Haiti- Street pictures and the Truth, nothing but the truth.

I am sorry if the other Haiti post seems a little dry, I hope the pictures helped. I decided for my memory's sake, and some of the descriptions,  I would use the text of my report to Missionary Health for that blog.

This entry will be more pictures and words as needed to explain. It will be a hodge-podge from the missionaries, the mission home, and the streets of Haiti.





The blue NatCom building is the second tallest in Haiti,  Digicel has
 the tallest. The shacks are one story.



Only time there weren't people everywhere.



School girls and street sellers




Collapsed building.



Stairway of that building.

Elders Lubin and Celeste in their shower.

Their kitchen.

Freres District and the Shavers

Retail jobs aren't so bad.

Sorry for quality, this one
would have been a winner



Security at the Mission Office, with
a shotgun.



Tarp tents across the alley from the Mission Office



Condemned buildings and tent life underneath them.





Jerry is a well followed wall artist, humor,
pathos and a tribute to the Haitian
will to survive.

 


Gaudy tap-taps are everywhere, not safe for people like us.



Canape Vert Hospital had to abandon this wing
because of structural damage.




Presidential Palace




Tent village. All Church-run tent camps are down.
40 Church members died in the quake.




Basketball break with Pres Joseph
and his brother Ben.




Goats in a dumpster.



Bernsy Joseph and Mom's glasses.



Reading in English.  The children
all speak Creole, French and English



Street furniture sales.



Lamadiu Hotel, Jacmel



Head carrying of loads.



Guard Marc and Bernsy.



Tap Tap art.




UN vehicles, and Red Cross and Crescent
 are everywhere. Many other charities too.





Elders have to bike through a large pond in ther
road near their house, a creek has changed
 its course.



Gonaives Chapel

Brooms in Les Cayes

Cavaillon Elders' House.



Street pants seller and customer



Your tax dollars at work.



The words are in Creole, and are spoken
 by the little guy. He says:"you can't eat your
 fingernails alone, share them with me."



Sr. Joseph gives a lesson in cleaning apartments.



Village in a dry riverbed.




View toward the ocean on return from Les Cayes



Mom reading with Bernsy.

We flew quickly home to Santo Domingo, but we won't quickly forget the people we met, and the sites we saw.  A mixture of sadness and hope. Working hard but not always having the best tools.

Haiti Port-Au-Prince Mission Visit- 20 May- 27 May 2012

We flew to Port Au Prince on Sunday afternoon 20 May; Mission Pres. Kerving Joseph picked us up at the airport. We stayed in the Mission Home, the Josephs made us very comfortable and welcome in the home. We were able to have many traditional meals and enjoyed seeing their children’s lives. Safety is a concern for missionaries in Haiti, Pres. Joseph has the missionaries home by 7 pm and we followed that pattern. We didn’t walk much in the streets and were careful where we parked (we always traveled with Pres. Joseph).

Pres. Joseph had arranged a busy schedule of visits in the Port Au Prince area and in the provinces. We were able to visit about half of the mission’s apartments and missionaries. We also visited some hospitals, clinics and one physician’s office. This is a summary of our activities during the week.

Monday we were at the Mission office for Devotional and planning for the week with the office Elders and APs. We helped unpack some boxes of recent materials for the mission so were able to talk with the Elders. We did some driving through Port Au Prince and reviewed the use of the computer for EMed and EMedlog with Pres. and Sr. Joseph in the afternoon.

Cindy and Elders Gambronne and Charles

In the Mission office, Google translate conversation

Tuesday we were in the Mission office in the morning as Pres. had meetings. We were able to meet several visitors as they came and went so had an educational time. One young man came who is ready to enter the CCM in June or October, his enthusiasm was infectious. I used this time to call local Doctors from the US Embassy list; I was able to get some background and ideas for referrals for specialists. In the afternoon we visited Healing Hands for Haiti (ortho and rehab center), Hopital Canape Vert (the hospital the mission would use for most problems), and Lambert Sante, a private hospital with two ORs and about 8 inpatient beds. Tuesday evening we visited the Elder’s apartment in the Freres District.



With Elders in their apartment (Freres District)

Wednesday morning we met with the incoming Mission President, Bro. Bien Aime and his wife to introduce ourselves and show them the EMedLog software. They are excited to serve. We visited Hopital Univeristaire de la Paix (free care, very basic), PluriMedic (private 14 bed hospital with 24 hr urgent care). RadioLab, unfortunately, was closed when we arrived there. In the late afternoon we visited the Missionary apartment in Petion Ville.

Thursday we were on the road west and south to Jacmel, through the mountains to the south coast. We visited Elder’s and Sister’s apartments in Jacmel and Elders in Fontamara.



Jacmel Sisters Louis and Jn Charles




Safety for the rider's is of prime concern on
the "tap-taps".

Friday we were headed north through St. Marc and Deschapelles to Gonaives along the coast. We saw four apartments and Hopital de Secours in Gonaives. In the evening, back in Port Au Prince we saw the missionary apartment in Croix de Missions.

Saturday we headed west to Leoganes and then south to Les Cayes, seeing the elder’s apartment in Leoganes and Cavaillon and Sister and Elder apartments in Les Cayes.

Port Au Prince still shows many effects from the Jan 2010 earthquake, some damaged buildings remain collapsed, or standing but too damaged for use. Building materials, like bricks, cement bags and piles of white sand are everywhere. The streets of Haiti are generally narrow, crowded with street markets, pedestrians, scooters, and cars. There are some small buses and many small pickups converted to bench seats(the camionette or “tap-tap”).

The hospitals and clinics were not immune to quake damage and many are in only part of their previous space, in temporary buildings or in new buildings. Resources are scarce in Haiti and the laboratory and radiology equipment reflects this. For example, film screen radiographs are standard; converting to digital is still in the future. None of the hospitals we were able to visit had CT or MR scanners. The largest General public hospital has CT and would be the hospital used for missionary trauma. A radiology and laboratory clinic, RadioLab, has scanners to use for the missionaries as outpatients.

Missionary apartments were a pleasant surprise. They are good–sized and clean, study desks and materials are orderly. Some are in small apartment buildings and some are in separate houses. Many have two companionships in a unit. The Elders and Sisters keep the apartments fairly well, with encouragement from Sr. Joseph. One or two apartments will be switched for improved buildings as leases expire and better apartments can be found. Public electricity is shifted through communities throughout the day, most seem to get 6-8 hours of electricity each day. This is usually enough to keep refrigerators cool. Some apartments with no public electricity use small generators, almost all apartments have an inverter system to use when power is off. These have 4 six-volt batteries; they looked like golf cart batteries.

Invertor and batteries.



Kitchen in Cavaillon Elder's apartment.




Public water enters a cistern in the ground or an above ground tank. Chlorine tablets are added to these. Pumps then put the water into tanks on the roof, and gravity feeds the water into the taps. Kitchens have the three filter systems at the sinks. This is used for cooking water by most. Unfiltered water from the roof tanks is used for showers and bottled water is used for drinking. Pres. Joseph has not had cases of parasites during his three years. Missionaries are instructed to eat only cooked food and bottled water or juices when in member’s homes.

When meeting with the missionaries we found them happy, those we knew from the CCM almost always put a hand to their vaccination shoulder when they recognized us. The Spirit of the Haitian missionaries is exceptional; they seem to grasp the significance of their work more acutely than some others. They know that they can change lives and perhaps change their country in the coming years. The Ward we attended on Sunday was very young, the leadership not much older than the missionaries. Teaching was in Creole; Pres. Joseph translated for us in Priesthood and Sunday School. Lessons were well prepared and taught basic doctrines.

We had a tremendous experience in Haiti, the richness in Spirit contrasts with the physical reality. The people are active, bustling to survive and get ahead. I would like to look back in fifteen to twenty years at both the Haitian people and the Church in Haiti.

Father and Son and Gary's Run

We are enjoying most aspects of our mission, I hope you can tell that.  We enjoy the spirit and friendship with the missionaries, young and old. We are close to a Temple and love the experience of working in the Temple.

That being said, I do miss not being part of many things, we are lucky to have blogs and Facetime/Google/Skype so we can see some of the changes occuring.  The pictures of the grandchildren and children are great, no one is staying the same.  This weekend my MG friends are on Whidbey Island in Washington for Gary's Run, an annual drive we usually do.  Let me just say I am looking forward to Father/Son campouts and MG runs next year.

Santiago Mission Home visits

As we have said before, we go to the northern Dominican Republic to see Elderes and Hermanas in the Santiago mission home every other Wednesday.  Pres Lee and Sr. Lee are great hosts to us there, they are finished their three years at the end of June.  They invited us to a lunch this week, Elder McDermid made the trip and we went to the Camp David Restaurante on a high hill overlooking Santiago.  There are two Cadilacs inside the building there, one a Black 1956 limo used by the dictator Rafael Trujillo and another car, a 1957,  used by his son, the commander of the air, sea and land forces of the DR. 



Pres Miguel Lee, Cindy and I, and the McDermids
at Camp David



Commandante en Jefe

The son's limo.

We will miss the Lee's but will keep in touch as they will be living in Santo Domingo.
















We have been doing a bang up business in ingrown toenails lately, maybe hot weather makes them get more infected.  The Elders all take pictures, of the gore and of me when we are finished.



Elder Cabrera, from Mision Oeste

 The motos here are used to haul people and loads.  Extension ladders, propane tanks, huge bags of rice and a family of five are not unusual.



Out the car window shot of an ungainly load, Safety is not
job one.