Chickens

I was struggling to explain why living in Port au Prince is such a bizarre and awesome experience to a friend of mine the other day, and here's what I came up with:

So you're in the taptap, which is like a pickup truck or cargo bus designed to cram in as many people as possible, riding along, probably in the middle of a traffic jam, on any given day.  At last, life seems normal enough; the sight of a woman carrying a fifty pound bag on her head or a guy selling pharmaceuticals out of a bucket no longer phases you. You're in the zone.

Then, as the taptap pulls over to the side of the road, the plastic bag next to your feet emits a series of load squaks and you hear the desperate fluttering of wings. The woman next to you pulls out her chicken from under the wooden bench, its head protruding from the plastic bag, with necessary force and a routine manner. She probably bought her live chicken 5 minutes ago, in the middle of the largest city in the Caribbean.

And you are reminded that, yes, this is a normal day in Port au Prince.

Prestige