Due to the shortage of hotel rooms, we rented a house for the duration of our stay. In principle, a good idea - more space, the ability to cook, no crazy old french men to deal with ( the hotels are full of them!). Alas, the day before we arrived into the city, a big storm / hurricane / tornado came through. It is unclear what type of weather phenomenon it was, but it was intense and not forecasted. And it resulted in most of the city being left in darkness as trees fell, electricity poles broke, and tents blew away. Two weeks later, still no lights in the house. Given that it gets dark by 6pm, we’ve been rocking the candles and cold showers. But, for someone whose work involves the computer, internet, and other such office amenities, this threw a wrench into our plans.
Luckily (I think), the neighbor is a consultant for this study. And he suggested the house. He has a sweet set up, with satellite dishes, wireless internet, a generator to power it all, and many servants. If you are going to be a career consultant, its best to live in a country with a low cost of living! His “office” is on the balcony, overlooking the city and the sea. We basically kept going to his house to power our electronics, and use the internet, until we bought a 100 foot long extension cord, and strung it through a window. Now, we can sit in the dark, but have power to our computers. Working by candle light. It’s most incongruous.
These inconveniences aside, there have been, as there tend to always be, adventures. I spent a week with “Cousin of Tarantula” in my bathroom - it would come out in the evenings, and hang around the toilet. Once, it went into the toilet - and I could neither flush it down nor get it out. Of course, that meant I had to go to the bathroom. I came to accept “Cousin of Tarantula” - a hairy spider with a body the size of a silver dollar. Until one day.... when, during a shower, I looked up to see... Tarantula herself. This gigantic beast was hanging out in a corner, with a belly full of eggs (a white sack under the black hairy black hairy large hairy black body). Oh. It was not pleasant. This was my first week in Haiti, and we had decamped to an island (Ile a vache) in order to plan and strategize. That meant I could try and find a hotel staff person to deal with the beast. Except, how to say “Ridiculously large tarantula creature” in french? It was shooed off, for the moment, but it was not to be deterred.
Later in the evening, the far too solicitous hotel owner, fortified with several shots of rum, offered to “check out” my room for me. I wasn’t too keen on it, but relented and he went off alone to see if Tarantula was still in the bathroom. I, for one, had decided to use the bathroom of my colleague. When he still hadn’t returned after 10 minutes, I decided to go looking for him. I announced my arrival in the room loudly, and he appears in the door of the bathroom, disheveled, sweaty, wet... mumbling something about “don’t worry about that balled up towel behind the toilet.” and “I had to clean up.” The fight was dirty. But Tarantula was dead.
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