Anyone who camps knows there is a certain amount of natural outside noise to be expected at night. At home, though, that noise is usually limited to crickets, and maybe the sound of the ocean, dependng on where you’re staying. Being in Haiti at HATS is like camping, too, because we choose to sleep outside in mosquito bed tents, and there are always mosquitoes and other flies buzzing around, along with the familiar sound of crickets and the sights of some other creepy crawlies. Here, unlike any camping I’ve ever done at home, though, the roosters crow, incessantly it seems, morning and night, or at least they used to, up until this summer…
Flashback to 2015, my first summer, when the constant “cockadoodledoing” was a bit annoying, especially seeing as I was such a light sleeper to begin with. As the time went on, however, the sound of the crowing roosters became almost hypnotic, and there was even something peaceful about sleeping outside and hearing them; we went to sleep with the roosters and woke up with them, too. And the past couple of summers, I almost found myself missing the roosters after I went home to Canada, because I came to associate the sound with the peace and quiet of warm, starry nights, and the absence of stress when I am here.
This year, though, the melodic tones of the “cockadoodledo” have been overtaken by the dogs next door that Beate has named “Yippy” and “Skippy,” although I think it’s more like “Yippy” and “Yappy”! No matter what we call them, there is NOTHING peaceful about their constant yapping, along with the dogs in the other part of the neighborhood. I’m not sure if it’s their idea of trying to show who can bark the loudest, or if they’re just doing it to annoy us… ? Who would have thought that our biggest annoyance in this warm, tropical country would be dogs!
Now, I am an animal lover–I have 3 cats and a beautiful dog at home–and all around HATS is like a garden of rice fields, and beautiful mango, papaya, and coconut trees, with a giant petting zoo contained within its boundaries, and I absolutely love it. I’ve had closeups with goats, chickens, and horses, and I even had friendly run ins with cows and bulls, on occasion. And when we walk along the canal during the day, the little dogs over the fence come out with their tails wagging, and it almost seems like they’re even smiling at us as we go by; then, at night, when I have come to count on the lullaby of the roosters, all Beate and I hear are those dogs next door fighting and barking, and answering the other dogs throughout Deschapelles! And the dogs, like it usually is with kids, never seem to act up until we turn out the lights, of course! It has gotten so bad that I have had to resort to ear buds, with over the ear headphones on top of that, sealed with a pillow! That, at least, brings the barking to a dull roar!
Beate and I and Mackenzie have made many jokes about the dogs and how they have kept us awake at night. Beate has tried “shushing” them, but we think they don’t understand English! So, a heads up to anyone coming this way in the next little while–bring heavy duty ear plugs, or a heavy sleeping pill, because if you’re anything like we are, you, too, will be wanting to get rid of the dogs and bring back the roosters!
Hugs from Haiti ?
~Heather
Going to Work
Working the soil
Coconut trees
Yippy and Yappy
Mama duck and children
Mama with her chicks
Donkey, horse, cow and goats
Farmland
Fruit
Hungry kid
The three little pigs
