Buying Food for the Camp
Jacmel, Haiti
Wellness Camp
Haiti Family Initiative Program
Friday, July 5, 2013 -
We drive to the market to buy food for a week of camp lunches. We expect to feed over 100 people each
day. and for some of our campers, this will be their only meal of the day:rice,bean and sardines. Max
tells Lynn and me that we have to wait in the car while he goes in to the store. He wants us to keep
a low profile.
“Don’t come out of the car until I tell you to”, he instructs us with a very strong tone of authority,
“Why?” we ask.
“Because you are white." We can’t let them see you. If they see you, they will charge twice the price
because they think you have a lot of money.” He walks away from us.
He walks off with Jeams to negotiate a price. As instructed, we stay in the hot car with our heads sunk
below the view of the windows. When the deal is made, we are allowed to come in and help carry out
what we had just purchased. We buy 55 pounds of rice, 40 pounds of beans and fifteen cans of sardines.
That should make more than 600 meals. We can’t keep the food at the camp. We have to keep our food
locked up in our hotel room so that it isn’t stolen by the neighbors. So we drag all of this food up three
flights of steps.
And we have to do this five more times this summer.
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