The long awaited final leg of the trip. My apologies for the delay, but you know how it can get when you have a million and one things to do. Sometimes you just sit and look at the list and say to yourself, where do I even start? Well, here, I guess:
So when I left off I was begging off the end of the church "sermon" Oy Vey! I'm sure I'll have plenty to say about that subject as the year unfolds. If you know me at all you know I don't like to put God in a box, or to tell others what I think God is thinking. It is such a personal relationship each one of us has with the Creator. Sigh.
So as I drift back to the staff area in search of some cold water I also go check on the young lady in charge of the cooking for the day.
Now we are preparing to go on a tour of the city. Alain, our daytime director, will take us for a drive through the city and surrounding area. Dona will come along for the ride. Chad and I hop in the van and off we go. As we meander through the Delmas settlement it just amazes me how little these people have. Some live in tarp tents, some in boxes, some in steel or wooden huts. Entire families share spaces smaller than my bathroom. Many of them are merchants of a sort. There are so many stores and carts and stalls. They carry loads upon their heads, on the backs of motor bikes, in wheel barrels. The fences are strewn with items hanging from the links. Every THING is for sale in Haiti.
As we make our way into the city, the worst of the earthquake's damage is becoming more clear. Great structures lay in piles of rubble. The presidential palace still lays to waste. Their symbol of their nation, laying there, literally untouched in the 18 months since the quake. The cathedral is now home to many of the cities homeless. I saw a report that said 750,000 remain without homes since the quake.
After viewing the devastation in the city we turn and head up into the mountains. I guess living near the Grosse Pointe/Detroit border has taught me that it isn't all that odd to see wealth juxtaposed along side poverty, but I was utterly unprepared to see the extremes of this. As we wandered the winding roads up, up, up, we passed through some of the most affluent areas of Port Au Prince. Beautiful mansions sitting among the beauty of the mountains within yards of cardboard or tarp towns. Citizens driving Mercedes SUVs passing babies with no clothes, no shoes, no food, no medical care.
It is incredible to me that these people are living in what should be a tropical paradise, yet through circumstances are living in a waking hell.
When we realized how much time had passed since we left the mission, we decided it was time to head back. Down the mountain we went. As we headed back into the heavily populated areas we could smell that the brakes were nearly fried. Fortunately when they finally gave out, we were on a nearly level street going quite slowly and Alain was able to glide us sideways into a concrete wall. It did considerable damage to the front right fender of the van and we had to borrow water from a local citizen to cool off the brakes and a pipe and two by four to bump out the quarter panel in order to continue driving. Alain was pretty nervous so Chad offered to drive. Having grown up in Lebanon, driving the streets of Port Au Prince was a cinch for him. I will need to remember my combat driving lessons before I attempt to do the same.
We finally returned to the mission in time to supervise the final preparations of the dinner meal. The chicken and rice where well received and nobody got sick this day. After showers the children do devotions. They were quite thankful for not getting sick. This was a big improvement for them. We got them tucked in and I headed over to my room. All I wanted was a shower and to get to bed.
All for now. Stay tuned, there's more to come...
