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Reflections from Haiti ..... October 2010

Tuesday October 26

So our travels were fine and uneventful....... Keith Mumma got to Miami about 30 minutes before our flight for Port-au-Prince and the 767 was full going to Haiti.

So the Port-au-Prince airport is the typical 3rd world airport,  people trying to grab your bags and carry them and then negotiate with you for how much you will pay them.  Our driver, DJ was waiting at the airport for us and off we went.  Haiti 2010.  My initial impressions are that it's Chihuahua Mexico 7 years ago and then subtract for the largest earthquake in 200 years and here we are.   Tent cities everywhere.   We should have stock in the blue tarp business.......  As in Zambia, vendors are along every street with their wares for sale on the curb.....  Did I say tent cities everywhere......  makes our most primitive camping look like Camp Holidome.

Living conditions that are horrible at best........ traffic is typical Mexico and Zambia..... it's a free for all and prayers from the back and front seat work.

Our guest house is clean and adequate.  The three of us are in one room with our private bath ---- air conditioning apparently runs until about 1:00 am when they shut off the generator...... it's clean and safe....  several residents/guards live/work here and it's a gated guest house area on a major road.... noisy but will probably be quiet from midnight to 4:00 am.

Dinner was some baked chicken, boiled potatoes, bread, salad, rice pudding, water, Coke and Prestige..... which is the local beer.  Coke is the 1982 version and recipe made from  sugar cane rather than current recipe in the states.  Haven't tried the Prestige beer yet but they say it's not as good as Red and White from Jamaica.   Apparently the 5 star rum is top quality......  just don't drink the water!

So we're just chilling in the outside dining room which is open air where the WIFI connection is.  Several other Americans here from Kansas City (who know Dave & Karen Landis),  several 20ish girls from Mexico and Canada.   Cholera is on everybody's mind here.....   probably will steer clear of tent cities for numerous reasons...... we have breakfast at 7 am and then off to Children's Hospital, taking them several cases of med supplies that we brought with and then I don't know where else we will travel to during the day. Looking forward to an adventurous day in Haiti.

So all for now.... but I would say my heart is screaming several things........
             praise God to whom and where we were born.....
             our poorest American is rich beyond imagination
             how does five hours of flight place us on another planet..........

Grace and peace from Haiti..... 


Wednesday October 27

Well it was a great day in Haiti........ once our driver arrived at our Guest House after breakfast this morning, we headed to Grace Children's Hospital.   They have not torn down the major part of the building that was damaged in January's earthquake, but they have taken the second floor off piece by piece, hammer by hammer and they are now awaiting heavier equipment to demolish the 1st floor.   The clinics in the courtyard were full of patients, HIV testing and medication, TB testing and medication, vaccinations and women's health day.  Unbelievable doing medicine in tents in the courtyard...... people waiting for hours ......... yet Children's Hospital serves 80,000 patients yearly, nearly 95% of them being indignant and unable to pay.  So where would those 80,000 Haitians go without ICC Children's Hospital?

Across the street from Children's are several buildings in another compound that house urgent care and eye medicine.  Construction is nearing completion on a new clinic center that will allow the tents in the courtyard to be moved into this new clinic center.  Once these outdoor clinics get moved into the new clinic center, then the hospital courtyard will be vacated allowing the demolition of the remaining part of the hospital.  The young children in the urgent care center were precious.....

We ventured to one of of the over 100 ICC Children's Hospital  clinics throughout "suburbia".  There were about 20 mothers with their beautiful children receiving vaccinations, medical information and education.......  the little kids smiled like Chuck when the "blancs" wave and smile with them.  The little community hut was at the edge of one of the tent cities......... oh my..... deplorable living conditions for 1.3 million Haitians.... at best.   Words can't even begin to describe the emotions that rage as one walks through just the edge of one of these tent centers........

After a delightful lunch at The Lodge we visited the Haitian version of Home Depot,   Eko Depot, which was interesting to say the least.  Great supply of materials ---- probably more plumbing and electrical components than any Home Depot or Lowe's combined....... and dimensional lumber has not hit Haiti where a 2x4 is actually 1.5 x 3.5 --- it's a full 2x4 but straightness is not a key quality in Haiti.

Dinner was a bean concoction over rice with some type of meat, we think beef or goat but are hesitant to ask, salad and bread.  A major rainstorm over the island but the it has stopped now......

So the roughest thing about Haiti?  Absolutely without question, it's the roads.  Toledo's worst alley is far far better than the best road in Haiti.  Not only do all the cars have the rear seats that sit sidewise in the car --- front to back ----- so you're not seating forward and the roughness of the "roads" leaves even the most stoic to be near car sickness.

Lessons from Haiti today.......
          1. wear comfortable shoes
          2. Thank God to whom and where we are born
          3. So why do we flush 2-3 gallons of drinkable water down the toilet with each flush while millions and millions of 3rd

                     world residents don't have safe drinking water yet fight epidemics of cholora and other totally preventable diseases?
          4.  Why is Haiti "on hold" with earthquake cleanup because of conflicts between governments and the UN?

Grace and peace from Haiti........ hopefully weather allows us to fly over to Cap Haitien on the north end of the island for an evening on Thursday..........

Thursday October 28

After our breakfast at Walls Guesthouse, we ventured to Children's Hospital for a few moments and then on to Pure Water which manufacturers the stand alone water filters.  In the states we're used to water filters being on the incoming water faucet or a water softening system that filters all the incoming domestic water for a house or building.  The Pure Water filters are not that type at all.... they are poured concrete boxes approximately 3 ft tall and 12 x 12 inches square.  Inside the concrete box is a water filtration system of pea gravel and sand that removes the sediments and impurities in the water that is poured into the concrete box from the top.    As the water is filtered through the gravel and sand it then comes out of a 1/4" tub on the lower portion of the concrete box into a clean water bucket.  The purification system doesn't make the water 100% cleaned of all impurities, but somewhere around 80-90%.   To US standards we would probably want it to be 99.9% purified, but relative to the contaminated water that the majority of the 9 million Haitians consumed, this Pure Water purification system is a life saver.   The cholera outbreak in Haiti is caused by consuming water that is contaminated by human and animal feces.  Pure Water's purification eliminates this contamination.  It is hard to refer to the manufacturing process of these filters as a factory since they also form pour eight concrete boxes daily.  The manufacturing process in Haiti is decades behind manufacturing countries such as the US and is probably still a decade behind even Mexico.  Pure Water's goal is to get a water purifier filtration in every school in a ratio of 1 filter per 75 students.   Each student is able to take home safe drinking water and reduce the huge health issues with contaminated water.  While we were at "the factory", they had a training session going on in the upstairs classroom with 2 teaches from various schools that have or will be receiving these water purification units.  Each recipient school sends two teachers that learns about the water purification unit that are then responsible to train the other teachers in their schools and then train the students.

After leaving Pure Water we traveled down to Citee Soleil which is closer to the port outside of Port-au-Prince.  Years ago this was a neighborhood controlled by drug lords and it was an area considered off limits for most.   Around 2007 the UN decided to clean house in this area since it was considered to be one of the most dangerous areas in the world.  Today it's still considered to be off limits for foreigner and even locals.....the streets are lined with small vendors and the area is filled with thousands and thousands of tents.  This is hard to visualize and taking pictures in this area is not recommended.... but imagine tents of blue tarps made into a house of approximately 8' x 8' or 12' x 12' in rows, with less than a foot between tents and after every two rows of tents there being a walkway of maybe two feet between the rows of tents.  It's wall to wall tents with thousands of Haitians called it home.  Obviously none of them have kitchens or bathrooms...... at the ends of many rows of tents there are toilets..... but not toilets that we are used to at campgrounds.... these are a row of doors inside are not toilets, but holes in the ground.  Ouch.... the knees!!!  We did not traverse any of these tent cities......it's a different world in tent cities....... by the grace of God go we!

We felt comfortable viewing a school in Citee Soleil because Ronnie, the manager of the Pure Water factory went with us.  The "powers" to be in Citee Soliel know that Ronnie and Pure Water are here for the betterment of the people with their water filtration systems --- so he is welcome into their turf.  We visited one school that has about 15-18 elementary students and one teacher,  which has two water filters in the school.  There was a group of Rotarians from New Hampshire doing some work at the school, make new blackboards out of plywood.  The kids devoured us as we would take their pictures on digital cameras and then show them on the camera screen.  These Haitians kids are just overwhelming beautiful children that are precious.

We left our visit to Citee Soleil without a hitch except our hearts were captured by these Haitians kids.  We lunched again at The Lodge and then headed towards the airport to fly to Cap Haitien.  It's a short 30 minute flight to Cap Haitien.... a driver was waiting for us and we proceeded to go to a hotel that we still don't know the name of.  It's an open air Caribbean type atmosphere.  It's a safe, clean environment with old American type tv shows remade in Haitian dialect........  apparently we are at Habitat Royale....

We're off to some authentic Haitian neighborhoods tomorrow rather than tent cities since this part of north Haiti was not impacted by January's earthquake.   Short fly back to Port-au-Prince tomorrow afternoon.  Hopefully we'll get some of our photos uploaded to the EpworthSWAT website soon..... we'll let you know if we do....

Lessons from Thursday in Haiti......
                   1.  newer, bigger airplanes are better...
                   2.  Haitian roads are horrible....
                   3.  Be comfortable with Plan A, B or C or D...... blessed are the flexible
                   4.  A rock in the water doesn't understand the misery of the rock in the sun....

Grace and peace from Haiti....

Friday October 29

Our day started in Cap Haitien, which is the northern most shore city in Haiti.  We were awakened by 5:00 am with neighboring rosters..... where are the shotguns when you need them?..... had a great omelette breakfast and our driver and interpreter picked us up at 8:15 to head out to several ICC Medical clinics in the region.

Have I mentioned how horrible the roads are in Haiti ?

We journeyed through Cap Haitien's downtown and out past the port, the airport and along the Grand River of the North, which is the largest river in Haiti.  We traversed along the river for about 45 minutes in our Land Rover towards Joli Trou (which means Beautiful Hole) which is a village of 4000 residents in the valley of mountains.  Some would call this God's country....... it is beautiful village of small metal roof homes and huts and shacks that meanders along a stream/river.  We had to get out of the Land Rover where the road had been washed away by recent heavy rains.  We walked about 1/3 mile along the washed out road to the Joli Trou medical clinic.  This is a one story building approximately 15' wide and 40' long with a pharmacy, lab, exam/procedure room, storage room with a welcome area which has a table and two medical beds.  We talked awhile with the staff which consisted of a nurse, a lab technician and a gopher/administrator that did a little of everything, along with the "chief" who was like a village president and president of the medical clinic.  The clinic has a metal roof affixed a 2x4 roof structure along with an out building having two toilets and a shower.  The water is collected in a cistern that collects rain water that really doesn't due anything because there is no water pump to pressurize their faucets nor is there electricity.  No lights. bare concrete floors.  The staff is passionate and committed to providing medical care to their village and is available 24/7 for any and all medical emergencies.  Talk about a med staff that does so much with so little!!!  Outside there is a hand pump for well water than was donated by Shawnee UMC in Lima Ohio (Bryan Bucher).  We had SheShe with us who is a 75 year old man who is the Director of Health Ministries for the northern portion of Haiti through ICC (International Child Care -- Keith Mumma is the US Director of ICC and is traveling with us for our Haiti week).  We talked with the clinic staff and SheShe for awhile with our interpreter and determined several specific needs for this Joil Trou medical clinic.

There is no electricity, no lights.  Hence a small solar panel to energize several lights and a water pump is important.  The lab has only one microscope and often can not examine blood or human tissues for diagnosis because of the lack of light. At midday on a sunny day there is sufficient light for the microscope to be effective, but lights would allow microscopic diagnosis regardless of time of day and amount of light.  A water pump to pressurize their sinks.  There are no ceilings in the clinic just the 2x4 structure and corrugated metal roof.  The lab area is routinely contaminated because of substances fall down into the room along with contamination in the exam/procedural room.  A suspended type ceiling with metal/aluminum panels would prevent the room contamination along with shutters on the lab room to keep the rain from pouring through the screen windows into the lab.  Painting the bare concrete floor with an epoxy floor paint and sealer would allow them to also keep the floor cleaner than they are presently able to with bare concrete floor.  Perhaps these projects are ideal for a spring break college trip with Epworthian support........

The Joli Trou villagers are warm and welcoming people.  We were given fresh oranges just picked off the trees ---- WOW were they tasty.  A village with so little in God's country but with warm and hospitality that causes us to realize how little they have but how they realize the importance of life and caring for one another.  We bid the village goodbye as we walked back to the Land Rover for the next med clinic.  However we had some fun at the river where six Haitian ladies were doing their laundry.  They were kidding with us and wanted us to take their photos and the gals started dancing in the river as if the music was blarring from loudspeakers.  We laughed and joked as if there were no language barrier or differences between Haiti and America.  I don't know if we made the day for the laundry ladies or if we made theirs..... but the ocean spance is huge but humor and kidding around has little barrier.

We Land Rovered on to Bihon where another ICC Medical clinic is....... have I told you how worse than horrible the Haitian roads are?  Haitians mode of travel is walking and the children walk miles in their uniforms to school, natives are selling their wares along the roadside be it gravel or rocks, tires, oil or diesel fuel, laundry or food....... there are no business signs, just their products and themselves patiently waiting for commerce along the busy road where a few speeding cars and trucks traverse between motorcycles, pedestrians and bicycles.   After a 45 minute bouncing (understatement) ride we finally arrived, still alive in Bihon.  The medical clinic has dozens and dozens of patients awaiting hours to spend a few minutes with either a nurse, a pharmacist or the Haitian male doctor who wanted to talk to us about funding a new hospital in Bihon that is not being moved along by the Haitian Health Ministiries.  Many of the waiting patients were midwives with their steel boxes they had birthing materials for those special blessings from God.  These ICC medical clinics are primitive but the only means of medical attention for the rural Haitian natives.  ICC has been able to staff these clinics with passionate, committed medical teams that care for their villages.  So much is done with so little..... but without these ICC Clinics, there would be virtually no medical assistance in rural Haiti.  We had fun with some of the Haitian kids outside the clinic as we had to scurry off to not missed our plane back to Port-au-Prince.  I need not tell you about the delightful 1 1/2 hour Land Rover ride back to the airport as we believe you've heard about the Haitian roads.  Could a donkey be less comfortable? 

We arrived at the Cap Haitien airport in time for our flight on Tortug Airlines.  Today was a beautiful flying afternoon on a 24 seater turbo prop wing over the plane type airplane.  The flight over the Haitians mountains separated north and south Haiti was uneventful but a great flight to see the lush centerland of Haiti.  DJ, our driver for the week, was awaiting our arrival.  I should tell you that DJ actually has a name of Franz (half of the Hanz and Franz team for your Saturday Night Livers) but since he always has different loud music playing on the car as he waits for us.  DJ speaks little English and we speak little to no Creole and I am the French specialist who hated French at Sylvania High School several decades ago, but Mrs Fardenickus would be proud of her French Flunky in Haiti.  Yet, humor and thumbs up and laughter bridges the gap between Nations...... too bad world issues could be softened in like manner.

We returned to Grace Children's Hospital to finalize the weekend and returned to our Wall Guesthouse.  We entered our guestroom that we stayed at during the beginning of the week not knowing if we received some unknown and unexpected room guests.... but are suitcases were untouched and were good for the next three nights.  We enjoyed our chicken and dark rice along with carrots and a green vegetable that we are once again afraid to ask what it is ..... Keith's policy on vegetables, known or unknown, is to fill up on chicken and rice..... along with cupcakes for dessert.

Our lessons for Friday in Haiti......
             1.  Donkeys or Land Rovers in Haiti....... so similar
             2.  Save your long emails before the laptop burps and prevent retyping...
             3.  Security scanning equipment really don't work on domestic Haitian airflights....
             4.  Barriers of language and custom can be spanned with smiles, laughter,  humor and love
             5.  Little by little a bird builds it's nest....

Enjoy your American weekend while we enjoy a holiday weekend in Haiti with Monday being "Day of the Dead"...............

Saturday October 30

We started our Saturday with a leisurely breakfast at our guesthouse and DJ, our driver and his friend, Ozefall (probably not the Creole spelling but it is pronunciation that he was happy with) picked us up to head out to Croix des Bouquets to view a CSI Mission House.  It was great that Ozefall came along because he is quite fluent in English and was an excellent interpreter between we Blancs and DJ, and Ozefall was able to explain our jokester remarks that we make from the back seat to and about DJ which added to the ongoing humor of the day.  The CSI Mission House has George and Sue Cook as "temporary" Mission House managers or sitters while the regular missionaries are back in the States doing their fund raising activities.  George and Sue Cook are relatives of Mark Christensen and have been the fill-in missionaries or mission house managers for about 10 years in Haiti.  George and Sue are retired but love Haiti and the Haiti people and have very nice mission house, medical clinic and orphanage.  They are in the process of building a new orphanage building and then the existing two story orphanage becomes an entire guest house.  After touring their facilities we took about a 15 minute walk up a dirt road to the local school in another compound.  We were able to talk to some local teens along the road, several young kids riding donkeys and the young Haitian boy was so proud to get the keys to the school and he wanted to show us each of the classrooms.  After returning to the Mission House, Sue served all five of us lunch and we were able to talk and share life a little....  we departed since they had an incoming medical team arriving shortly to their Mission House and they were preparing for that arrival.

For a change, the roads to Croix des Bouquets were not too bad to and from Croix, but the road along the tent city to the Mission House more than made up for the good roads to Croix.  We got a cultural experience at a local Texaco gas station when DJ realized we were on fumes.  If you pay in US dollars the gas station attendants want to charge one exchange rate, but there are other Haitians waiting to exchange US dollars for different exchange rates and it was an experience to watch and listen to DJ and Ozefall handle business.  After the exchange rate negotiations, the fuel attendant then put in more fuel than we paid for and that was another cultural experience as the gas attendant came running after us since we go more fuel than we paid for.  Another lesson in why trusted drivers and interpreters are MANDATORY for these type of mission encounters.

We then went to see several Haitian friends that used to be in Keith Luke's student ministry in Bethel Ohio years ago.  Junior Bataille is now 28 and his sister Rose is 31 and after mis-directions and mis-turns and turnarounds we got connected and went to see the under construction church where Junior and his Father (Joseph) are Pastors of.  Once this three story church is completed, it will seat 7,000 congregants which is a HUGE church in Haiti.  We get to go to that church in the morning which meets from 5 - 9 am.  Not a typo --- 5 am to 9 am..... there is no roof on this church and they meet that early due to the temperatures which reach 90-93-94 midday.  This is a non-denom church and Junior's Dad is a well known and respected evangelistic minister that we are looking forward to hearing.  While we were at the church site today, there were about 40 young Haitians girls practicing their church singing along with a group of Haitian men also practicing.  The music was wonderful and we really can't wait for the Haitian gospel experience in the morning..... albeit noon would be more welcomed than 5ish..... but off we'll go in the morning. 

We apologize for not being able to get our Haitian photos upload back to our websites, but the internet connection leaves alot to be desired and the size of even reduced photo sizes just won't allow emailing photos back but we promise several hundred Haitian photos will be uploaded within 24 hours of our return to Toledo on Monday evening.

We returned to our guest house for a leisurely dinner, checking football scores and a casual evening of conversation with other guests.  We be calling it an early Saturday night in Haiti so we can be awake at our pre-dawn church experience.

Saturday lessons from Haiti......
            1.  Drivers and interpreters should never be underestimated......
            2.  There are no oceans between friendships
            3.  When traveling Haitian roads, breakfast with protein is vital....
            4.  Beyond the mountains,   more mountains....

Sunday October 31 - our last day for this Haiti trip.......................

Well it was an early morning in Haiti..... the church we were going to started at about 5:00 am but we didn't get there until about 6:45 am because we knew the first several hours were all music and singing.  Junior met us when we arrived at church and took us all the way up front.  The first and second floors of this church were already 90% full when we arrived and the singing was beyond our expectations of a Haitian gospel church.  The Haitians were all in their Sunday best.  As mentioned yesterday, this is a three story church still under construction which means there are no windows (which are open air grating) and no roof.  There are some wood benches on the first floor but the primary seating is that the congregants bring their own chairs or benches or they sit on the parts of concrete blocks set on end.  Yes ---- sitting on concrete blocks for 3-4 hours!!!! 

Junior's Dad, Pastor Joseph Gerald Bataille, did a preliminary message after scripture and prayers.  This initial message was almost a political activist talk about need reform in Haiti and needing elected officials that will get something done.  Haiti Presidential elections occur on November 28 and it appears to be a heavily contested election.  Democracy in Haiti is a new thing here, with the first democratic election occurring in 1990 or 1991.  This nation is currently at an economic stop sign.  Apparently there are millions and millions of dollars pledged for earthquake cleanup and reconstruction that is hung-up between NATO, Haiti and the donor nations.  In a huge portion of the rubble there are apparently bodies remaining since the January earthquake and now NATO won't let the removed materials be placed in a normal dump but only in a specially designated dump that doesn't exist.  Pastor Bataille even made the remark that Castro's regime would even be better for Haiti than the current democracy.  Obviously these sermons are given in Creole and Robinson was my interpreter and Junior was for Keith Luke and unfortunately Keith Mumma didn't have an interpreter.  Pastor Batallie then introduced Junior who introduced Keith Luke to the congregation and Keith did an excellent job of extending greetings from American and Epworth and Junior shared how Junior and his sister Rose were in Keith's student ministry in Bethel Ohio. 

After a little more music Pastor Batallie was at the pulpit again to give his message which was now a combination scriptural message of transformation of our life through God and transformation of Haiti through new leadership that understands and cares about the Haitian problems rather than using the Haiti Presidency to enrich themselves and their friends.  Pastor Batallie is a gifted, highly charged man that has no trouble expounding on how he thinks and feels.  The Haitian congregation is full engagement with the message and interacting with Amen's and Alleluluia's as you would expect in a Haitian charismatic church.  The Pastor wrapped up about 9:15ish as the sun was starting to beat down into the church.  It was interesting to note how the congregation moved around the building or changed their seating to avoid direct sunlight and there was a portion of the main floor that never had people seating there which was due to direct sunlight during all the hours of church.

After church, various bible/neighborhood groups remained in different areas of the church to pray and study together apparently for a couple more hours.  We got to talk with Junior and his wife Joycelyne who just got married In July in Naples, Junior's sister Rose and other family and friends.  After our goodbyes we headed off with our driver DJ and Robinson and headed downtown Port-au-Prince for more tours of "downtown" and the street merchants and vendors.  Another planet........

We then went to an old hotel, Hotel Olaffson for lunch and then back to our guesthouse for the afternoon.  Our last dinner at Wall's Guesthouse was vegetable lasagna and we had an evening rain after dinner, various emails, checking football scores and activities on the internet.  We leave in the morning for the airport for fly out to Miami at midday.  It appears that our timing is superb since they are not predicting Hurricane Tomas which was downgraded to Level 1 moving at 15 mph, to move to south of Haiti and then unfortunately speed up to a Level 2 or 3 and change direction north onto Haiti on Wednesday or Thursday.  A hurricane directly across Haiti is not good at all especially with 1.3 million people in tent cities.........

While Keith and Bob are leaving tomorrow from Haiti, Keith Mumma, American Director of International Child Care/Grace Children's Hospital remains here until November 9 due to a ICC Board Meeting in Haiti next week.  The next two days in Haiti are holidays with Monday being the Day of the Dead and Tuesday apparently being the day after the Day of the Dead ---- rather strange in our vernacular, but a yearly two day holiday in Haiti.  We need to pray for Haiti ---- pray that Tomas veers in another direction ---- pray for the safety of Keith Mumma and all of the ICC Board and team here in Haiti....... pray for the people of Haiti.  To whom and where we are born...... none of anyone's choice!

Lessons from Sunday in Haiti.....
    1.  The definition of church in Toledo and Haiti are substantially different.
    2.  The value of interpreters when you are a guest at a restaurant check is priceless....  plastic doesn't happen in Haiti.
    3.  A hole in the roof may fool the sun but not the rain.
    4.  The best part of life's journey are the friendships you make and the old friendships you get to renew.
    5.  The people of Haiti need every prayer we can lift up.............