Satigny B & B

Satigny is the name of the B & B I am staying at here in Haiti. It is high on the southern mountain chain overlooking Port-au-Prince and the ocean. It is ran by two very charming people, Ralph and Raphael, a husband and wife duo. Raphael is a teacher and runs her own school for kindergarteners during the school year and has a summer camp during the summer for 5 – 14 year olds. She is amazing. Her mom ran a very popular school in PAP for decades. The wealthy 1% went there. It was completely destroyed in the earth quake. I don’t know if they are going to rebuild.
Ralph is a sports nut and is very fit. He is a perfect match of Raphael, who is go, go, go. He is I am coming, I am coming, I am coming sort of guy.
They have a staff that is wonderful. There are two main waiters that serve breakfast and dinner, I think they are brothers because they look alike. They must be in their late fifties or sixties. They take their jobs very seriously although they only serve one person at a time they get the job done. Since they don’t speak English and I don’t speak Creole we have a few words we exchange: Prestige si bleu plaite (beer please), Dulo si beau plaite (water please) Prestige (beer) dulo (water) that is all I need in life.
The food is good and they serve soup every evening before the meal. The bread is amazing and the pumpkin soup my favorite. They also have dessert every evening. I tend to skip that. I usually go right to bed after dinner.
The estate has some ponies that roam around and munch the grass. There is no mowing at Satigny. There also is an amazing playground for the school children. Ralph has two hunting dogs is lets run in the morning and evening. They are full of energy. One came charging into my work partner’s bedroom the other morning and jumped all over his bed. I heard Chris say, “Hey now”, One of his favorite expressions. The mud prints on his bed had to be explained to the non-English speaking housekeeper; that was fun to watch.
Satigny has many visitors that come from all over the world. I have met many different people: an Australian cell phone tower guy. He was funny and never wants to visit America, life goal; an executive of the textile industry who has factories in many developing countries, yes one of those guys, he was strangely conservative and thought that the population problem in Haiti could be settled by the rhythm method (apparently he hasn’t read the stats on that, but apparently it worked for him); steel workers from Canada rebuilding the Canadian embassy (they have tattoos of a man carrying a steal beam on their arms) a photojournalist from Britain (didn’t talk to her much); member of a group called Building Goodness Foundation (a non-profit out of America doing projects all over the place, seems like a cool group), a computer dude from California that free lances to the highest bidder (nice guy, but computer geek) I am the few females that are here and the only construction worker that I have met.
Although the drive up to Satigny is long and slow the respite when you get there is worth it. And besides the malaria carrying mosquito can’t fly this high. This was one of the main points that was made when I arrived.