Days 149 – 151 (03/13 – 15)

Tuesday – Well, all good things have to come to an end. I had to put Linda on an airplane this morning and send her winging back to California. I can’t believe that the week went so quickly. I’m sure the next 5 weeks until I head home will go much slower. But – maybe not. Today is going to be a busy day.

Pastor Paul had requested a meeting with Tom, Jim Gulley, Ruth Depestre – the Guest House Manager, and I to talk about the Haiti Home Assistance Program – again. So, we met after lunch and he asked me to once again explain what we were planning to do. I explained that nothing had changed since he agreed to and signed the Grant Proposal that had already been submitted to UMCOR for Board approval next week. Well, somewhere between then and now – he had changed his mind it seems and had a better plan. Tom, Jim and I walked out totally confused and I felt like 5 months of work had just gone up in smoke. I thought that maybe the solution was to break the original proposal into 4 smaller grants and started on rewriting the grants. I got drafts of 3 of them done, but was totally confused about the 4^th. Tom and Jim were equally confused and because the deadline for submitting new grant proposals was past we decided to just go with the original.

After dinner we had another meeting with the HRP staff and Jim and Alina the GBGM auditor who was here for a week. It was mostly about accounting procedures and what system was best and how do we get the information we need to properly manage the program. After about 3 hours it was very apparent that I was not a big contributor the discussion, so I excused myself and went to bed.

Wednesday – The morning started with a 7:00 AM meeting with Constantine and Robert from World Hand Alliance, Engineer Derly Charles , Jim, Tom and I. WHA was upset with the billing and payment process and felt that it was not being done according to the contract. The irony is that we (UMVIM/UMCOR) are not even parties to the contract. The contract is between WHA and the EMH. We have nothing to do with billings or payments. We pointed out that they should really be having this discussion with the EMH Accountant and if there needed to be changes made to the contract that the EMH would be the ones to do that.

At 8:30 we had another walk around meeting at the Guest House with Pastor Paul and Engineer LaPlanche. This morning Pastor Paul had an even different plan than he had yesterday. After he left we decided that our decision yesterday was even more viable – we’re sticking with the original.

At 9:30 I met with Patrick Sylvain, one of our interpreters. Patrick lost his house in the earthquake and will be one of the beneficiaries of the HHAP grant. Patrick and I had missed several scheduled appointments over the past few months to go see his home. Patrick’s home had only 1 wall standing after the earthquake and over the past 2 years he has managed to complete the walls and roof to have 1 enclosed room for he and his family to live in. The rest of the small house is still in ruins. I was able to see the site conditions and assess the rebuilding requirements. I was also able to meet his Grandmother, uncle, cousins and several nieces and nephews that live in a small house next door.

By the time I got back to the office, downloaded my pictures and wrote my site visit report, the sun had gone over the horizon ending another day in Haiti.

Thursday – Today was a very unusual but welcome day. We had no teams coming or going through the Guest House and I had no meetings on my schedule. I had an opportunity to catch up on a lot of paperwork, including my Blog which was over a week behind. The big event for the day was the arrival of Susan Meister, the stateside member of our Haiti Response Plan staff. Susan is in charge of scheduling all of the VIM teams coming to Haiti; coordinating the insurance and matching funds and answering the hundreds of questions that Team Leaders have about their preparations for their Haiti mission. I have been emailing and talking on the phone and skype with Susan for a year and a half, both as a Team Leader and as a fellow HRP staff member but had never had the opportunity to meet her. I’m glad I finally have gotten that opportunity and am looking forward to her week with us. She is an absolute delight and such an important part of the successful operation of the Haiti Response Plan.