Michael HoodAnd so, 2017 begins pinkly from where I sit under a Caribbean sky lighting up the bougainvillea and the eastern sides of the rattling palms. I didn’t last until the ball dropped, instead toddled off, fainted sometime around 10 in order to get up with the chickens now yelling and blucking that this day is a day as all others.
It’s not, really–for some huge and depressing reasons. But in keeping with the stated, existential aims of my Facebook life, I’ll keep it non-political, live and local: tomorrow I leave Haiti for a night in Port au Prince, then the bus to the Dominican Republic.
I’ve lived more luxuriously than last year when I had a house in Kai Kuk, marketed and cooked for myself four days a week.
This year I’ve been in a guesthouse, L’anse a L’eau, spoiled and indulged despite my down-dress, Seattle, faux proletarian self.
Tho folks like me might be loath to call them our servants, the help here are just that and we find ourselves, repeating, ‘Oh no, let me get that!’ They never do, and eventually they wear us down and we start taking them for granted as they wanted all along.
I’ll not make this into an infomercial for L&L, but I can’t not mention the slavish (?!) service, and the many kindnesses shown me here by such as le patron, Elie with his dogged guerrilla-style service, the excellence of Rosa and her kitchen, the quiet attentiveness of Taina, and the remarkable, all around kid, Guerdy.
Enough of that for now. If you want more specific ravings, read my fawning review on TripAdvisor. You need come here at once!