The egg contract.

In an effort to not discuss depressing things for a bit, I thought I'd touch on a bit of (what I consider to be) the absurd. Let me start of by saying that I KNOW that this is probably just a cultural difference, and so I "own" that I probably just don't get it. Perhaps here in this culture this makes sense.

So, here's the story of the egg contract.

Being a family of 16 (including live-in staff... 18 if you include the security guard and wash lady... which, for the purposes of meals, we do.) So, being a family of 18, as one would expect, we use a lot of food each month. We buy rice in 50 or 100 lb bags. We buy several gallons of oil each month. Things are purchased (generally) in cases, rather than individually. And our grocery bill is... well, a lot.

We have eggs for breakfast twice a week, and then throughout the week, there are various times when there will be eggs IN something as well. So we use probably 5-6 dozen eggs a week, or more. Somehow, back when Nahomie was scheduling all our food, she got us into an egg contract with someone who raises the eggs. Now, I have a good friend, a sister, and a brother-in-law who raise chickens, so I am not opposed to this. I love supporting local farmers.

But here's the rub-- it's not exactly local.

Once a week our security guard AND our male nanny would disappear on the moto for about 2 hours and come back with a big barrel of eggs. This started in the weeks following the quake when we were really, really busy, and I never really noticed how long it took. It started to become more apparent more recently, and I started questioning the egg contract. Because, let's be honest, I can buy eggs (fresh eggs) at the Jacmel market for the same price and they are local eggs.

Felecia, our older nanny (called "Granmoun" (old person) affectionately by our kids) was the first to pipe up that the eggs from the contract were better. She's generally very agreeable. She insisted that they had more vitamins and minerals than the eggs we could get in Jacmel. She also accused the egg merchants in Jacmel of not selling actual chicken eggs, but eggs from other birds and just setting them under chickens to make you THINK you're getting chicken eggs. Now, I cannot personally confirm or deny her accusations, so we will just leave them as accusations. So we let it go.

But then yesterday happened.

Nick and I snuck away for an afternoon date. It was about 3PM and I hadn't eaten all day. We went to Cvadier plage restaurant for club sandwiches and a Prestige. (Juice for Nick the teetotaler.) Shortly after we arrived, my phone rang. I ignored it. Then it rang again. Looking and seeing it was a number from the house, I reluctantly answered.

It was Anndavid asking if she could send Eddie (our security guard) and Hugues to go get the eggs. I said sure, but then discovered we had the moto keys on us. No problem, I reasoned. I called Hugues and told him to take a moto-taxi come get the keys from us, and then he could leave to buy the eggs. I told him twice, or maybe three times where we were. He clarified and I thought things were great.

Time passed. Like more than an hour. And he never showed up. The came time when we were ready to leave. So I tried to call Hugues to let him know we were headed out so he didn't have to come. But when I called, he insisted he was, "Nan wout la." (Already on the road.) So we decided to wait for him so he could just ride back with us and not have to pay a taxi fare on the way back. So we waiting another 15 minutes. (It's only a 5-7 minute drive from our house.) While we were waiting it started POURING. Rain only has two "settings" here in Haiti-- on (think deluge) or off.

I tried to call Hugues several times only to not get a response. Nick and I started to get worried about him. He'd been en route for more than twice as long as it should have taken to get there, so we reasoned we'd just drive home real slowly looking out for him. When we almost reached home and didn't see him, I called again and this time he answered. "Mwen preske la Madame Gwenn," was how he answered the phone. (I'm almost there Gwenn.) I said, "Where? You're almost WHERE?" He said, "Kabic Beach."

Oh dear goodness.

(Kabic Beach restaurant is a good 30 minutes from our house past Cay Jacmel.)

By this time it's pouring a monsoon and he's on a moto taxi 30 minutes away from our house. I told him to turn around and return to our house and I'd pay the taxi when he arrived. So he does and 30 minutes later he returns soaked, head to toe. We pay the $15(Haitian dollars) taxi fare. He dries off and hops on the moto with Eddie to go get the eggs.

Two hours later they return. We make some small talk that night, mostly me trying to figure out WHY it takes 2 hours to go buy eggs. Come to find out it's almost up in Cap Rouge (up a terribly bumpy mountain "road") ON A MOTORCYCLE, CARRYING EGGS. Does this not make sense to anyone else? It was late when the got back, so we just went to bed.

The next morning, I woke up and sat around a while waiting for breakfast. I waited and waited and waited. Finally, I asked Anndavid when breakfast was going to be ready (as it was over an hour late at this point.) She said, "Oh I am just waiting on Eddie and Hugues to come back with the eggs." ?!?!?!?

I said, "They were gone for two hours yesterday to go get the eggs, are you telling me that they came back without eggs?"

She said, "Yes, they couldn't find the merchant, so they went back up there this morning."

Shortly thereafter they returned with eggs in hand to a hungry family.

Okay. For me. This is where utter ridiculousness has crossed the line. So, now we're talking a one hour/$15 taxi ride, and FOUR HOURS worth of ($5US/gal) gasoline for the moto, not to mention NINE man hours used on trying to get these same-price, egg-contract-eggs. (Who incidentally, we learned, are raised by Eddie's sister.... that's probably not a shocker to anyone,eh?)

I know I don't get culture and maybe I need to tread lightly, but we're done with the egg contract in Cap Rouge. We'll get our eggs in the market in Jacmel from now on, and it will cost us ZERO extra in gas because we're already there to do our shopping. It will cost us ZERO extra man hours since we already have someone there doing our shopping.

Sheesh.