Last night was one of those crazy nights I seem to have from time to time. As a volunteer with Hands On, we get Sundays off and have to work the rest of the week which usually means that on Saturday we might have a few drinks and stay up a bit later than normal. Wild and crazy! But we seem to have had a recent wave of arrivals who like their booze and, as a result, it was deemed that on this Saturday night some serious partying would be done.
It started out innocently enough for me with a few rum and Cokes on our balcony chatting about civilised things like politics and other things that required brain power. I was pretty happy staying put where I was but a big group of volunteers, probably spurred on by the mystery alcohol they were all drinking, decided that an outing to a local nightclub was to be the plan for the evening.
Another rum was downed and soon after a gang of about 15 of us were marauding our way down the mean streets of Gonaives to take the local disco by storm. A few of the local Haitian volunteers were leading the way and it was shaping up to be a fun night. The club was more like a small bar with a mysterious pitch black room off to the side where everyone danced.
The bar was pretty hot so a bunch of people moved outside where there was, inexplicably, a half full swimming pool. It didn’t take long for a couple of guys to wrestle each other into it and that was the cue I needed to jump in after them. A few more people jumped or were dragged in an suddenly we had ourselves a pool party. The Haitian guys were singing and the rest of us were splashing around like idiots. The entire bar emptied and were watching our antics. A bar full of blan (white people) is probably unusual enough… a pool full of them splashing around fully clothed for hours is probably not something that is seen every weekend. The whole night was pretty ridiculous. The local guys we have working along side us were having as much fun as we all were and it was awesome to escape the balcony and check out the local bar scene. I spent most of today in recovery mode and did nothing but I guess that’s what Sundays are for.
I’m still having a blast here after two weeks. I’ll be leading up a painting team tomorrow at a local school, on Tuesday I’ll be helping some of the local guys write resumes and I have no doubt that the week will be filled with some more mud shoveling as well. I’ve got a couple of the guys attempting to teach me Creole and I did pretty well this morning practising down at the local market. We’re having Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday for about 60 people including the local volunteers and staff so that should be another big party.
Bring on the next couple of months, I say! It should be loads of fun if the first couple of weeks are anything to go on.
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