Outside the School Gates

This is the entrance to the school, which faces the market. Every morning, as it is getting light, people descend on the market with their things to sell. This area seems to be more about produce. Lots and lots of people with a few mangoes or oranges arranged on a blanket in front of them, for sale. Today I saw watermelons, tomatoes, and eggplants. A block over there are household goods like soap and dishes for sale, too. There is a little section just for charcoal. The white truck you see here in front of the school is being repaired; this is a streetside mechanic who works right in front of the school every day. Today I took a long nap. I was so tired I must have really been sleeping deeply. Jeff was talking to his family on Skype, he told me at supper, when there was an explosion from the mechanic's place in front of school. He said they must have been filling a tire that blew. His family thought it was a bomb. I never even woke up, and my room faces the street.
It is pretty safe here, except for the crazy motorcycle drivers. I will try to take a video of them sometime to show you. People tell us they are the most dangerous thing here. Last night at Foun's we were talking to different NGO workers who are here building things and trying to get community involvement and participation going. One of them said that Haiti is in the same level (of dangerous foreign places to be) as Iraq. She thought the danger was way overstated. "I mean, where are the IED's? Where are the landmines?" I had no idea Haiti was rated that low for safety. People everywhere have been so nice and welcoming.
We finally got to the grocery store today. I wanted to get coffee and milk, and oil and vinegar. Tomorrow I'll go to the market for a few fruits and vegetables. The common people buy almost everything in the market-- even staples like I bought today. On the way home, a woman passed me on the way to her market stand. She was carrying a big bucket, and in the bucket were 1 or 2-quart jars of all the kinds of things like I bought today- the oil, vinegar, vanilla, and so on. I guess if you want to buy that, rather than spend a lot of money on a quart, you would only buy a half cup or so-- just as much as you need. There are lots of stalls that have little piles of even something as small as boullion cubes, that you can pick up and buy one at a time.