Days 176 – 179 (04/10 – 13)

Tuesday – Still no teams. However, Mario is back so the office isn’t quite as empty. I got an email from UMCOR’s travel agent in New York, saying that since my current passport expires on November 14^th and since I will be traveling to and from Orlando May 17 -20, my passport falls outside of the 6 month expiration envelope required by Haitian immigration. So, being a good citizen, I called the US Embassy in Port au Prince to ask about renewing my passport. When I finally got put through to the passport department, I asked the person who answered if in fact I needed to renew in order to meet the 6 month expiration window. She replied, “You’ll have to call the airline and find out what their policy is”. I said, “Excuse me. Is this the passport department at the US Embassy in Port au Prince, Haiti?” “Yes, Sir” “You don’t know what the passport requirements are for Haiti?” “No, Sir. You’ll have to check with the airlines.” UNBELIEVABLE! This is your tax dollars at work. These are the people that are supposed to rescue us in an emergency. Boy, I’ll sleep better tonight.

Wednesday – The morning was rather quiet, but the afternoon picked up. Both Tom and Sarah arrived back from the States. They had hardly set their bags down when the first post Easter team arrived. After 3 or 4 slow days, we are back to normal. Even though I enjoyed a few days to recharge, it felt good to have people back in the Guest House – especially Tom and Sarah.

Thursday – We got our new team off to their site in Cabaret early and then Tom and I started catching up on what had been going on in his absence. We have a Site Review meeting tomorrow and needed to make sure we had the latest information on all 24 current and potential sites. The 8 unit GH staff annex project is moving along. They have been digging the footings for almost 2 weeks and are just about ready to start putting the rebar in. The back footings are almost 6 feet deep. It would have taken about 2 days with a backhoe, but we’ve provided 2 weeks labor for 6 Haitians. It’s a good trade off.

This afternoon our Haiti Partnership team returned from their week in Mellier. Haiti Partnership sends 5 or 6 teams a year to Haiti, so we see some of these people several times a year. This was a special team because it included 6 high school kids. I wish we could get more young people to have this experience and have this kind of commitment from more of our Conferences. Thank you Haiti Partnership.

Friday – The Haiti Partnership team left for a day of sightseeing around the Port au Prince area. It’s a great thing to do when you’re here and an exciting thing for the young people. We also sent Mario on his way home for a 10 day R & R. We all have to do this every 90 days to get our passports stamped.

Tom and I had a less exciting chore this morning – the Site Review meeting. This meeting usually consists of Pastor Paul, Engineer Laplanche, Lauren James – UMCOR/EMH Liaison, and Tom and I. The purpose is to review the work that has been done on the sites over the past month; agree on the scope of work that remains to be done; and decide on the priorities for new projects. This generally requires reviews of estimates and in many cases, follow-up site visits. What should be, on the surface, a pretty simple, cut and dried process, becomes convoluted by the political infighting of the EMH. Much like the different branches of the U.S. military fighting for their piece of the Defense Budget, the various District Superintendents are pressuring Pastor Paul for projects in their Districts. It makes his decision making process very difficult at times and our planning process often frustrating. But – that’s life in Haiti. Nothing is ever as simple as we think it should be.