Days 246 – 249 (7/03 – 06)

Tuesday – Still no teams today. Jim Gulley and I left early this morning with Spana and the D-Max headed to Carrefour. We have a meeting with the 2 new contractors and the 10 beneficiaries that will be receiving the homes. Engineer Derly and Pastor Jacob introduced the contractors and explained the schedule and procedures for the start of construction on their new homes. The people were very excited to finally get their homes started. They have been waiting for over a year. If you’ve been following this blog, you are aware of the numerous problems that have delayed this process. It has been a learning process for everyone involved. I guess that’s why they call it a pilot project. The lessons learned have created an ironic situation where houses that I started in the Haiti Home Assistance Program in April will be completed before most of these houses whose process started over a year ago. Bottom line, however, is that 54 families (over 300 people) will be out of tents and temporary shelters and in new homes by the end of October. That’s why I’m here.

Wednesday – Happy Birthday America! As you can imagine, the 4^th of July is not a holiday in Haiti. Their Independence Day is January 1^st.  So – it’s business as usual for us, a day of meetings.

This morning it’s the monthly Joint Leadership Team meeting at the UMCOR office on Delma 54. This is the EMH, UMCOR, VIM leadership group – Pastor Paul and Pastor Marco from EMH, Elizabeth Petheo and Lauren James from UMCOR, Tom and I from VIM and Jim Gulley from GBGM (General Board of Global Ministries). Each group gives a report on the previous month’s activities and their plans for the coming months. Problems and concerns are discussed in an effort to coordinate our activities. It’s actually one of the more productive meetings I go to.

The meeting this afternoon is definitely not one the more productive meetings. It’s a Strategic Planning meeting that Jim periodically holds with the clergy of the EMH in an effort to develop a 5 year plan for Education, Health, Development, Evangelism, Reconstruction. This is the 3^rd one I’ve attended and the same problem exists. The Haitians don’t grasp the concept and/or process of strategic planning – it’s just not in their vocabulary. They just can’t get past their immediate needs to be able to look into the future. It’s very frustrating. You want to help, but the vision has to be theirs and not ours. I think it needs to be broken into smaller groups in each area of focus so that better mentoring of the process can take place. I’ve suggested this to Jim and I think he may try it.

One of our only  two in-country teams returned from their week in Petit Goave and an afternoon of sight- seeing.

Thursday – Today I’m going to play videographer. My friend, Warren McGuffin from the Cal/Nevada Conference is putting together a documentary film about the food program in Thomas. He had a professional videographer down here with his team a couple of months ago who filmed the bulk of the documentary, but in the process of editing decided he needed a few more pieces. Who ‘ya gonna’ call? ME. So – since I just got my new camera that will shoot Hi-Def video, I agreed to give it a try. James Lazarre agreed to set up everything in Thomas that we would need to shoot.

James met me at the Guest House right after breakfast and we set off with Spana and the D-Max. The first stop was to film someone cooking on a propane stove. Well – James couldn’t figure out how to do that so he took me to a store that sold propane stoves instead. This was an indicator of how the rest of the day was going to go. I ended up having to improvise almost every scene that they wanted. I’m not sure if anything I shot will be useable, but it was the best I could do. The best part of the day was being able to see many of my friends in Thomas.

I arrived back at the Guest House in time for dinner and to greet the first new team to arrive this month.

Friday – We got our new team loaded up and off to Mellier after breakfast. Then I left to do some more HHAP home inspections. Even though all but one of these sites is in the Port au Prince area, it becomes an all-day project navigating around and then having to walk. There are very few locations that you can actually drive right up to. By the time I got back in mid-afternoon, I was worn out.

We had one team return from Mellier and a new team arrive from the states just in time for dinner. We (Tom, Wendy, Mario, Danette, Jim and I) however, went out for dinner. We met Sarah and her friend Ashley and Lauren and Gareth from UMCOR at the Quartiere Latina. It’s a favorite restaurant with good food and live music not too far from the Guest House.