Hooray! Water day!

Wahooo! Today is water day after over 2 weeks and one church seminar without water to bath or drink. The generator has needed expensive repair three times in the last several weeks and some of the
committee are calling the technician "slick". They believe he gets it running but
leaves things that will break soon so he can charge more.

There has been no water at Sousafilip, Port a Bonheur or Non Sema for over
4 weeks and people just go on about their business and don't drink, bath in a
cup or glass of water and shake clothing hard to get the dust out before
wearing for the third, forth or 6th day.

Joe swatted a fly on his leg today and a cloud of dust made us both sneeze!

Water has been an issue in Haiti forever! I can't count the number of NGO's who drill wells and either go through the crust or leave to return to broken or damaged equipment or stolen or poorly maintained generators.

When it rains, which is much less often on the island of la gonave than the mainland, it pours!! Cisterns overfill, especially during the hurricanes that come every year, then either leak or just explode! Last 4 storms were helped by a small earthquake (I am told) so every private cistern now leaks and everyone is asking for "just need 4 bags of cement, that's all" to repair cracks. When it is dry, as now, the wind blows hard. From the north it is the Norde that makes everyone sick and sucks the moisture from everything, including skin. At least NO MOQUITOES! Plenty of other bugs as replacements, including scorpions that seek shelter in rotting wood out of the wind..like our latrine!

Soon we begin work on the well at Dent Grien that has not worked since the second well was drilled in 2002. The windmill will be replaced by solar panels that will pump the well during the day and a small wind generator to pump, more slowly at night. It will provide water for at least four communities. AND it will have a committee with a plan! A plan to sell water and provide regular care and maintanence on all equipment. The agreement is, if the plan is not followed, after a couple of warnings the solar equipment will be removed. Harsh? We really want people to have water, year after year after year.

After Dent Griern we will move west to the forgotten high place, where burros die carrying many gallons of water up the mountains on very hot days. Haiti Outreach will drill a well as far west as we can find water and if 200 ft a hand pump will suffice. If it is necessary to go deeper we will again consider solar or wind, or perhaps a generator. Same plan, same requirement, same reason.

A grant from GBGM is providing most of the funding for the two wells with significant matching funds from Kansas East Conference. IF .. big word, there are by chance any remaining funds we would address the repair of broken cisterns that sit dry in every community. AND if there is even more funds "left over" the critical water issue of sanitation will be addressed.

Most communities have no latrines...toilets!! None! Zip! Cistern water is not only contaminated by goat poop but human waste is found near every wall or fence or bush. Latrines are hard to dig in rock! In communities where markets are held every week, a thousand people or more leave behind a lot of trash and some contaminate for the water supply.

Hooray! Today we are selling water in Sousafilip and at the well to Dent Griern! Soon, we pray, it will be everyday, some way, someplace.

Shirley, Sousafilip

I sit on a log by the shore and watch a restless sea.  Beyond the reef high white rolling waves  and above the reef the surf sparkles as if a million diamonds are floating to shore.  It is Ash Wednesday and time to consider my mortality and the things I value in life.  

For 17 months we have lived with people who have little food to feed their families and children have red hair, dry skin and constant colds. 

Island teachers have received no salary for 6 months.  They can't feed families or pay tuition that would pay teachers. The child of a teacher is now at the hospital unable to breath and his wife called for money to be sent by boat.

Our clinic is closed as people have no money for medicine, and we have no doctor.

There is no water.  The generator works overtime and gets tired and lays down like the overburdened burros coming from the well or market.  Clothing and bodies smell, and strange things cook in pots over little wood fires.

Yet, the sun shines and makes diamonds on the sea.  Children laugh and play between naps and people do the best they can. 

As I sit and listen the sea reminds me there is pain everywhere.  From dust we come and our return is simply to once again be dust.  What has value is the time between.

A borrowed paryer says: Gracious God, when we would make much of that which cannot matter much to you, forgive us.  Amen

People Die Fast

Perhaps not the best day we have had in Haiti. Early this morning we were trying to catch up on emails and some work when two guys came to the door. They said they had someone "malade" ...I invited them to step in and asked a couple of questions but with little English and no Kreyol I could understand I explained our clinic is closed. We have no physician or medicine and they would need to go to Point a Rocquette. They didn't seem too upset and left, neither looking very ill.

Around noon our translater returned from Abamang, the other half of Sousafilip, the poorer half...if possible, and asked if someone had come earlier to the clinic. I told him of the two guys and then he told me they had a young woman with them who died about 8 am. They had been going to the clinic in PaR when she got much worse and died shortly after they took her from the boat.

Within a few minutes a couple came to ask for a ride across the island. They had been in the boat coming here to head to Anse a Galets in another fishing boat, but it was now taking the body back to Grande Vide.

That is the only part of the story that makes any sense. With the help of the translator I attempted to ask questions and got a jumble of answers. She was complaining of "gas" but sitting up eating peanuts. She had not been ill long and had a baby 3 months old. Her husband was with her. She probably was dead by the time the two men came to the house. They did not take her to the clinic in Grande Vide or to a closer one at Tamerin because she was not that sick. Huh? From there it got more confusing.

Yes, today I learned a very hard lesson. No matter how casual they act, when someone tells me another is sick...gas, splinter or broken toenail, I'm going to go look! AND..even though or because our clinic is closed, it is critical to respond. Point a Racquette is too far away and looking answers more questions.

When the crying could be heard over the wind, I pledged to do whatever I can to get this clinic reopened: with physician, nurses, lab, emergency meds and supplies. I can no longer sit with my hands over my eyes and wish for miracles. People die quickly here.

This is the school director and teacher/preacher in Trou Jacques. This village is accessible by sea only unless one wishes to take a burro straight up the mountain four hours. The community is on the very east end of the island and sits in a triangle where the rain pours into the village and washes animals, children and homes into the sea frequently.

Most people with resourses on the mainland have moved but more than 40 families are forced to stay and sleep in fear the rain will come before they can go high in the mountain or at least climb on a building.

There are 80 primary students in the school which is dark and damaged from many rains and storms. WE visited before the 4 storms then afterward to find the village 2 to 4 foot deep in rocks washed down from the mountain. Both cisterns now unusable. Fortunately boats can carry water from Picmy where there is good water...but also accessible by boat only.

The Director/Preacher has been in Trou Jacques many years as no one else will agree to live in a community so ravaged by water that is not usable. He, like all other teachers recieve pay only about two times a year. At this point it has been over 5 months since payday. As a pastor he receives only a gratuity at Christmas and perhaps a special day.

Following the storms no one from the government in Anse a Galets came to look at damage and church officials visit when Volunteers pay for a boat. Not just a teacher/preacher, he holds the frightened people together and makes phone calls.

The community is in need of teams to repair cisterns and some engineering skills to help redirect the rain away from the village rather than straight through the town. People are poor and tuition is high, but he stays, and cares. $50.00 is all he makes a month! And he hasn't seen that for 5 months. What a wonder it would be if salary PLUS could ease him into the rapidly approaching rainy season.

This little two year old is an orphan who just happens to be in love with Joe. Her family includes and aunt and uncle, cousin who is a school teacher who provides for her, his parents, a wife and one child and another orphan 4 year old. Not unusual in Sousafilip.

We aren't sure how adoptions are done on the island. We know some orphanages keep children several years and have adoptive parents support them and visit for long periods of time. Others are just a call away and I'm honestly not sure who to contact. I have asked several and all give different answers.

This child is cared for but is a real hardship that is just accepted by an old couple who can't support themselves. She sqeals plays and is miss obnoxious personallity!

When I first arrived she was a newborn and I was asked to visit her mother who had 3 voudou zombies on her and was paralyzed and unable to speak. In reality she was so brain injured she was near death. After a long hospital stay she could sit up but not much else. Pastor Abner managed to get her to a healer in AAG...where she eventually died.

In our 16 months we have become aware of many like this little doll, some bigger, but all joyful and half naked. Joe and I are just wandering how hard it will be to get through customs when we finally go home. I don't think we will be the only ones on the plane with giggling carry ons.

The Day the Captain Died

Guess I'll call this "the day the captain died. In Haiti tradition is very important but some things are much more simple. The family had no money so the church he belonged to and worked for for years took responsibility for building the crypt. The wind was blowing so hard family could not come from the mainland so the burial was the next afternoon. No embalming and no funeral homes, so a casket was borrowed for the visitation and church service. People had to wash cloths so the community sold water and a boat ower offered to sell since he wasn't otherwise involved. A retailers booth did good business as people and goats huddled to keep warm. A young neighbor got busy and gave him a shave when they saw me coming to take photos for the family who would not make it. Death isn'n death, it's "passing over" and honoring the person is very important. So important it becomes a community event. The funeral progresses pretty traditonally until the final song when the "keening and wailing" begins in earnest. Close relatives threw themselves on the concrete floor, and how they come out without a concussion is beyond me. This continues to the cemetary as they carry the casket up the hill, remove the body and put the final concrete on the top. For some reason I don't understand, there was no rum and dancing. Think maybe the family was too poor and spent all the money given on food. It is an honorable tradition. There is some laughter and normal daily routines but there is also an entire community involved and respectful. There is a little food, friends sitting around the table playing dominos and an air of surprise. The family, who has nothing, will miss the one who usually did the begging and scrounging for handouts. But he was honored. And I will always remember the waves and wind, and the conversations of "the day the captain died." Shirley

Well it has been a time of life and death in Sousafilip. We now have water as the generator has been fixed after a week of extreme conservation. It is a wonderful social time as people gather with every imaginable kind of container to receive the life giving water. I can't balance an empty bucket and walk two steps but the ladies lift the 6 gallons as if they weigh nothing and take off up the hill.

Late yesterday we were notified the old church boat captain had died. I must have been the only one in town anticipating it but he has been living a slow death since we arrived. Today was "community day" as the horrible Norde churns the sea so much the family from the mainland can not come. Two daughters depend on the church and community for finding a "borrowed" casket (Mm Connel keeps her's in the living room for her time to pass over. The church members also gather the rock, gravel and sand, beg, borrow or take cement from somewhere and build all but the top of the crypt.

Market day and in the quiet we should get things done. Ha! Yesterday, Joe managed to set up the office and it is nice to work at a real desk. Naturally, everyone likes to sit in the "excutive" chair. We can't use it in front of the computer as the floor slops and it tends to want to roll across the floor and out the door!

I usually "blurb" rather than blog but as we move into the new year we will try new things. Joe and I signed up for a 2 year appointment and that ends in October this year. We have some wells to repair and drill and a clinic that is now closed but "trying" to reopen. The clinic will serve about 8 to 10 communities that now are walking long distances for simple health care.

We have a sponsor to provide salary for a nurse and community health worker. We have a discount pharmacy that will provide some meds at cost from the US. We need a church sponsor that could provide $150.00 US each month for supplies and general expenses then we would be IN BUSINESS!

So many sick, hungry and no industry on the south side of La Gonave and we have so little time. We have been her 15 months and received teams to do roofing, repair guest house, paint clinic, repair cistern and one medical team.

Living is "rustic", travel to sousafilip is grueling, the sea is beautiful and food for teams is grand Haitian cooking. Teams help us employ many locals for short periods. We are attempting to develop cooperative groups in fishing and train community leaders in development and management of resources.

The Haitian Methodist Church now has new leadership and we look forward to more interested from the church in the project on La Gonave.

We did a food distribution, using some GBGM funds and UMCOR following the storms and fed families in 12 communities on sud la gonave.

With industry and NGO's all over the nord and in the mountains we hope to make some progress in livestock and farming to improve education, health and general living conditions.