Hello friends, family and Haiti supporters.
The flight to Miami yesterday went without any hangups. We transferred in Chicago and left just as a light snow started falling. We left Miami at 10:05 this morning and arrived just after noon.
Getting our baggage loaded on the Tap Tap was a little hectic with lots of people wanting to help so we would pay them but we found the gentleman and his crew sent to help us and got all loaded just fine. There was a little intense negotiating and we ended up paying a little extra for his "friends" who also helped.
The ride out the the Methodist Guest House took about an hour. There were lots of signs of the earth quake, but also some new construction. They say only about 5% of the rubble has been cleared, but it looked better than that where we were.
We saw at least 5 UN armored cars with soldiers around them and a couple of UN guard houses. The streets were very busy and there were lots of vendors set up all along the streets selling all kinds of food and goods. There were lots of people on the street.
The Methodist Guest House compound is a little like an old hotel. It's very basic, but has everything we need. There is a pool here which seems kind of fancy, but was the only source of water after the earth quake, and served as a giant bath tub for teams that got pulled back in during the unrest in January.
The guest house compound is within a larger 10 acre compound which also includes a school, children's home, some staff housing, shop, laundry facilities and a church. The school is much larger than I expected. It has a number of wings and is three stories, about the size of a small high school. The kids are all real cute in their school uniforms and love the attention of the Mission Team.
We had lunch in a mall style food court but ordering and getting the food was a very different experience from what we are used to. Dinner at the Guest House was very good.
This afternoon we toured the larger compound area, looking at the damage, meeting the staff and looking at some of the work we may do. These could include starting a new driveway out of the back to provide a second way in and out. The main entrance is off of a very narrow alley which was full of rubble after the earthquake and blocked during the riots, so the volunteers and staff had no way in and out for awhile. We also looked at damage to one of the larger residences which was damaged but did not collapse. There are lots of cracks and loose plaster and we are going to knock off as much of the loose plaster as we can so the engineers can tell what all needs to be done.
The team will also be doing health screenings for the kids and helping with a food handout on Saturday, similar to our food banks.
You would not know from being around them, but some of the staff that work here go home to tent camps at night. One sign of the progress since Brenda, our team leader was here in May is that the area of the larger compound behind the guest house was a tent camp in May, but that's all gone now and the kids are back in school. You can tell where some of the walls have been repaired or rebuilt, but there is still a lot to do just right here.
The Methodist Church is averaging three teams a week in Haiti, but we are the only team at the Guest House today. We are supposed to stay here for our full time but other teams are cycling in and out from the outlying project areas. We are all assigned by our skill levels, current work needs and the social situation.
Well I'll guess I'll go for now. The computer is like going back to the eighties. Even I can type faster than it can so there are lots of mistakes. Also lots of people want to use it.
I'll talk to you tomorrow.
Fides,
Steve
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