Day 16 (9/30)

Friday – Today was such an event filled day that I thought it deserved a page all by its’ self. Tom, John and I left the Guest House at 7:30 with our Driver/Interpreter Oge for points west. Traveling in Haiti is an endless series of near misses punctuated with a lot of honking. Of course honking in Haiti has a different meaning than honking in the U.S. In the U.S. it generally means “Get out of my way – you idiot.” In Haiti it means “Warning – Warning – I’m about to do something really stupid.” Over time you gradually get used to it. You graduate from white knuckled terror to an occasional raised eyebrow. And no self-respecting Haitian would be caught dead wearing a seat belt. (Mull that one over).

Despite the trials and tribulations of travel, we managed to get all the way out to D’Olivier about 2 ½ hours and 80 or 90 km. The church is in a pretty remote location– about a mile of dirt road off of the main road. However, when we got there, there were 40 or 50 people – mostly mothers with children – there to see the doctor who holds a clinic every Friday. Apparently so many people come to this church that they are going to have to expand. We will probably start the expansion within the next month or two.

We then came back about 10 km to Fond Douxe. When you think of the term “the middle of nowhere” you’ve aptly described Fond Douxe. The road is more goat trail than road. In the middle of this tropical forest stands a little church with absolutely nothing around it. We pull up in the truck and within 2 minutes there are 20 kids and a dozen adults standing around. I have no idea where they came from. The little church is about 85% completed and replaces one that was leveled in the earthquake. It still amazes me to see so much damage this far from the epicenter of the earthquake.

The next stop on the way back was in Petit Goave where we are building a library next to the church. Again I was pleased at the definite upgrade in the quality of construction but still have some issues with the stem walls and a couple of other items. I am going to have to have another meeting with Roger LaPlanche the head EMH engineer to find out more about his standards and some of the Haitian technics.

Then it was back to Carre Four – the worst of the worst – to look at an addition to the Guest House there. Then to Thor to see how the repairs to that church were coming along and talk about adding a clinic. The final stop was at Rev. Jacob Presume’s house. He is the Superintendent for the Carre Four District and his house was substantially damaged. The repairs are about 90% completed and look very nice. It was fun to watch a couple of Haitian woodworkers doing cabinet and trim work with just hand tools - skills you won’t find in the states anymore. Seven project sites in one day – Whew!