Days 316 – 322 (9/30 – 10/6)

Sunday – Wednesday – I decided that I needed a break from the Guest House routine and took 4 days of personal leave to recharge my batteries. Somehow Haiti got on without me.

Thursday – Back to work today refreshed and with a much better attitude. I’m sure that everyone around me is pleased. With 4 teams at the Guest House a cheery disposition is a good thing to have. Today is also my son’s birthday, Happy Birthday from Haiti to Minnesota, Bill Jr. You can’t possibly be as old as the calendar indicates. Also newly arrived at the Guest House is Una Jones, our boss from Volunteers in Mission/UMCOR in New York. Una comes down to see us a couple of times a year and this visit is to discuss our plans for the final year of the Haiti Response Plan which ends in October 2013. We’ve been discussing this among ourselves and have some ideas on how we would like it to continue, but Una is the final authority. I see many meetings in my future.

Friday – This morning we sent 2 teams off to the airport and home and welcomed 2 more teams flying in from the states. It’s going to be a busy month. After lunch we had our first staff meeting with Una. We spent the first part of the meeting bringing her up to date on all of our various projects. Then she brought us up to date on what is going on at UMCOR - and it wasn’t very encouraging. Apparently the Board of Directors has made drastic cuts in many program areas and laid off about 35 people in New York. It doesn’t bode well for the Haiti Response Plan beyond its’ 3 year mandate. Hopefully we’ll be able to do some strategic planning in the next few days.

Work on the Guest House Renovation, particularly the Swiss House, and the Staff Annex continue although a lot slower than I would like.

Saturday – Still a lot of team activity this morning. We sent 1 team to Leveque; 1 team to Guillette; 1 team to the airport and home and welcomed 1 new team in from the States - lots of people running in many directions. The staging area under the carport sometimes looks like a beachhead at Normandy.

This afternoon I had my 1 on 1 interview with Una. She was very complimentary about the work I have been doing and said that because of my work in Haiti they (VIM/UMCOR) have determined that my role needs to be filled from the very beginning of any new disaster relief response. Then she asked me what my plans were for the future (my current contract ends 11/19). She would like me to continue for at least another 6 months and help in the transition of the program. I told her that I would love to continue to help, that I still had a passion for Haiti and its’ people, but that I have promised my family I would come home. If we could work out an arrangement where I could come down and be in-country for shorter periods of time, I could probably do that. She said that she wouldn’t object to that kind of an arrangement and asked me to write a proposal that would work for me and we would discuss it.

We all went to dinner at the Quartier Latin, one of our favorites. It was a pleasant ending to a very interesting day.