5 Senses

SIGHT: By day the streets are filled with an organized, beautiful chaos. Tap-tap's stream up and down the streets similar to the way rain rolls down a window- one second it is going in one direction and the next second it is going the complete opposite. People are everywhere- in fact there must be more people on the streets then there are stars in the sky, selling their goods day after day. Houses and tents freckle the hillsides. The mountain hovers over those hills like a protective older brother, enveloping the cities below them. By night, the lights of Port Au Prince glimmer and twinkle like glitter. Women set up stands by the sides of the road cooking a vast variety of native dishes. Words don't do these sights justice. 

SMELL: The smells are nothing like I've ever experienced. Driving with the windows down is something that I will never quite get used to. Car exhaust. The fish market (you can't even begin to imagine). Exotic foods. Charcoal and trash burning. Car exhaust. Chicken cooking. Goat simmering. Marinade boiling. 

SOUND: Early in the morning, I'm awakened by the sounds of a rooster. Having grown up with a mother who had that experience and shared it with me, nothing could prepare me for that piercing shriek the first morning. It's safe to say, there was no way I was sleeping in. As the city continues to wake up, the horns begin trumpeting and the purring of motorcycles gradually becomes more and more severe as the minutes tick by. When the day is at full blast, I can only describe the sounds in the same way I described the sight of the streets: organized, beautiful chaos. Music can be heard at all times of the day in a multitude of venues: people, stereos from motorcycles, radios of tap-taps and the calming melody of the crickets as the day comes to a close. 

TOUCH: The only touch I care to mention, is the touch of the hands of the children. Children on the streets. Children of the orphanages. Children in the school. Warm. Loving. Blindly trusting. No other sense compares to this. 

TASTE: I have not had a lack of different flavors since I've been in Haiti. Some... well some have been better than others, but I've never been opposed to trying new and exotic foods. Rice, rice and more rice. It's a good thing I love rice. I never comprehended how many different types of rice existed until now. It's an art how many different ways they find to prepare it; each new flavor is more delicious than the last. Each day's meal is a new adventure.

Haiti, breathtaking beauty doesn't even begin to describe it.