Camion Mack

     Sometimes I think Haiti is a little boy’s playground. It is full of trucks and construction equipment. Back hoes, front-end loaders, graders, and cement mixers. But most of all, there are the dump trucks. Everywhere you go there are dump trucks. Things are constantly being built up or torn down and the dump trucks are there. Dump trucks rumble down the roads day and night carrying rocks and dirt from one location to another. In many places that’s what Haiti is, rock and dirt. So it seems like the trucks are just re-arranging the island.

Camion Mack

     I asked Makendy how to say dump truck in Kreyol. “Camion Mack”, he said. How true! At least 90% of the dump trucks in Haiti are Mack. I have seen a handful of Ford and International Harvester dump trucks but the big dog in Haiti is Mack. They are all here, new and old (well mostly old). It seems like all the Mack dump trucks ever built have come here to finish out their useful days. And that probably lasts for years.

     The camion Mack is the king of the road. It is not the biggest dump truck but the Mack makes the most noise. Its air horn is the loudest. And like dump trucks back in the U.S., many camion Mack sport names. However, unlike the ones in the U.S., these names are more likely to be “Dieu tout puissant” or “L’Eternal”.

     The camion Mack goes anywhere. I awoke the other morning to the sound of a (yet another) diesel engine powered truck lumbering past the window of my bedroom. It was a camion Mack coming down the narrow road into Christianville. Solomon had ordered two truckloads of fill for the foundation of the UF house being built next to the lab. This Mack was bringing in the first load. So like a little kid, I ran out to watch the truck back up and empty its load. When I was a kid, Mack Trucks were the quintessential American truck. Now the iconic Mack Truck is part of Volvo Group (after first being bought out by Renault which then sold Mack Truck to Volvo). It’s so good to see so many camion Mack still working and hauling their loads in Haiti. I love it!

Camion Mack at work