Last Chance to be a Cowboy by Roger Appleby

Author:Roger Appleby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hillcrest Media Group, Inc.

Haitian shuffle

We woke up the next day refreshed and ventured into town to make our phone call back to the States to let our sponsors know where to send us a bank transfer. This involved getting a bank routing code number from the Bank of Haiti. Getting the code and making the call were difficult to do because of the language barrier. The language of Haiti is Creole, a bastardized form of French. Despite the difficulty, we persevered and accomplished both tasks.

We were assured by our “friend” in the States that enough money would be sent for us to live regally. Yes, our poverty would soon be ended. I thought back over the last couple of months, remembering long walks to Bahamian banks anticipating money that never arrived, while visions of ice cold Heinekens danced in my head, only to be disappointed and having to walk back down the hot, dusty road back to the boat, parched, thirsty and frustrated. Now, my mood was elevated, even joyous, secure as I was in the knowledge that in two to three days at the most, our deprivations would be ended.

We wandered around town a little, but were so assaulted by beggars, would-be-guides and new “friends”, etc. that we retreated back to the harbor and the sanctuary of our boat.

The next day, we started a routine of going the bank to see if our money transfer had arrived. We also solved our problem with being assaulted by would-be-guides by choosing one. Of course, he agreed to wait to be paid until our money came in.

The idea of hiring a guide was repugnant to us, but hiring Maurice was the intelligent thing to do. He spoke enough English to act as an interpreter and was helpful in showing us around; but best of all, once we hired him; the rest of the horde of would-be guides eased off and left us alone. Maurice was worth the little money we wound up paying him just by being a buffer.

After the first couple of days came the weekend, so the two to three days for us to receive our money ran into four and five. The sixth day would be Monday; surely our money would arrive by then.

Alas, after 30 to 45 minutes in the bank on Monday we exited to the street and the waiting mob of ragamuffins and blackguards, including the guide troops, the seller of the “courtesy” flag and various other beggars. “No, our money hasn’t come yet,” we would have to announce once more.

Every time we went to the bank to check on our money transfer, it was like it was the very first time; like we had never been there before. We would speak to a teller, or maybe I should say, try to speak to one, as we spoke no Creole. Perhaps you’re wondering why we didn’t use Maurice, our guide, to translate. He was able to speak a rudimentary amount of English and translate to a degree, but this bank transfer was beyond him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.