Days 114 & 115 (2/07 & 08)

Tuesday – No teams at the Guest House this morning. But I had a meeting with EMH Engineers, Roger LaPlanche and Derly Charles and 2 Haitian contractors. We are soliciting bids on 10 more houses in Carre Four and want to give the contract to a Haitian contractor. Both of the contractors were experienced and seemed competent. I am working on the RFP (Request for Proposal) which outlines our specific requirements and will have it for them in a couple of days. In the mean time they will schedule site visits with Derly Charles. This will bring our Pilot Project total to 50 houses. My hope is to have 100 completed or under construction by the end of the year.

I worked on the RFP this afternoon and got the 1^st draft off to Tom and Jim for review. Then the teams started to come in – 1 from Mellier, 1 from Torbeck and one new arrival from the states. The Guest House is back to normal.

Wednesday – We loaded up and said goodbye to 2 teams heading home and sent a team off to Mellier. Then Tom, Sarah and I jumped in the D-max with our driver Spana and headed north to visit a couple of sites. Our first stop was at La Tremblay where teams (and the Haitian construction crew) have been building a new church. I hadn’t visited this site for almost 3 months and was very impressed with the progress. They are almost to the point of installing roof trusses. I think we will need the resources of 5 or 6 more teams to finish the church and new security wall.

On our way back to visit the school in Puit Blan we decided to take a little detour and visit a clinic run by a non-denominational NGO called Double Harvest. We are always interested in finding good emergency health care facilities in reasonable proximity to our work sites. We had heard about this facility but had not visited it before. It was a little off the beaten track (and it was a beaten track) but would be much closer than having to go all the way back to Port-au- Prince for emergency care. Double Harvest has a very large agricultural operation as well as their clinic. There appeared to be well over 100 acres under cultivation with an assortment of crops. The clinic was small but well equipped for a rural Haitian medical facility and very clean and well maintained. There were over 40 people waiting outside to see a doctor. They have a permanent staff of 26 but depend on visiting teams for support. Unfortunately, they had an incident last December that has all but stopped their visiting teams. A group of thugs broke into their Guest House in an invasion robbery attempt and shot 4 missionaries. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured and it appears to have been a random event. But, it has had an understandable adverse effect on volunteer teams and the supplies that they normally bring. When they showed us their pharmacy, the shelves were virtually empty. I think that we will be able to help them out. Just outside of the compound, on our way out, we picked up some Haitians who were walking along the road. As they climbed into the bed of the D-max they handed Sarah and I each a baby to hold. Mine had been treated at the clinic for what appeared to be badly burned hand. She was such a sweet thing that I didn’t want to give her back when we got into town.

We continued on to the school in Puit Blan. This was one of our early projects and the school was quickly rebuilt to accommodate the students but never finished because of other priorities. We want to get it back on the active project list so it can finally be finished.

When we got back to the Guest House we welcomed a new team arriving from the states. Then Sarah and I went over to our supply room (next to my room) and started putting together supplies for Double Harvest. Due to the generosity of our donors and volunteers we were able to pack 6 suitcases full of OTC drugs and medical supplies. Oge will take the suitcases out to Double Harvest in the morning.