May 18, 2007

An intriguing day, very much like the Haiti I remember; take anything simple and make it complicated! A trip to the hardware store to replace a fitting in the USA is an hour’s time out of the day; in Dessalines it is a 4-hour trip back into Port au Prince. “No Problem” is the favorite local retort to these type issues and then proceed to ignore the item that created the concern hoping it will go away!

I’ve had only a day to snap a few pictures but hope they will help you to connect to our efforts here in Dessalines. On our way out of Port au Prince (PAP) I snapped the little boy begging in the streets – perhaps 6 years old – for his day’s food. It is truly a country of amazing contrasts as the wealthy always seem to be building; those living in poverty are on the streets daily simply trying to exist.
We made our way to Dessalines and will be spending the month here basically with bare essentials of water, food and shelter and very little additional. The housing here is provided by a Canadian businessman related to much of the mission work here in Dessalines; food for the most part is obtained at the local market by our capable Elanje – a wonderful lady of extreme talent to tend to our every need; water is obtained from a processed source – one need only look at the water here and wonder how these children survive. I’ve included a picture of the complex; it looks quite nice against the mountain backdrop.
Days here are quite hot, registering around 90+F easily by 10AM; perhaps as high as 100+F or better by noon and cooling down only after sunset around 6:30PM. Morning starts around 5AM with coffee and fresh bread from the street vendors; noon meals are the larger of meals with perhaps a cookie and coffee later in the evening.

Visited the hospital today to determine a game plan for painting – I think it will boil down to something very similar to the Nike sports equipment slogan – “Just Do It”. Seems to be a series of endless walls with multiple colors of which none have seen a fresh coat of paint applied for many years.

Today was Flag Day; I caught a picture of one of the local celebrations for you. There is no work done (well, scheduled work, anyway) on this day as the people are quite proud of their independence and want to celebrate the occasion.

Spent the afternoon chipping a shower pipe out of a solid concrete wall; seems the last plumber in residence split the fitting attempting to replace a showerhead – as they say here “No Problem!” Started at 10AM – finished around 4PM and have little to show but a rather small hole in the wall. Managed to get the part off that needs replacing; now must schedule a trip into PAP to obtain the fitting.

I’ll share a day with you in Jane’s world here in our next communication.