The Start of "This is Haiti"

Quite some time ago, some friends of ours (the Livesay's) seemed to coin the term "this is Haiti" on their blog. After being here about 1-2 weeks, I have heard numerous people say "this is Haiti" that would not know the Livesay's. This leads me to believe that it is a common phrase here in Haiti.

It is usually used when things are otherwise unexplainable. I have decided to keep a list of the things that I run into that lead me to say "this is Haiti" and label the post as such. This will be the first post of "this is Haiti" and will contain some of the things that I can remember saying it in regards to.

1. Super gluing a radiator drain petcock - something that will need to be removed in the future.

2. Welding bolts and nuts together that will need to be removed some day.

3. One of the items that bothered me the most was on our Canter. The transmission had a piece of wood jammed against another part holding a sliding rod that selects the gear. Without this piece of wood, a few gears were not available. With the piece of wood, neutral was unavailable. The part that was missing was a simple, flat metal lever. One of the guys here made one that looked like it was either working or going to work. The next day, I looked at it and they had simply welded it together affectively making the metal do the same as the wood and rendering all the work and effort he did useless and neutral was still unavailable.

4. We have one truck that is out for the count. The other truck just like it was missing a driver's side mirror. The mirror was being taken from the working truck to another working truck back and forth as they needed to use the truck. I showed them that they could take the mirror from the non-working truck and use that and not have to switch back and forth. They were very happy about this.

5. Wire is used to repair just about everything from quarter panels to windshield wipers.

There are more, but this is a good start. I'll try to take pictures of things as I see them.