Transportation in Haiti is widely varied, and depends on a lot of factors. Where are you going? Long distance or short distance? How many are going? One or two or twenty? How much can you spend to get where you want to go? And a bunch of other considerations.

The upper photograph is of Haitian taxi's or "tap-taps". To use the tap-tap you get in when it's stopped(hopefully), and when you need to get out at your destination you tap on the vehicle(loudly) to be let off. Thus the name. Payment is made on exiting the vehicle. We never did find out the rate, but it can't be much because there are a lot of them around, and a lot of people using them!

The second picture is a typical delivery type truck. Brightly painted as many vehicles are in Haiti. (It reminded us a lot of the vehicles we saw in India.) They seemed to deliver whatever they could manage to fit in them. There were also the usual 10 wheel construction type trucks as well as semi's. We had a couple of interesting encounters with semi's on the back dirt roads that were barely wide enough for the bus we were on!! Let's just say traffic jam and leave it there!

The third picture is of one the Nehemiah Vision Ministries small trucks. It is used to transport all kinds of things, including people as you can see. Here is a Haitian joke...How many Haitians can you fit in a truck????? Answer.......always one more!!!! And boy do they! Every lap holds at least two others. No space is left unused as long as there is someone who needs a ride. They are a very friendly people! Riding in the back of the pickup is dusty however!

The last photo is of course the mode of transportation that has been around the longest. A trusty burro, or horse with a wooden saddle and panniers. They carry people, loads of wood, produce, charcoal, whatever needs to be transported. Obviously they don't go very long distances, but are used in the rural areas a lot. The "parking lot" at Chambrun always had several on clinic days.

There were also the usual bicycles, motorcycles, and automobiles going the longer distances, carrying the smaller loads and fewer people of course. We saw several injuries caused by people falling off the back of the motorcycles. There were helmets in use by some, but not all riding the motorcycles.

There were also helicopters and airplanes of several sizes at the airport. They were flying over all day long going about the tasks they were needed for. We used the helicoptor transport several times to get emergency cases to hospital.

Until the next entry,
Tim and Cindy