{"id":821,"date":"2010-05-09T22:33:39","date_gmt":"2010-05-10T03:33:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/?p=821"},"modified":"2012-06-23T23:21:52","modified_gmt":"2012-06-24T04:21:52","slug":"2nd-haiti-trip-vol-vi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/?p=821","title":{"rendered":"2nd Haiti Trip – Vol. VI"},"content":{"rendered":"

2nd Haiti Trip – Vol. VI<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

I\u00a0arrived in Haiti last Tuesday. \u00a0There isn’t any way to describe how the days progress and what pops up in front of us that we see is something that NEEDS done! \u00a0I will give just a brief description of some of the things getting done at the house and then a detail from a day.<\/p>\n

Bill hurt his back just before I arrived by riding in the back of the pick-up so someone else could be more comfortable inside. \u00a0He has been avoiding going very far till it improves so we have been unable to go to the mountains. \u00a0It has also been a time of trying to get some things done on the house. \u00a0The gardeners have been clearing the rubble to make places to plant vegetables. \u00a0We had them plant several papaya and banana plants which grow within a year.<\/p>\n

The plumbers finished the fixtures inside the house and are working on piping outside so we can water the garden when it is in. \u00a0The electricians have most of the receptacles in and we had electricity for the first time on Friday. \u00a0However, it is seldom on very long. Last night it came on about 1 am and went off at 6 am. \u00a0I doubt if we have it again today but we’ll see. \u00a0Thanks to the Mennonite compound next door, we have water most of the time as when they run their generator or the electricity is on, we can fill our storage tanks on the roof and have water until we use it all or the power comes back on. \u00a0It is SUCH a blessing to be able to jump in the shower and cool off.<\/p>\n

Here is my diary from the last couple of days.\u00a0Sorry it is so long, but\u00a0I don’t have time to edit it. \u00a0I just want to give you a taste of our lives here.<\/p>\n

Friday morning in Haiti.\u00a0 The last few days have been spent at the house except for all the trips to town to pick up the girls, get supplies, and take them back.<\/p>\n

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Sunrise from the roof where we sleep<\/p><\/div>\n

Bill and I are sleeping on the roof.\u00a0 Heavenly!\u00a0 The stars overhead, a lovely breeze blowing after a hot day, and the sunrise over the mountains at 5 am.\u00a0 So another day in Haiti begins.<\/p>\n

We get up and head to the mission to pick up the girls who live behind it with a family.\u00a0 We stop at the mission to check and see if their electricity is on so we can use the internet.\u00a0 Usually not.\u00a0 Some American visitors are there and we have had some lovely visits with them.\u00a0 We also enjoy a glass of juice from their breakfast buffet.<\/p>\n

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Market in Fonds-Parisien<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

We go behind to Mr. Morel’s house where the girls are.\u00a0 They are usually ready around seven.\u00a0 Most days we head to the market to buy the food supplies we need for the day.\u00a0 That always takes an hour as everyone wants to charge the “blancs” way too much and the girls haggle and argue to get it reasonable.\u00a0 If we overpaid once, it would just about be all over.\u00a0 Today, Jesse went to get a 10′ piece of plastic pipe that should have been fairly cheap and they asked for $40 American dollars!\u00a0 No go!<\/p>\n

Bill has been spending the days trying to find time to rest his hurt back but in reality he spends it trying to get gardeners, plumbers, and electricians to understand what needs done and to do it right, a nearly impossible task!\u00a0 Though the gardeners we have hired from the mountains have done an amazing job of picking up and moving the rocks so we have some places to plant, getting them to plant things where we want is another story.\u00a0 We hope to get several banana and papaya trees planted today, in a row, alternating trees.\u00a0 We’ll see how it goes!<\/p>\n

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Our cleared back yard with garden beds ready<\/p><\/div>\n

We are feeding anywhere between 12 – 20 people each meal.\u00a0 The workers have not had breakfast when they get here.\u00a0 The gardeners are staying the whole week before going back to the mountains on Saturday so they need something to eat, too.\u00a0 And cooking is an ordeal!!!<\/p>\n

Just making pancakes and eggs for everyone took two hours as some people had to go to town to pick up the banana trees before the pancakes were ready.\u00a0 More workmen kept showing up.\u00a0 Then the camp stove we were cooking on ran out of fuel before we were done cooking.\u00a0 And so it goes\u2026\u2026\u2026.<\/p>\n

I’ve been trying to communicate having meals on time as it is so hard to plan anything but that is about impossible.\u00a0 The first night I was here, we didn’t get back from PAP till 6 pm.\u00a0 Then the girls started cooking and it was nearly nine before we ate.\u00a0 I’ve cooked a couple of time but to get a pot of water boiling on their charcoal stoves takes time.\u00a0 The chickens have been very tough so it’s been hard to enjoy them.\u00a0 But I keep trying to speed things up.\u00a0 I like to see my food at night.\u00a0 We did manage to eat by 6:30 pm last night but it is nearly dark.\u00a0 We are on the same time zone as MO but so far east of there, daylight starts much earlier and ends earlier, too.<\/p>\n

I gave them my “speechifying” about the trash in the yard yesterday.\u00a0 I had about 3-4 of the girls and another young man who spend time here picking up trash.\u00a0 I asked them what they thought Jesus thought about trash.\u00a0 “No good” they said.\u00a0 Correct!\u00a0 So I talked to them about how I had a passion for having our own place here with NO TRASH (manmade, that is).\u00a0 When you ask them to pick up trash, they immediately start picking up the dead leaves and organic matter that is laying around.\u00a0 Those things will break down someday and be dirt which is scarce!\u00a0 We want the man made trash picked up and it’s everywhere.\u00a0 Within these walls, though, and someday in front of our front wall, I want it clean.\u00a0 We’ll see how it goes.<\/p>\n

There are two farmers from the mountains here today that Bill is trying to talk with about the situation in the mountains but he keeps having to leave to supervise the gardeners and plumbers.\u00a0 It is so hard to communicate getting things done properly!<\/p>\n

Frida & Laura from PAP show up.\u00a0 They spend the night.<\/p>\n

SATURDAY: Up early.\u00a0 We have Frida & Laura at the market in Fonds by 6 am but they can’t find everything they want.\u00a0 So off we go to Croix des Bouquets.\u00a0 What an experience.\u00a0 I turned on the video on my camera and just walked around.\u00a0 Hope I got the angle right.\u00a0 I’m feeling really funny about sticking my camera in people’s faces so I was trying to be discreet. \u00a0The filth the people are sitting in seliing food, the croding, trucks squeezing through as people grab their “store” and move it back to make room. \u00a0Unbelievable.<\/p>\n

Frida and Laura spent $50 on the food for one nice meal for many.\u00a0\u00a0 Scrawny live chickens are $6 each! \u00a0We took them back to the house, then headed back to HCM to pick up the girls and visit the Americans one more time.\u00a0 They gave us three mosquito nets!\u00a0 Wonderful people.\u00a0 We really liked them.<\/p>\n

Back to the house.\u00a0 Frida, Laura, and some of the girls cook for four hours!\u00a0 We finally eat about one.\u00a0 In the meantime, the gardeners finish planting the banana trees.\u00a0 They get ready to leave for their mountain home.\u00a0 We give the old man the two cans of powdered Enfamil and try to explain to him how to mix it for the baby in the mountains whose mother has no milk.\u00a0 We could not find a baby bottle anywhere, even at the mission hospital!<\/p>\n

The electricians and plumber are finally nearly finished in the bathrooms so I clean ours so I can show the girls what I want done on Monday.\u00a0 Things are too hectic today and it’s already too hot.<\/p>\n

After lunch, Bill and I visit with Frida and Laura, trying to figure out some prices for the meal.\u00a0 We spend so much on food and we need to get a budget.\u00a0 We talked with them through Jolius about how Haitians eat.\u00a0 They’ve been eating in the lap of luxury here! \u00a0 They said most Haitians eat something like spaghetti or eggs for breakfast and rice and beans at noon or one.\u00a0 Most of them don’t really eat supper thought hopefully they can afford a mango or banana or something.\u00a0 Only two meals a day, if that.\u00a0 We’re going to start eating lighter with only one major meal and try to keep track of the money better.\u00a0 It just goes at the markets!!<\/p>\n

An elderly lady from the poor village next door came to see us seeking some help.\u00a0 She and her husband had ten children, all grown now.\u00a0 Two of them live with her along with five of her grandchildren.\u00a0 Her husband died 7 months ago.\u00a0 She is trying to feed the children but it is hard.<\/p>\n

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Washing Polymene’s feet<\/p><\/div>\n

Bill had Nono bring out a basin of water to soak her feet.\u00a0 Then he washed them.\u00a0 I scrubbed her broken filthy toe nails and then rubbed her feet.\u00a0 There seemed to be a depression on her foot about 1\/2 inch wide and I asked her if it was sore.\u00a0 She said, yes.\u00a0 The rats bite her at night!!!\u00a0 Nono gave her a pedicure.\u00a0 I took her picture and showed her on the camera, the 1st one of her life!\u00a0 What an afternoon for her!<\/p>\n

We gave her some rice and beans to cook for her family tonight and told her we would come and see her house later this afternoon.\u00a0 She says her husband bought some land to build them a new house before he died so her family would probably be a great one to build a house for.<\/p>\n

We took Laura, Frida, and her children to Fonds to catch a tap tap to PAP and got caught in a funeral possession!\u00a0 Took forever.\u00a0 Finally dropped them off and came back to the house.<\/p>\n

We walked over to the village next door to visit the woman’s home.\u00a0 Children of all ages came out of the woodwork so to speak only there wasn’t any wood work, only mud or concrete huts with metal or thatched roofs.\u00a0 I doubt if many of them had seen a camera before.\u00a0 They were so excited about seeing their pictures on the screen after I took them.<\/p>\n

We walked to the back of the village to where the woman lived with her grandchildren and children.\u00a0 Not much of a house.\u00a0 But I asked if I could look inside.\u00a0 The front room was nearly bare but the dirt floor was swept clean.\u00a0 Such a life as this woman has lived, raising ten children and now some of her grandchildren.\u00a0 Our interpreter told us that the children of this village did not go to school. \u00a0 Bless their hearts.<\/p>\n

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Our gardener, his family, and village home<\/p><\/div>\n

We also visited the homes of two of the men who are working helping the plumber put in pipes in the yard and working to level out the rocks and mess in the yard.\u00a0 They make about $30\/week and work hard!!!\u00a0 I hadn’t realized that they were from next door!\u00a0 So now we have met their families and we’re talking about adopting the village and seeing what could be done there.\u00a0 SO MUCH TO DO and we have to leave in nine days!<\/p>\n

Back at the house, it finally starts to rain after no rain for three weeks.\u00a0 And this is the rainy season!\u00a0 It was lovely.\u00a0 It stops and an hour later, the roof is dry enough to put our mats down and go to sleep.\u00a0 Not much of a breeze tonight.<\/p>\n

Thank you for keeping us in your prayers. \u00a0We hope to go back to the mountains next week before we head home May 18th. \u00a0So much to do and so little time. \u00a0May God bless you all!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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2nd Haiti Trip – Vol. VI I\u00a0arrived in Haiti last Tuesday. \u00a0There isn’t any way to describe how the days progress and what pops up in front of us that we see is something that NEEDS done! \u00a0I will give just a brief description of some of the things getting …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=821"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":861,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821\/revisions\/861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justmercy.org\/WordPress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}