NOTE: This post is from September 2008 and was added to bridge the gap between the previous blogs.
Many of you are wondering how we are and how things are in Haiti. I, Karen, thought perhaps I should do a short update. Luckner and I always do them together. This one, however, is from the perspective of a ‘blan’.
As I see it, things in Haiti are not good. The devastation caused by Hurricanes Fay, Gustav, Hannah and then last Sunday, Ike, has wrecked havoc. The one word I can use is “disaster.”
Areas all throughout Haiti have been hit recently, some harder than others. One devasted area, about 1 1/2 hour drive from us, is Gonaives. Gonaives is totally under flood water again this year. One hundred and ten thousand people have been, and many still are, stranded. Anyone who has a flat roof have been, or still are, on their roof tops without food or water. The only way in or out of that city is still by hellicopter. UN hellicopters are flying over our compound several times every day enroute to Gonaives. They are taking food and potable water to people and bringing people out to our area, to Verrettes especially (10 minutes away). The TV and radio stations, along with the Red Cross, have been begging for donations of medicines, potable water, sardines, crackers – things that can be eaten immediately, as there is no way for anything to be cooked in that area.
There was a lot of flooding in our area of crops – rice, corn, sweet potatoes, almost everything planted has been lost. Many yards and houses were flooded, but we were spared the catastrophe of other areas. Luckner rents gardens and plants crops all year long. He never sells anything he plants, i.e. rice, beans, sweet potatoes, etc, instead he gives food to many people in this area, which includes some of our HATS employees and often he helps feed the children here at the orphanage. Luckner’s four planted gardens were flooded. Another employee had a garden planted, for her family, which was also flooded. We have had five days of sun now, and the flood water in our area is steadily going down.
A little good news given me today – some of the rice around us may be saved. If it had been just recently planted, and the flood water went down quickly, it ‘might’ be okay. That would be a blessing for some families. What days before were lush and green with rice had quickly become what looks like lakes.
Towns, and roads, throughout areas of Haiti have been, and many still are, flooded. Diseases caused by contanimated water are going to escalate.
Many bridges have fallen or been washed away throughout the country. Roads all over the country are still impassable due to flooding. For us in the valley there had been two routes to get to Port-au-Prince. Hurricane Hannah caused a major bridge on the main highway to collapse. There was still the very rough route over Goat Mountain for emergencies. Hurricane Ike took a bridge out on that route so now no vehicles can travel to or from PaP. This means nothing is being brought out, and that includes gas. The price of the gas, that is left in our area, has gone up and it is going to get worse. This week I borrowed funds and ran and purchased 2 drums of diesel while supplies last. We will, however, continue to operate with running the generator only 2 hours a day.
Thousands and thousands of homes have been lost. Seven thousand homes were lost in just one area of the south by Gustav. The death count continues to rise as the flood water recedes. Many government buildings, and not just in Gonaives, have been washed away. Jails have been flooded and broken.
Prices on everything has skyrocked and they will rise again. We told you in May and June about the very serious hunger situation in Haiti. People were calling it ‘Chlorox’ disease. Many people, who were dying of hunger, resorted to drinking Chlorox, and giving it to their children, so the end would come more quickly. People were starving before this happened. Dear God, what will happen now?
The government has announced the delay of school opening by a month, to October 6th. Many schools have been damaged. Thousands of families no longer have a house, no food, no clothes, or anything else. How can they think about school for their children?
People are hungry. People are discouraged. People are desperate. Desperate people take desperate measures.
This week I saw something that tore me up inside. Luckner and I received a call to go to a certain school to pick up a sack of wheat and a sack of corn flour to augment the food supply for our children. Apparently the Haitian government gave the name of our orphanage, and of our children, to a group that was sent to this area to dispense food. As we were driving to the alloted spot we had to drive past an extremely long line of people on the road. This was people who had already been contacted and given a card to go and receive food. People were standing, lying down, or sitting with pots or bags to receive food. I could see adults and children, people who looked ill, elderly, and also ‘old’ people. They looked hungry and tired. It was noon -the hottest part of the day. There were some nasty comments made about me ‘blan’ as we passed, that Luckner hoped I had not heard, or understood. I did hear. I did understand. I, however, had to accept why these things were said and to let it go. I was there only because I was asked to go due to the responsibility I had undertaken years ago, to take care of the children God has given me. One thing, however, Luckner and I both know, is that it would not be safe for me to be out there by myself.
I have seen many food lineups. I see hungry people whenever I leave the compound. I am approached whenever I am seen outside. But this shook me. I was looking at hunger and desperation!! I have seen a lot of painful and difficult things during my time here, but that was one of the worse. I cannot get the picture of the elderly folks, and the children, out of my head.
I found out the next day, from an employee who lives very near the school where the food distribution was taking place, that not all those waiting had received food. Some, inlcuding elderly, were left sitting there with nothing. Fights, apparently, had broken out and some people who did receive food had it taken away from them by others. They had to close the distribution early. Many people in this area are coming to the compound and asking for me. Some are telling our security they have an appointment with me, when they do not. Others are telling the truth but begging to be allowed to see me. I know they are all hoping that I have money to give them. I do not.
It is not easy to have to tell our security on duty to send people away, but I have no choice. I cannot feed, clothe, educate, and bury them all. (Yes, they sadly come for help to bury their dead, too.)
It is very difficult. I can only do so much. I cannot be all things to all people. I must focus on the job God has given me, in my little corner of Haiti. I am trying to do the best job I can, with what He provides, with my children onsite, with the school students, and with helping people in this area.
I am feeling somewhat tired. It is your support that keeps me going. Your encouraging e-mails mean a lot to me. When I read the loving support in your e-mails, it touches my heart and it may give me wet eyes, but it helps me to keep on ‘keepin on’ here with Jesus.
We have spent a lot of time and money this week on plumbing problems at both the boy’s and girls bathrooms for the Children’s Home. We are still not finished. When Dickie was here in March he said in order to find out why one of the toilets in the boys’s bathroom would not flush it would have to be removed. He did not have time to do so. A month or so later one of the girl’s toilets also would not flush. Both bathrooms continued to function minus these two plugged toilets. Well, this week the toilets were removed. After 3 1/2 hours of trying to release what was plugging them by a plumber, his helper, Ti Mili and myself, we dislodged a ‘huge’ mango pit from the girl’s. A smaller mango pit, a small hotel size plastic bottle of shampoo, and a piece of hard plastic was finally removed from the boy’s. Both toilets are cemented in place again to dry.
We have been losing water and found that there was a bad leak in the wall of one of the showers in the boy’s bathroom. That water was soaking everything underneath and it was running under the cement walls into the girl’s bathroom and into the adult bathroom. We have broken the cement walls to all showers to check things out carefully and are then going to replace the ‘normal’ taps with something more difficult for the children to break. Note: ‘more difficult’ as we know that JJ especially will break them eventually. We’ve decided that changes need to be made. We are considering having the bathroom doors locked, and the little children needing to go to an older child or adult for entrance. No playing or monkeying around in the bathrooms after this. Mama Karen is on the warpath.
The new sponsors for our school students, who are waiting for the name and grade of your student(s), please be patient a little longer. We are extremely thankful that we can now take more students into our program, but life has been too hectic and difficult to be able to make decisions, and contact students. With school opening delayed some of our school work has also been delayed, while we take care of other urgent matters.
To sum up this Update, Haiti has been hard hit. Hundreds of thousands of people are in trouble. Hunger is rising. Costs of everything has risen and costs will continue to rise. (Yesterday Luckner had to pay $75 per bag of cement to fix our toilets. Ouch!!)
Haiti needs your prayers. Haiti needs help. We, at HATS, are okay. We are daily thanking God, and thanking you, our supporters, for this blessing. Thank you to each and every one of you for the many forms of support we receive. Without you we absolutely could not, we absolutely cannot, do any of the necessary work here.
~Karen
