of votes for all houses. If we do, we will probably draw a # out of a hat!

House #1.

Starting/asking price =$8,000/yr. 
Negotiated price=$6,000/yr. (we think they will take $5,000)

Side of house that is on our current street.
Stairway leads to roof with lovely view.

Other side of house.
Genise quarters top left.
Guest quarters top right.
Common area in the middle.
Ream family quarters on the bottom.

Bottom half of house entry way.

This is the first house we found that we deemed a possible good fit. I talked about it already and posted pics HERE. 

Positives for House #1: 

House #1 is the closest to the school we work with. It is literally across the street from the elementary building where our children attend. This is not only a convenience for us but also for teams coming to work with the school and staying with us.

House #1 has 7 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 2 separate kitchens, and 2 separate common living areas. It is essentially two separate appartments. Our family would use the apartment on the bottom floor that has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, living, dining and kitchen areas. The top floor would be for guest and Genise (our Haitian friend who lives and works with us). One side (that can be partitioned off from the main living areas) has two bedrooms and a bathroom in between. Genise would be using these rooms and would have access to upstairs kitchen where she would help prepare food for visitors. There are two additional guest rooms on the other side of the upstairs with a bathroom in between and another room where we could put extra bunk beds if we need more room for guests. There is an entry way room upstairs that I would plan to use as a souvenir shop. We want to be able to help local artisans and also give support to other great organizations in Haiti. We would have items for sale from different ministries and artisans we know from different parts of Haiti. St. Marc does not have anywhere good to shop where we can send teams who want to take things home from Haiti, and there is usually not time or a way to get people around to shop in other cities. So we would like to have Haitian made items available to support our Haitian friends and ministries. I plan to have a Haiti shop in whichever house is chosen, but House #1 and House #3 actually have entry way rooms that would be specifically suited for this purpose. In summary for this part, having two kitchens and separate living quarters is a VERY BIG POSITIVE. This is the only house that has two kitchens though House #3 does have separate floors of bedrooms and living quarters. The layout of House #1 gives the most privacy to everyone.

House #1 has easy access stairs to a flat roof with a beautiful ocean view. The roof would also be a perfect spot for a rooftop gardening project. Anyone staying here will definitely experience what it is like to live in a neighborhood in Haiti. I'm not promising all those experiences will be pleasant, but there will be people observed and perspectives gained that we think should be counted as positives.

Negatives for House #1:

House #1 needs repair work. Some of this the landlord has agreed to do before we move in such as: fix the concrete on driveway, raise security walls, and patch and paint over wall areas in disrepair. The things we would have to fix ourselves include installing kitchen cabinets and preferably new countertops in the upstairs kitchen, reparing tiles and fixing up at least two of the bathrooms, installing concrete or metal railing along rooftop (for safety reasons), installing lights and/or ceiling fans, installing some form of closets in bedrooms, making sure windows are screened and secure, and installing good locks on all gates outside. We are not handy enough nor do we have the tools necessary to complete these kind of projects on our own. We would need help. Any volunteers?

House #1 biggest negative at this point is that we do not have a decent electricity source. The other two houses have their own transformers/meters that plug into EDH (Electricite d' Haiti)/city power which is not very reliable, will give power more often than one without a transformer. Transformers and/or wiring to a transformer are expensive. We already have an inverter and batteries that can be charged whenever EDH is given, but we would need to purchase a generator asap as well. We do realize that we will need to purchase a generator eventually no matter where we are, especially if we have a lot of people living in or visiting the house that use up electricity. The generator we need costs $10,000. We were hoping to purchase a car for about the same amount. :( Never again will I complain about air conditioning bills in the U.S. What I am talking about here is just to keep power on so we can have lights and fans. 

House #1 is on the same busy dusty road where we currently live. It will be dusty. It will be loud though I think not as loud as our current house. There will be mosquitoes. It will be hot though I think not as hot as House #2.

Eric says that it is not a fair that I did not take any pictures of the inside of House #1 (hence the previous long explanation). There is a reason for that. The inside has been filthy each of the 5 times we have looked at it. I will admit that pics from the inside of this house would not look like pics from the other two houses. However, this house has good bones and I think once we moved in, I got busy cleaning and decorating and we got some help to fix the things that need fixing, it would be a great house. This house represents more of what I feel a home should look and feel like. My imagination transcends the dust, peeling paint, bare bones bedrooms, and kitchen cabinets in need of repair. What I see is potential. I see curtains on the windows. I see cute. Eric's imagination does not work that way at all. It is for this reason that I showed him house #2. 

House #2

Starting/asking price =$12,000/yr.
Negotiated price=$8,400/yr.

Behind that graffiti is...

A very pretty house.

See that door. It is the entry point from an actual garage that has an actual garage door and doesn't take up the entire rest of the driveway outside play space.

Even though there are 3 fewer bedrooms in this house (as opposed to house options #1 and #3), there is lots more open floor space to accompany lots of people!

The reason it will be hard to not choose this house. 

The 3 existing bathrooms are all nice and clean.
There is one bathroom upstairs that is completely unfinished.
Anyone want to volunteer to tackle that?

Built in bookshelves under stairs.
This house has many great features.

The upstairs boast a spacious floorplan as well.
This room at the top of the stairs would be a family/movie/game/hangout room.

Part of one of the bedrooms.
The upstairs bedrooms have very high ceilings but no closets.
Pretty, but hot because heat rises.
The very large downstairs master/guest room has a large built in closet and its own bathroom.
All 4 bedrooms are large and light and clean feeling.

Back porch area is nice but small.
This house has a few trees the other houses do not have.

Positives for House #2:

House #2 as you can see from the pictures is beautiful, clean and other than (if deemed necessary) installing the upstairs bathroom, has no repair work that we can see.

House #2 has its own transformer (electricity meter) on a pole that is inside the gate of the house. 

House # 2 seems safer (though we have not experienced any safety problems in our current neighborhood). Eric thinks he would feel more comfortable leaving us here when he goes on trips to other areas in Haiti and if he has to travel to the states for speaking engagements.

House #2 has A GORGEOUS KITCHEN with hookups in an enclosed cabinet for a washing machine!

House #2 has a hot water heater (though we would probably rarely use it more than 1 month out of the year).

House #2 does not have much space around the house for playing and for dogs, but it does have more than House #1 and House #3.

House #2 is on the corner of two paved streets. This will help with dust.

House #2 puts a distance between home and work. This could be a good thing. It is also a hardship as mentioned in negatives.

Negatives for House #2:

House #2 is more expensive (though we can justify that we could spend this much or more for house #1 in repairs).

House #2 is on the corner of a very busy street in town. Because the street is paved it will help with dust. It will not help with noise. 

House #2 will be loud even with windows closed and louder with them open.

House #2 has 3 less bedrooms that the other 2 houses. We think it would still work well for guests, but not for Genise (and family) to live with us. Because it is such an open floorplan there would be much less privacy. We have decided that if we move to this house Genise and Evangeline will not be able to live with us much longer. That thought makes us sad, though we have talked to her about it and she is ok with it. It will just put a different (not necessarily bad) spin on life for everyone.

House #2 is the farthest away from our school. We have arranged a ride coming that way to take Eric and the kids to school in the mornings and possibly bring them home in the afternoons. But we know there will be times when we have to take/pay for multiple motorcycle rides. It would be very difficult for Genise to run her snackshop business at the school if she is not within walking distance of the school. It will be harder for me to watch her nursing baby if she is not close by. It will be harder for me to go back and forth to the school to help out and teach my reading classes. These are the immediate concerns but might only last for about 2 months until school is out for the summer. Lord willing, we will have a vehicle before the next school year begins.

 House #2 has no view. The house itself is pretty but there isn't anything lovely about its surroundings. Because there is no elevation and no sea breeze, the house seems to be hotter than our other options. Mosquitoes do not like breezy. They do like hot. We can spray and use nets but...

House #3

Starting/asking price=$7,000/yr.
Negotiated price=(think we can negotiate between $5-6,000)

We would have to change the name from "Hospitality House" to "Hospitality Hotel"!
This house has a very unusual front in that it does not have an outer gate or barbed wire/broken bottles encircling it.
Hence, like in this picture the neighbors will be hanging out on the front steps. 

Breakfast and living area on the 2nd floor.
The 2nd floor also has 3 bedrooms and a bathroom.
Genise would take one bedroom and we would have two more for guests.

This kitchen needs some help.
It does have a lovely ocean view outside the sinkside window.
It could be made cute with its brick countertops and country wood cabinets if not for the gaudy pillars that grace the entry to the kitchen in the picture above.
They did say they would fix the cabinets.
I would have to put an oven with stovetop where the refrigerator is and put the refrigerator in the adjoining breakfast room. I am pretty bummed with such a tiny kitchen for such a big house, but we could make it work.
Any kitchen would be a great improvement.
It doesn't really matter I suppose. Because unless the house has two kitchens (like House #1) or Genise does not live with us (like House #2), I will not be in the kitchen much at all.
Genise is always in the kitchen as are the majority of Haitian women. It is just how it is.
There is typically no room there for me.
It's a good thing I don't particularly like to cook.

Bedrooms are adequate size with nice paint.
4 of the 6 bedrooms have built in closets.
We can choose to use some of the furniture if we like, though I'm not sure that is included in price.

All 3 bathrooms look functionable and clean.

3rd floor living space.
Small but neat.
If. Only. It. Had. A. Kitchen. Up. Here.
There is an area to the left that would make a great little kitchen.
But unfortunately there is a giant concrete bar area there that is blocking any makeshift kitchen I might invent.
We asked if it could be removed or just moved out a little ways.
The owner didn't like that idea.
There are 2 bedrooms to the right and a master bed and bath to the left on this floor as well as another bathroom.
This would be our family living area.

Open air windows on the 2nd and 3rd floors let in the breeze and view.
They are up high enough where the dust and mosquitoes don't seem to be a problem.

Ethan enjoying the roof.
I do like it that there is railing around the sides!
This would be the only outside playspace other than the front outside of house that is on the road.

The rooftop has a really nice serving area!
First house purchase would probably be a grill!

There is this really cool thatched roof around the bar area! The roof would be a fun hangout place. It is neat to sit up there and observe the surrounding sights.
There is also a bathroom on the roof.

The breeze and view from the rooftop is amazing!
This pic does not at all do it justice!

Positives for House #3: 

House #3 is still within walking distance of the school. It isn't too long of a walk and would give us some great exercise every day.

House #3 is probably going to be the least hot house due to the large open windows. There are windows with glass that open and close in the bedrooms and living area on second floor. The main problem with open air Haitian houses (and the reason I didn't want another one) is because they let in a lot of dust and mosquitoes. We've been told the mosquitoes are not as bad here probably due to the elevation and good flowing breeze. I did not experience any mosquitoes. Because the road leading to the house is paved and because the house goes straight up, dust didn't seem to be such a huge problem either except on the first floor.

House #3 has only one room other than the garage on the first floor that would be a great spot for the souvenir shop I mentioned earlier! Otherwise that room could be used for an office or storage.

House #3 has it's own electricity transformer/meter. 

House #3 has built in closets and we might even be able to use some of the furnishings we like already in the house. There isn't much we would have to buy/fix on this house.

House #3 has the best views and has easy access to hiking the hills behind the house. The awesomeness of the roof of House # 3 almost comes close to the kitchen in House #2. 

Negatives for House #3:

House #3 has no place I can think of to do laundry. There is always laundry being done, so this is a problem for us (not for guests).

House #3 has no outside space surrounding the house other than the rooftop.

House #3 has less than desireable kitchen. Kitchen is in use nearly 100% of the time.

House #3 has some gaudy components that I detest, but know I simply cannot be that picky. Such components include giant bar areas that take up space along with giant gaudy painted pillars. And unfortunately for this Aggie, the master bedroom is painted nicely in a very distasteful orange. I told Eric that would have to go. He refused to budge on that one because he is not an Aggie.


Well, there you have it. Please cast your votes for the place you would most likely want to stay if/when you come see us in Haiti!

How We Ride

Haitian tap-tap

Sometimes we have to get to other areas of Haiti for meetings, to pick up supplies we can’t find in St. Marc, pick up our mail through Missionary Flights, Intl., and to connect with other ministries and friends. Sometimes we are able to catch rides with friends heading the same direction. Every other time we are forced to take local transportation if we want to go ANYWHERE. Not having a vehicle is an unfortunate hardship. But this is not at all meant to be a vent session about that. We are thankful for these experiences (though we would be immensely thankful for a vehicle too)! We believe that if we are going to serve in Haiti long term that it is fortunate to have had experiences that help us identify with the common people in a way we would not have been able to otherwise. I remember when I first posted on Facebook that I had taken my first trip on a tap-tap. Long term missionaries and mk's commented that they had never been on a tap-tap. Some of these have spent more than 10+ years living in Haiti. I know very few foreigners that ride tap-tap to get around Haiti, and absolutely none with families as large as ours. I’m not saying they should. I would not wish the tap-tap on anyone. If we had a vehicle we certainly would not be riding tap-tap either. I decided on our most recent tap-tap trip to Port au Prince that something MUST be done about the tap-tap! Riding tap-tap is generally a miserable experience. Breathing car exhaust, city pollutants and the smell of sweaty bodies piled on top of one another and pushed and shoved until there isn’t a square inch left makes me want to vomit just thinking about it. 

Something snapped inside me on my last recent tap-tap experience. As I sat there in utter discomfort I looked around and mourned for the people of Haiti. The manner in which human beings are often treated during a tap-tap experience is nothing short of inhumane. We might as well be cattle. If chains were added to the equation, the inside of a fully loaded enclosed tap-tap (with 23-29 people on one small truck in addition to their bags and chickens) reminds me of the inside of slave ships carrying Africans to the Americas. A holy discontent with this situation for the people of Haiti rose within my spirit. I am praying for someone to campaign for government officials to place and strongly enforce legal limits for the # of people that can be shoved onto Haitian tap-taps and buses. Lord please don’t let it be me! But if that’s why you gave us these experiences then so be it. People should not be treated like cows just so the driver or business owner can make a few extra gourde! I don't really think Haitian goverment officials care about the tap-tap predicament. But what if there was some powerful media showing the way in which people are treated (not a few people in some remote location but thousands of people every day on the public roads of Haiti)? What if Haitians themselves were willing to say, "I bought a seat but only received 1/3 of it and I'm tired of my family being herded like cattle on the way to get my kids to school"! Maybe just maybe other Haitians would stand up for themselves too. Maybe they could all just refuse to take tap-tap for a few days until the tap-tap owners agree to only selling a humane # of seats. So there's my soapbox for the week. Seriously, there are many greater tragedies here that surpass the tap-tap, but this is one that is staring everyone in the face every day and everyone just accepts it while photojournalist comment about the merry little trucks that brighten Haiti's dingy streets. Have those same journalist ever ridden inside one...a very full one? I'm pretty sure they would tumble out as dizzy and nauseous as everyone else thinking "merry"? Miserable.

Sometimes tap-taps have tops and sometimes they don't. 

Not all trips are as bad as others. Every now and then we don’t feel like cattle, but we always feel squished. Just when you think there is ABSOULTELY NO WAY another body can fit inside vehicle, six more bodies will somehow mold in around you.

Here's a rendention of our personal experience. Genise, baby and I leave house at 5am with backpacks and flashlights in tow. We walk until we can flag down two “taxi” motorcycles happening to drive by in the dark on a Saturday morning. We usually have to walk and wait for a while. Moto taxi takes us to the tap-tap station where we get on a tap-tap van headed toward Port au Prince. We climb toward the back of the fifteen passenger van and pile all our stuff and baby on top of us. When twentysix people have been crammed inside, the van decides to finally take off. Twentyfour of the twenty six people (minus the driver and his money collecting helper who both have seats) have paid for seats. Not all Haitians are skinny. One trip I will never forget I got stuck next to a big mama who was at least three of me. She was tired. Her head kept flopping back and forth and hitting mine hard (because there was only an inch of room in between our heads). I was holding the baby and big mama kept elbowing Evangeline in the head. I eventually exchanged Evangeline to her mother for all our bags she was holding and pushed big mama’s head toward the back of the seat in front of us. That didn’t work at all.

We finally arrive at the muddy stop in Cite Soleil (one of the worst slums in Haiti) so that we could unstick ourselves and pile out to find the next lovely ride. Next up is the tap-tap I described earlier. Fun stuff. Thankfully it isn’t too piled up because we just have to travel a few miles to the bus station.

The bus isn’t usually so terrible IF you catch it very early in the morning and manage to snag a seat. It is always still packed and loud and stinky.

Last weekend we did this same charade toting four kids with all our stuff and left Genise and baby at home…meaning we decided we can finally navigate without a Haitian holding our hand. Exactly two years ago we brought a team from our church in the U.S. to Haiti and visited Cite Soleil on one afternoon. In order to do so it was deemed necessary to have secure vans with tinted windows and two armed security guards accompanying us. Now here we are toting our kids by ourselves in overcrowded local transportation and pushing and shoving and barking in Creole right along with them. Funny how much can change in two years. Not so funny that we drove through an area that had just had some sort of manifestation and UN soldiers had sprayed tear gas. The widows in the fifteen twentysix passenger van had holes in them. 

So, now we know what tear gas feels like.

Evan had just about had enough by the time we got to the bus station. We missed the bus and had to take a caged tap-tap…the cattle prodding kind. We were some of the first to hop on and got seats. I had held Evan in my lap (because he is small and they don’t count him as a person) on the previous rides. But there was no room to put my bag on the ground and Evan was holding his so he squeezed in beside me. It was already a tight fit. A woman decides she would rather not stand and begins to attempt to remove Evan from his seat and hold him in her lap. This is the normal Haitian culture thing to do. I knew that but also knew that Evan was not about to have any part of this strange women removing him from his hard earned seat and holding him tightly on her lap. Evan said “No” when she motioned for him to get up. I watched Evan’s foot rise up to kick just as she was attempting to ignore his refusal and sit down. I put my hand across the both of them to stop the fast coming scene and told the woman that we would pay for his seat and that there was not room for her. There really wasn’t room for her without her sitting on top of my lap. I had had just about enough too. She stood glaring at us until the tap-tap made its fifth stop and enough people got off for her to squeeze into a seat on the other side. Ethan and Esmée were on the other side (as in across the truck) and we could not see them.

We eventually reached our destination. The kids were very happy to hear that we had arranged rides for the rest of the weekend. The rest of the weekend was fabulous and worth every squish and squash on the tap-taps.

Stay tuned for the merry upside to the miserable getting there. :)

Co·nun·drum

Today I have found myself saying the word "conundrum" out loud and/or to myself at least 27 times. I had a hunch why this word came into my head but because it isn't a word I use often I looked it up to see why it kept popping up today. Maybe I once read a book that used this word a lot and it stayed in the recesses of my brain until the day that I could relate to it on a whole new level. 

*A riddle whose answer is or involves a pun or unexpected twist.
*A logical postulation that evades resolution, an intricate and difficult problem.

Yep. We have ourselves a "conundrum"...lots of conundrums actually and I'm certain we had them before today because Haiti = Conundrum. 

Because of nonexistent vehicle conundrum we have conundrum of very limited housing options close enough to work/school/ministry. Because of very limited housing options close to work/school/ministry we have conundrum of the sensory disorder I am sure I now possess due to conundrum of enduring extremely loud obnoxious noise all day and almost all night not even including 4 loud and needy children, 1 loud and needy 5 month old baby, and 2 loud and needy dogs. I will not include Eric or Genise in that equation because they are typically the calm in the storm (which I am definitely not)  and I am practically useless without them. They seem to understand that due to conundrum of loud obnoxious unavoidable noises giving me daily headaches and pushing any left over patience to its limit along with the health issues we are not used to having (which are most likely due to loss of sleep, dust and other poluttants that pour into this house), that my need to move from this house is at its peak. Alas another conundrum. 

We were supposed to be near moving about now. However, due to all of the above conundrums we have been a bit hesitant to make a final decision to move on down the street. We know that moving to a bigger house with better windows may provide a little relief from the dust, noise and mosquitoes. But we also know it will do nothing for the conundrum of neighbors we are feeling the need to have some relief from as well. We love our neighbors. We are here to serve them. And they like to take every advantage of that. There are days when you would think we are the resident vet, nurse and phone charger station. If we are the nice neighbors we want to be and for example answer 5 separate knocks at the gate for phones to be charged (because most of our neighbors do not have as much electricity as we do) and 5 more separate knocks when charged phones are picked up, this means there will be 10 trips to the door between trying to get dinner on the table and trying to get kids to bed. This upsets dogs and kids and makes parents crazy. 

It is hard to start over in a new place. It took 16 months to build real relationships with Haitian friends in Port au Prince. We are missing those relationships. We realize how much we miss them when we are willing to make a 5am family trip by motorcycle, tap-tap, and bus (the experience of the latter two makes you feel like you might as well have been born a cow) to see them over the weekend. We don't have any Haitian friends here in St. Marc we have those kind of relationships with except Genise (who doesn't have any friends here either)...yet. We know these things take time. But in the mean time while our neighbors are feeling us out to see how much they can get out of us and we are trying to love them in spite of feeling completely used half the time, we are rethinking moving down the street. 

The Haitians we see every day, the ones we do the most for (as in charge their phones, give their sick family members medicine, let their kids play with ours and often feed them, and provide jobs to some) still either call us "money" or they might as well because they have complained that we should pay them for doing things we #1 never asked them to do but thought perhaps they were doing it because it was their job or #2 because they were trying to be friendly neighbors. I have tried to employ an artisan woodworker down the street to build some furniture we need. I know he is capable of beautiful work. I paid him at least twice as much as a Haitian would have to build a dresser for our daughter's birthday present. Then, we gave him a ton of cut wood pieces that were sitting outside our house to work with to build us a few other things. I asked that he build a desk and we arranged a price. I went to pick up the desk on the day we had arranged (a week after paying him half the negotiated price so he could buy nails that I know do not cost that much) and the desk was nowhere in sight. He requested two more days. I gave him four. I showed up to find the ugliest desk I think I have ever seen while his workers were using the wood we had given him on his other projects. I told him I would not pay any more for the desk than I had already paid him. He could try to sell it to someone else (which he knew was unlikely) and give me both my money and my wood back (which I knew was unlikely), OR he could give it to me for half the negotiated price (which it wasn't even worth that AND he used our materials to make it!!!) and MAYBE I would still ask him to build me more furniture because I really wanted to give him good business since we are neighbors and all. A verbal Creole fight ensued and he knew he was in the wrong (though he like most Haitians NEVER admit they are wrong) and told us to just take the unwanted ugly desk. Eric carried it home and I tried it out. I was hoping to pawn it off on the boys but it was way too tall for even me to use with a chair under it. It now has the mirror I swiped from the bathroom on top of it because the boys decided to climb my door too many times and break the one possession (a door mirror) I found useful in this house. Genise saw the desk and had a fit. I so love her. She always comes to our defense. She is a rarety I don't take for granted. Typically Haitians ALWAYS MUST side with Haitians. It has probably cost her any friends she would have already made. She (without my asking) marched down to furniture dude and told him that ugly piece of junk was completely unacceptable. He gave her an utter "monti" (lie) and said that he made it as I ordered it and that the wood I gave him was a "kado" (gift). I said, "you think I would have given him supplies and then negotiated for two thousand gourde for a piece of utter crap???!!!" She said, in the Haitian way, "Ah, Oh! M' pa panse ou fe sa! Sa pa ok!" Basically, she knows me well enough to know I would never have agreed with that. At least I have one Haitian on my side in this neighborhood.

So on with the conundrums. Despite frustrations with the neighbors we are here to love (and really try to do so), we handed over translated contract for the house down the street (the one we have been raising money for) over a week ago. We took a 5th walk through the house at that time and were pretty discouraged. There has very obviously been zero effort to clean or fix A. Single. Thing. over the past two months. The contract amount is for twice as much as they were receiving the last time they rented the house (which was over a year ago). Since they are charging us double and we are supposed to hand over money for them to fix certain aspects of the house before we move in, yet person has not even picked up the trash or swept the floor once since we have looked at it, how are we supposed to have an ounce of trust that they will do the work once we give them the money??? Hence another conundrum. Trust is a very hard thing in Haiti. 

*For example. There is one neighbor I actually sort of thought might be a decent good guy because he drove an American neighbor to the hospital (where he died for lack of oxygen machine and now we are the only American neighbors for miles as far as we know) and because he once offered me a ride to the grocery store and didn't ask for money. I have now been listening to this same neighbor fight with a woman both outside and inside his gate for the past 2 hours. Large rocks were thrown at metal gates and I have just witnessed awful physical assaults from both parties as I type this. Wow. That was loud. They just woke up every dog in the neighborhood. I shall think twice before letting him pick me up and take me to the grocery store in the future. But I don't see how that is much different from trusting the stranger on the motorcycle taxi to take me. We have to trust and yet we never really do.

Conundrum #500 (it feels)...I decided to show Eric another house I had looked at before. It is not in this noisy neighborhood but it is not very far away and I was pretty sure we could catch a ride to school from there. Conundrum #501...Eric liked house and was actually willing to want to pay more for it (since it is worth more) than house on our street. I had previously put this house out of my mind and am still trying to talk myself out of it. 

The house is pretty and there isn't much wrong with it. It actually has a real kitchen. It has cabinets, good windows, 3 complete bathrooms (with a 4th completely unfinished), it's own EDH transformer/meter (hence a power source), a real garage, and a hot water heater (not that we need any more heat around here right now). It would be SO nice if it wasn't for the fact that it is on the corner of a very busy street which does not dramatically eliminate the noise factor. However it does eliminate much dust because both streets it resides on are paved and because they are main streets in town there are not so many dogs, pigs, goats and roosters that dwell there which would improve the noise factor quite a bit. 

I really DON'T want this very nice house and this is why. I think I really care what people think too much. It bothers me when Haitian's call me "money". If we live in a nice house on a public street it will be harder for neighbors to believe we actually might not have unending amounts of money stashed in our pockets. It also makes me wonder what our supporters would think if we lived in a pretty nice house. It sort of defies what I grew up thinking missionaries were supposed to live like. I didn't want to be a missionary as a child because I didn't want to live in a hut and sweep a dirt floor. I didn't want to live in a palace either. 

Here's the thing/fact that I so wish wasn't so. A middle class is pretty hard almost impossible to find in Haiti. It is really difficult to find a place to live that falls somewhere between a complete dump and a palace unless you build it yourself or fix up the dump yourself. We really don't want to live in a complete dump. And we really don't need nor want to live in a palace. To me the house on the paved street corner resembles a palace (if compared to our neighbors in Haiti). What I want is a little peace (meaning some form of quiet for more than 2 sleeping hours) and a somewhat reasonable functionable space for our family to call home. It would be really nice if that space included the ocean breeze (which makes it not so unbearably hot) that is the one and only thing we really like about where we live now and a place for the kids to play and maybe even ride bikes (their wish). I am pretty sure none of those things actually exist with availability within walking or catching a ride distance from work/school/ministry.

We have now looked at the "palace" house twice and have talked the landlord down to the U.S. equivalent of $700 per month (not exactly a palace price in Haiti). We think this is nice and fair since we do not forsee having to put hardly any work into the house. The house down the street would have ended up being this much (or possibly way more) once we fixed it up to functioning. Eric has zero interest in spending his time fixing up a house. He is not a handy man naturally and would rather exert his positive energy spending time with people. Today he told me he is definitely leaning toward the "nicer house". Meanwhile I was learning away from it because of said wonderings of how to respond to people along with my previous prejudices of other missionaries who live in palace like houses. I remember my friend Shelley Clay (founder of the Apparent Project) once telling me that she was so happy that the house their family had acquired behind the artisan house was "small and normal". I remember her saying, "I don't like it that many missionary families here live in huge and better houses than they ever would have lived in stateside"! I had observed this too and agreed. It is a huge disconnect. But I also know that all too often there really aren't other options. One thing I love about the Clay family is that they live among their non-elite Haitian neighbors. I have also seen them struggle like we have with those they are here to love and serve with being robbed and being taking advantage of in return. But they continue to love. I hope we turn out like them.

Still, we are wondering if we should take a step back from being in this neighborhood 100% of the time. The kids also would like a break from the consistent rude and unfounded remarks they get from neighbors outside our gate. Lord willing as we continue to build relationships at the school, trust and maybe even friendship will eventually come. Eric is concerned about leaving our family here without him when he needs to travel for speaking engagements/ministry reports/support raising this summer. He feels like our family would be safer in the house on the paved corner street. We also want to be good stewards of our supporters donations and don't want to choose a money pit nor an excessive palace. We also want to offer our home for hospitality and are trying to find the best place suited to that.

My main conundrum and the main reason I really wanted to get the house down the street is as our girls put it, "What will we do with Genise then"? My answer to that is usually, "Genise can make her own choices". The conundrum is that Genise and my relationship somewhat resembles Ruth and Naomi. I know that Genise will want to choose to come with us wherever we go. This is not because she is dependent on us but because she is loyal and loves us. She is an irreplaceable gift to us. But for several reasons I won't go into, I don't think we can move Genise and baby Evangeline with us unless the house has separate living quarters. I'm having a hard time with that. Because the nice house is nice it will eliminate many of the things Genise currently fills her time doing for us. We really didn't need Genise to move in with us but this was a temporary mutual agreement for the time being. But now I am in a conundrum over it. All these conundrums need prayer but especially this one. Genise is the one that I am stressing over the most. We love her and we know God loves her too and has a plan for us all.

We have to talk things through with Genise soon. We need to talk to landlord down the street and ask why the heck he hasn't called us and that we are assuming from the lack of work and lack of recent communication that he doesn't want to rent the house for the offered amount? We need to give an answer to the landlord of the palace as well. We have to be out of this house by the end of April when the lease is up. Things in Haiti take time and we are running out. Conundrum. We have had a few unexpected twist in this search for a house riddle. It is an intricate and difficult maze of problems that are evading resolution. We would really like resolution soon. We would really like to unpack the dusty suitcases and settle into something that feels a bit like a home. Please pray for resolution, relationships with our Haitian neighbors and renewed strength to face all these conundrums. 

We are really really thankful for the support we have received and that we are able to pay the first 6 months of rent for whichever house works out. We are really really thankful that work/school/ministry is going really well and we really want to stay and serve and stick it out here in St. Marc. We love that we have had all these opportunities/conundrums to learn and grow even though they are not all fun. We love having a place to share our conundrums even if only two people get to the end of this long rant. We love Haiti even though she is one GIANT conundrum. I suppose that is how God feels about us. Yet He loves us anyways. Even when people He came to serve treated Him terribly, He still loved them. I hope we turn out like Him.