Haiti Trip, February 16–25, 2012 – Final Days

Bonswa…Bondye beni ou (Good morning…Lord bless you),

Wednes­day started off with a typ­i­cal Hait­ian change of plans. We have a school bus that we use to trans­port the teams to the var­i­ous sites while they are here in the Les Cayes area. On our way to Cherette a cou­ple of the lug bolts broke off of one of the tires and we ended up trans­fer­ring all of the sup­plies and pas­sen­gers into var­i­ous vehi­cles so that we could still con­duct a med­ical clinic. We made it there a cou­ple of hours later than planned but the med­ical team was still able to serve about 115 chil­dren. They per­form check­ups, then admin­is­ter to any spe­cial needs, per­form lice and sca­bies clean up pro­ce­dures, then pro­vide the chil­dren with a new set of clothes, shoes and a toy. The team also took pic­tures of the chil­dren and recorded key infor­ma­tion for the church mem­bers back in the States that are sup­port­ing this site with their prayers and resources.

Col­lect­ing the Vitals for one of these pre­cious children.

Three of us spent the day stak­ing out the riverbed so that on Thurs­day we could sur­vey the prop­erty. You might remem­ber from my ear­lier posts that last year we built a set of gabions to pro­tect the Cherette Children’s Vil­lage as well as the sur­round­ing homes from being destroyed by the river, which was wash­ing away the bank. Last Novem­ber we were impacted by one of the hur­ri­canes and the vil­lage area still ended up with 2 feet of water in it, but at least the bank was saved. The river­bank is still in need of addi­tional repairs. Our cur­rent thought is to mod­ify the flow chan­nel of the river in this area in order to reroute the flow as well as min­i­mize the impact of the rush of water in this sharp bend of the river. The first phase of this activ­ity was to lay­out a grid in an area of about 350 feet by 200 feet.

Lay­ing out the cross sec­tions to be surveyed.

As you can see from the pic­ture above we had plenty of vol­un­teer help from the men in the com­mu­nity. The Haitians are always eager to step in and help with these kinds of projects. I have always found that if we just take the time to show them what it is that we want to do and how we want it done then they take off doing it. We were able to lay­out (mark with paint) close to 400 points to be sur­veyed. When we fin­ished this we still had enough time to mea­sure all of the build­ings of the vil­lage so that I can draft up the prop­erty when I return home.

Thurs­day started out with us split­ting the team. We had one go to the new church in Savannes so that they could oper­ate a med­ical clinic. A smaller group, plus the sur­vey team, went back to Cherette. The med­ical team fin­ished up pro­vid­ing care to the chil­dren and then pro­vided care for the house moms. They served about 50 more peo­ple today. This day also saw its chal­lenges as the dri­v­e­line on the truck that we were tak­ing to Cherette broke on the edge of town. We had to wait for an hour while the school bus was unloaded at Savannes and then brought to take us to the city of Cherette. From there we trans­ferred to smaller vehi­cles and drove out to the site.

The sur­vey team (David, David, and Rex) get­ting ready to head out to the river.

The sur­vey team was able to col­lect the data on almost all of the points. Since we got there a lit­tle bit late we had a delayed start. Even so, we spent about 5 hours tak­ing the read­ings from the points that we had laid out on Wednes­day. The last time that I had done any sur­vey­ing was 37 years ago in col­lege. I guess you never for­get some things. It was so great to have the other two guys (3 as we added a recorder later in the day) so will­ing to spend their time in Haiti walk­ing back and forth across a dry riverbed in the direct sun all day.

Rex shoot­ing a read­ing while Chuck records the num­bers (notice the chil­dren that were pro­vid­ing shade for Chuck).

Fri­day we spent the whole day at the new church plant in Savannes. This is one of the hard­est areas in the city of Les Cayes. The church is about a year and a half old and already has about 450 peo­ple com­ing on a reg­u­lar basis. Through­out the day the team con­ducted a med­ical clinic and children’s activ­i­ties. A cou­ple of us also took the oppor­tu­nity to mea­sure out the prop­erty and the loca­tion of the church on it so that

I can fin­ish the design of the new school and med­ical clinic that we want to put on there.

On every trip there shows up one scene or pic­ture that deeply touches me. When this hap­pens I am over­come with tears for these pre­cious peo­ple that are in such need. Today in the mid­dle of all of the scur­ry­ing around…people get­ting checked for ill­nesses and urgent care, chil­dren being bathed for sca­bies and lice then receiv­ing new clothes, chil­dren singing and doing col­or­ing projects, and many other chaotic events…there was this beau­ti­ful lit­tle boy whose mother had laid out on the floor to take a nap. There he rested in the midst of all of these attempts to bring just a lit­tle bit of love and care to the Hait­ian people.

The REASON we are here in Haiti…

This will be the last email related to this trip. I leave at 3:30 AM in the morn­ing so that I can make it to the air­port for a 9:20 AM. I get back home in Day­ton at 11:00 PM in the evening. Once again I am deeply moved by both the pre­cious peo­ple of Haiti and the hard­ships that they deal with every day. I am also moved by the many peo­ple back in the states that give of their time and resources to be here to serve our Hait­ian broth­ers and sisters.

Thanks for your con­tin­ued thoughts and prayers.
David Short