Days 58 - 60 (11/11/11 – 13)

Friday – Happy Veterans Day and thank you to all who have served in our military. Haiti is still in a state of flux regarding their army. Ex-President Aristide disbanded the army in 1996 after he was ousted by a military coup in 1991 and regained power 3 years later. President Martelly has promised to restore the army. The main reason given is to get rid of the 12,000 UN Security Forces who the Haitians blame (rightfully so) for the Cholera outbreak. Those opposed to reestablishing the army feel that the Haitian National Police force should be enlarged instead. Most of our Haitian staff that I have talked to seem to favor the army approach – citing better training and national pride as the main reasons. Martelly has stated that he will announce his final decision one week from today. Life will go on at the Guest House regardless of the decision. I think that the only thing that will change will be the color of the helmets.

In between getting 2 teams out to their sites and receiving 2 more teams from the states today, I was actually able to get a little work done. I finished evaluating the housing needs of the Haitian staff (40 people) and using a weighted system to establish need, put together a priority list. Now we have to establish how we are best going to be able help the most people. Not an easy process. We want to lend a hand not just give handouts.

Saturday – Just another day at the office. One team off to Mellier, one team homeward bound to the airport and 2 more new arrivals. Sarah is a scheduling guru.

My day consisted of working on contracts, budgets and payment schedules for the EMH 40 house Pilot Project. This thing has taken forever to put together – getting documents translated from French to English and English to French – getting material and equipment through customs and transported to the worksites – finding secure storage facilities. The KIA 4 x 4 is now sporting a new cage and lumber rack. Not exactly as I drew it, but close enough. So - I think we will actually see some work start next week. A lot of man hours have been put in by a lot of people to get it to this point.

Sunday – This morning 8 of us (Tom, Wendy, Sarah, John, Jim Gulley, Eric (driver) and his daughter Jessica and I) piled into the DMax pickup and drove up the mountain to the church in Thomasinn. John, Jim and I rode in the back of the truck and had a great view on the ride. Tom was preaching this morning and we were there to cheer him on.

This church has a rather interesting history. It was started in the ‘80s by a wealthy, light skinned, group of Haitian Methodists who were frightened about driving down into Petionville to attend church because of the threat of kidnapping, which was very prevalent at the time. So – they built this small church up in the mountains. The congregation today is still affluent and predominantly light skinned, which historically has been the upper class. The service was in French, not Creole and the service did not have the energy of most of the other churches I’ve attended down here - particularly the singing. But, Tom gave a great sermon and Sarah translated (even though most of the congregation was bilingual) and the people were very friendly.

After church we came down the mountain to a restaurant called Munchies and had some great pizza for lunch. Then it was back to the Guest House and a very relaxed afternoon of catching up on my reading.