Rocky Road

Yes, I mean that literally. 

I have now been back in Haiti for just under a week.  My return has really been quite smooth and I'm certainly glad to be back.  There seems to be one thing that stands out more than others and that's the roads.



It is rainy season here.  The roads as you likely already know are mostly made up of the natural terrain.  Houses and walls are built up on each side of the road and what remains in the middle, by default, becomes the road.  Now Haiti is mountainous, but don't think of the shear rock faces that might drop hundreds or thousands of feet straight down.  The mountains here are much more gravelly, boulders, rock, gravel and sand tightly compacted. 

Now, picture the grand canyon.  We won't go into its origins here, but you can vividly see how water has eroded the walls of the canyon.  Apply that same process to the roads here in Haiti during the rainy seasons and you may begin to understand the roads that we drive on here. Yep, many mini grand canyons right here in our roads.

How quickly I had forgotten.  In Canada for just a few months, I quickly adapted to driving in Canada.  I am now back and adapting much more slowly to the conditions here.  First you use the whole road - in a co-operative way - with the traffic in both directions.  You carefully asses the conditions vis-a-vis your vehicle and plot your course through the next section of road.  You then attempt to co-ordinate that route with the traffic that's moving in both directions.  This takes you to within inches of other vehicles, walls, and a few nervous pedestrians. 

I've been observing the rate at which the roads are changing and eroding.   The math puzzles me.  Every time I arrive in Haiti, I can't help but notice the ring of pollution and runoff and erosion that surrounds the island (or at least Porte au Prince).  Our property for the new building is on the side of a hill and has a small ravine that runs through the property.  I can't help but notice the rate at which both the road and the ravine is eroding.  A tremendous amount of sand and gravel is continually eroded.  Last year we added perhaps 10 truckloads of fill onto the road just to level and to smoothen it out.  Not only is that all gone, but so is much of the road.  I'd estimate, that the level of the road has dropped by maybe as much as a foot along the length of the property.  More at the top of course and perhaps a little less at the bottom.  This all washes away, downhill and into the next ravine.  The process continues downstream and eventually ends up in the ocean - and thus the ring of pollution and erosion that surrounds the island.   

So, my question is this, where does it all come from - the rock that is.  How can the island continually erode at such a fast pace and still be mountainous.  Why isn't it flat by now?  I think the traditional view of the age of the earth puts it 15 or so billions of years old.  Evolutionists simply add time when specific processes don't add up.  By my guestimate, perhaps only a few thousand or millions of years should be required to completely flatten the terrain.  I think that we need to start subtracting time from the scale to make the picture fit.

Had some more information to post regarding my motorcycle license.  But perhaps a future post.