Flyin with the Friars

This weekend a group of Americans arrived for a week long stay.  That's fairly common, what wasn't common was the arrival of two Fransiscan Brothers.  Brother Robert and Brother Maximillion.  I didn't know what to think at first, both in impecible white habits.  I had never been around men in habits before, men with habits I know about.  I thought stiffaroony.  Boy was I wrong.  We right away started eating and drinking our way to silliness.  Holy cow, no pun intended, well maybe a little,  we had so darn much fun.  Robert is from Ontario and in his wild past life was a hair dresser and managed 5 restaurants in Canada.

On Sunday we went for, what I thought at the time, was a short stroll to check out a job site.  Scott, a great fellow from Long Beach, CA. , the two brothers, Peter, another great guy, whose been here managing construction projects for many years, and myself (obviously).  We started out, two men in habits, dragging on the ground, what turned out to be a four hour hike.  We started out on a trail passing through trees next to a canal, which passed as a stream.  People were doing laundry, washing motorcycles, swimming, bathing and just hanging out.    Story has it that the French built these canals in the 20's.  At any rate, they are very effective in enhancing simple lives.  I say simple without judgement, whose to say all the complications of our modern is any better.  These people seemed well fed and content.  Decide for yourself.  The entire time we're strolling, not only are we white, we are with two men in dresses.  Nobody made more fun of them than the Brother's themselves.  The people we encountered were warm and embraced us.

We walked almost all the way to Les Cayes, but not quite enough to keep going and make a loop home, we had to backtrack.  On our return we were able to revisit our new friends.  From an American perspective, the people we encountered were poor and uneducated.  But we really didn't have any way of knowing that.  They seemedhttp:/halinhaiti:blogspot.com perfectly happy and well adjusted.  Funny thing, it's all in how we look at things.  They could have been very well educated, for all we knew.


On the way home the Brother's couldn't stop talking about things they were going to drink, some not do desirable  After arriving without any voodoo spells on us, that we were aware of, we proceeded to watch the sunset from the roof drinking a few cold ones.  I never thought I'd see the day, but I did.

The next day we went to town to buy motorcycles, more on that next time....................

Happy Spring, Hal