Qué pasta everyone,

Well, I haven’t had much of a chance to enjoy the mod new apartment in the past few days. I spent the past week visiting hospitals in the southeast of the country to complete my tour of all AIDSRelief sites in Haiti. And this time, I left behind the fabulous hotels of the Haitian provinces (see previous posts) to actually stay at one of these medical facilities.

What a difference that makes. I just spent a couple of nights at the St. Boniface hospital in Fond des Blancs (literally Bottom of the Whites). It’s about as isolated a place as you can find in Haiti -- for those of you with Google Earth, this is what I’m talking about. To get there from the closest cluster of concrete that can pass as a town, you must endure two hours on steep, mud-and-rocks paths through rugged hills. At night, you can count on the fingers of your hand the number of electric lights for miles around, most of which come from the hospital’s compound.

The place is run by nuns from Boston who keep the fridge stocked with cold Prestige beer. There are three recent U.S. college grads and a French business student living there while they complete various volunteering assignments. Being far away from any center of power or wealth, the village is completely free of crime and other threats. For the first time since moving to this country, I can take a walk alone. In the early evenings we go down the road to play soccer with the locals. At night we watch DVDs under the power of a whirring generator. It’s not a bad place to be.

One night, those of us visiting from Port-au-Prince drive thirty minutes to the beach. We get there too late for a swim but just in time to eat some freshly caught kingfish as the only restaurant for miles blares Haitian pop to honor our presence. One of the song is called MMS. It’s a lament about this guy who used to “have relations” (this is the term that the host used to translate from Creole) with his wife on Mardi, Mercredi and Samedi (Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday) when they were newlyweds, but now only do it once in March, May and September. I make a joke saying that my version would be an instrumental. Nobody gets it.

Oh, and I may have saved the villagers from a terrible affliction. But I will wait until I hear the results on the investigation by the local health officials to publicly gloat about that.

Anyway, I am now back in Port-au-Prince and about to enjoy my first hot shower in a week. And on Sunday, I head out to the north of the country for a three-day meeting, during which I plan on sneaking off to Haiti’s #1 favorite tourist sight: the airport departure lounge. Make that the #2 sight, the 19^th century Citadel at Milot. Pictures will be taken.

(in the voice of John McLaughlin) Bye bye ,

Max

p.s.: all of you with an interest in economics or the lunatic fringe please make sure to check out Will McBride's blog.