Days 204 – 207 (05/21 – 24)

Monday – We had two teams come in this morning – one from the States and one returning from their week in Torbeck. Sarah, Mario and I are handling the hosting chores since Tom is staying a couple of extra days in Orlando. Although we are all used to the routine, we never tire of interacting with the people. The newcomers are filled with anticipation and excitement. Those returning from their work sites are tired, but filled with an experience that already has them planning on when they can come back. Part of the Torbeck teams’ experience was being held up at a road block coming back from Les Cayes for almost 4 hours because of a demonstration about lack of electricity in the community. That seems to be the most common form of public protest – barricade the highway.

The Guest House Staff Annex is moving along quite well. However, I expected to see a little more progress when I returned – then I realized that last Friday was Haitian Flag Day and a holiday weekend. They are putting in the rough plumbing in preparation of pouring the slab. I walked the site with Engineer Roose to verify that everything was in place according to the revised plans. Everything was exactly where it was supposed to be. The site boss and his crew are doing an excellent job.

Tuesday – We got an early start this morning in order to get our new team on their way to their site in Hinche – a 3 ½ hour drive over the mountains to the Central Plateau. It’s a beautiful drive over probably the best roads in Haiti. Then we said goodbye to our Torbeck team who were going home.

This afternoon I got to hand out some more advance checks to more Haiti Home Assistance Program recipients. Johnny Cherubin, Marie Claude Charles, Mirelle File, Renette “Ton Tonette” Frederick and Jean Claude Degazon all got their first draw. They are all a little overwhelmed with the realization that they will finally be able to start rebuilding their homes. They’ve been living in transitional shelters or with relatives for 2 ½ years. I feel blessed to be able to help them in this process.

Mike Willis, Tom’s predecessor as Haiti Response Plan Coordinator, arrived this afternoon. He is going to spend a week with his friends Pastor Ablame and his wife Donette in Les Cayes. And, after several hours of delayed flights, Tom finally got back to Haiti.

Wednesday – This morning Tom and I had a meeting in Du Plan which is about 30 minutes up the mountain from Petionville. We were meeting with Jim Gulley, Lauren James and Corey Kramer from UMCOR and the community leaders from the church, clinic and school in Du Plan to discuss their water needs. Corey is the Water, Sanitation and Health Coordinator for UMCOR in Haiti and has a survey questionnaire that assesses the community water needs. The water issues are 1) Source: Well, rain water, streams or rivers. 2) Storage: Cisterns, barrels, reservoirs. 3) Quality: Purification. The current source for the church, clinic and school is rain water. So the critical issue is catchment and storage. The current system is in pretty bad shape and its’ repair will be the first priority. I will need to come back next week with one of the EMH engineers to put together an estimate for the repairs. The purification issue will have to be handled with bio-sand filters.

One new team arrived late this afternoon, after more flight delays. It was Jeff Baker’s team from Missouri. Jeff has been here several times and we had just seen him at the conference in Orlando. His teams have been doing a water project in Arcahaie. So far they have distributed over 150 bio-sand filters to homes in the area. Besides providing the filters they train the people in how to use and maintain them.

Thursday – Jeff’s team got all of their equipment and supplies loaded up and were off to Arcahaie by 9:00 AM. Then Lauren James came by the Guest House and picked Tom and I up to go look at the new St. Martin church being built in Port au Prince. This is an UMCOR project and not a VIM project – that is, no teams have participated in its’ construction and is out of the realm of my responsibility. However, UMCOR has asked me on several occasions to check on its’ progress. It’s a beautiful church and in my opinion one of the better built structures that I’ve seen in Haiti. The current issue seems to be that the project has gone over budget and the church has come up with another list of things that they want done. The fundamental problem is the lack of construction management skills and concepts by the Haitian engineers. It apparently is a missing ingredient in their education and manifests itself in many ways. The secondary problem is the churches expectation that there is an endless source of money. It is a learning process for all of the parties.

Flight delays seem to be coming more of a problem and our new team didn’t get in until quite late this afternoon.