Happy New Year, Friends! As most of you know, I returned home on December 14^th for the Holidays. The last few days in Haiti were eventful and hectic and I ran out of time to write. Then, catching up with friends and family kept me pretty busy when I got home. However, now that the Holidays are over and I’m back in Haiti, I’ll try to catch you up.   

Days 86 - 88 (12/09 – 12/11)

Friday – Well in typical fashion, I didn’t get to the building supply store yesterday to buy the materials for the new tool cabinet. But, this morning I grabbed a ride with the last team of the year heading to the airport for their return home. (When we dropped them off at the airport, I was surprised to see construction crews starting to work on the terminal building. It was heavily damaged in the earthquake and most of it was condemned and unusable - which made getting in and out of Haiti that much more difficult. We’re starting to see more and more infrastructure projects starting – roads, drains, government buildings - a hopeful sign that maybe the government is starting to function). After dropping off the team, Oge and I stopped at MSC Supply, a Haitian Home Depot wannabe. It has more things than most Haitian supply stores, but falls short of even a small stateside store in depth of material. It’s always a challenge to redesign a project in your head when you can’t find the material you’re looking for. But, we did our best and loaded the blue tap tap and headed back to the Guest House. In case you’re wondering, this took all morning.

The afternoon was spent actually building the cabinet and I got it almost done before I ran out of daylight.

Saturday – Right after breakfast I went back to my cabinet project and it finished in about an hour. Then it was time to clean up and pack for a couple of days. Tom and I were headed for Las Cayes on the southwest coast of Haiti (see map). We were meeting Sarah there, who had left yesterday with her friend Jenn and a couple of her associates from Haiti Health Ministries. We were going to look at a couple of sites in the area to see if they were suitable for sending teams. So, by noon Tom, Spana, our driver, and I were in the D-Max headed for Les Cayes.

It’s about a 5 hour drive to Les Cayes and it seems the farther you get from Port-au-Prince the prettier Haiti becomes. You drive along the coast on the Atlantic side; then over a range of mountains; around a lake; then down along the coast on the Caribbean side. Even though it’s a long ride in a 4x4 truck over less than freeway quality roads, it was enjoyable. We arrived in Les Cayes just before sundown and met Sarah at the Guest House that she had worked at a few years ago, before joining UMVIM. We had a nice dinner at the Guest House and then met Jenn and her HHM friends, her fiancé and a couple of his friends and went out to sample the nightlife in Les Cayes. It was very “local”, very fun evening.

Sunday – After a great breakfast of pancakes with homemade mango syrup, we jumped into the D-Max and headed off to Dasmas. It was a 1 ½ hour trip over rough roads through some of the most beautiful countryside I’ve seen in Haiti. Needless to say, Dasmas is a very remote site and although far removed from the earthquake epicenter, the church and school were in need of serious repairs. There have been several non-UMVIM teams working at Dasmas over the past few years. They have put a new roof and a fresh coat of paint on the school buildings, but progress on the church has been very slow. By sending UMVIM teams with matching funds, we can speed the process up considerably. However, before we send teams there, there are several structural issues that will have to be addressed.

On the way back to Les Cayes we experienced an “incident”. Two pickup trucks full of people sped around us and disappeared up the road in a cloud of dust. As we approached a curve in the road 2 men came running around the corner followed by several baseball sized rocks. They stopped and picked up some rocks and fired back and ducked as more rocks came their way. Spana quickly backed the D-Max up and got us out of the line of fire and we watched from a distance as the rock fight continued. Spana finally had enough and jumped out of the truck and walked up the road with his arms in the air in a “What the heck are you guys doing” gesture. Now, Spana is ex-Haitian military and a gentle giant kind of a guy, but he has a look that would intimidate Attilla the Hun. But, before he reached the curve a local policeman on a little motorcycle came roaring up the road and went around the corner. Seconds later one of the pickups came skidding around the corner - heading right for us – followed closely by the cop on the motorcycle. We thought at the very least they would take off the door of our truck that Spana had left open when he got out. But, somehow they got around us without a scratch. When we finally got around the corner we saw that the other pickup had skidded off the road and was nose down in a ditch. No one seemed to be injured by the accident or the rocks, so we continued on our way. We were thankful they didn’t have guns.

We got back to Les Cayes in time to have a late lunch with Jenn and her friends at Gelle (jelly) Beach. There was a Haitian equivalent of a food court with a large common outdoor eating area with several small food providers. I had Lambi which is strips of conch fried in a pepper infused oil. It was one of the best meals that I’ve had in Haiti.

After lunch we took a short walk along the beach and then left to look at the site in Tabor. Tabor is just a few miles from Les Cayes and a site where non-UMVIM teams have been building a new church for several years. At the current rate of construction we figured it would take about 20 years to complete. Again, UMVIM teams could really speed up the process. And again we found several serious structural problems that will need to be addressed.

After a long and event filled day, we returned to the Les Cayes Guest House for dinner and a welcome bed.