Now I know why some cowboys write songs about their trucks. After TEN visits to Haiti, most of that time using plentiful but painful public transportation, we have our own project vehicle.
Our volunteer photographer Andrea Marchant was the first ‘blan’ to try out the truck!
No regulations in Haiti …here Junior fills up using a pop bottle as a funnel!
Kind friends donated to this much needed item – and wow, it was amazing to meet “Fancy” at the Cap-Haitien airport. She is bright red, shiny and runs fantastically well considering a) roads are mostly gravel and full of pot holes b) she’s 23 years old!
A Nissan 93 King Cab might not be everyone’s dream car, but she is a dream come true for me.
No more sitting on the luggage rack of a motorcyle (I did 40+ hours of that in October, my sister wedged between myself and the driver). No more packed into a covered truck, called a tap-tap (I once counted 18 passengers. To me it was full at 8). No more school bus benches (no kidding, it’s not full until there are well over 125 people plus luggage and a few farmyard animals thrown in for good measure!).
“Fancy” is a really hard worker – here Caleb is loading up from the shipping container in Cap Haitien for the 6-7 hour drive south to Port-au-Prince.
The gas gauge, radio and rear right signal light don’t work. Gas is $5 US/gallon – the most expensive in the Caribbean. But this is all fine because now we can meet our shipping container from Joy and Hope of Haiti (Hamilton, ON) and load up all the donated dresses, sewing machines and boxes of donations for the Floriana job creation projects.
Every morning our team would wash her down, sweep out the cab and dust the dashboard and front bench.
We are so thankful to have Fancy as part of the Floriana Wedding Project – her first run with 50 gowns up to Cap Haitien was a resounding success! And the next time we take a team with More Than A Tourist, no hassle or haggling with rental drivers – just get in and go!
We do of course have other options, but for now, we’ll stick to our truck, ‘Fancy’!
Option ‘B’
Option ‘C’
60 friends of More Than A Tourist came to our $30 ticket event and gave so generously, we more than doubled our fund raising goal. I planned in my head for $2000 towards our project vehicle, but the kind people of Spruce Grove, Alberta went above and beyond our expectations. I think Alberta is the place to go to raise money for a pick up truck – they really know what you’re talking about!