Saturday, May 2, 2009

haiti update - may 2, 2009

“Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.” Psalm 126:5,6

Hi! This week in Haiti the focus was on the environment. May 1st is a national holiday in commemoration of workers’ day and agricultural day. Environmental focused events were held by different groups around the country to acknowledge this day. The children wanted to go on an outing. I went with a couple of the older children to see if there was going to be a program at the sugar cane museum. It was an interesting drive! We were waiting at a stoplight and just ahead there was a UN traffic checkpoint. The Haitian man who was standing on the sidewalk got angry with one of the Brazilian soldiers and he pushed him to the ground. The Brazilians got angry and this Haitian man ended on his knees with his hands chicken strapped behind his back. This gave me the opportunity to give the children a lesson on respecting authority. This Haitian man was a good example! We went a little further and then were stuck in a traffic jam. Traffic wasn’t moving and some vehicles turned around and headed back in the other direction. We asked somebody what was going on and he told us it was a “manifestation” (demonstration). Shortly after, a police pickup truck full of happy citizens standing in the back drove by. That’s when we knew it was a “happy demonstration”. A crowd of about 100 people from a citizens’ organization in Tabarre were walking down the road carrying small trees. They were on their way to plant them somewhere to commemorate the May 1st holiday. This was a good environmental lesson for the children. We finally arrived at the sugar cane museum to see that there were no activities going on there and drove back home. We passed the citizens’ group resting under a couple of trees. The large float that was following behind and playing music had broken down and people were fixing it. Hopefully they were able to plant their trees where they wanted to! Everybody went along for the drive downtown to the Champ Mars public park for the large environmental fair going on there. In the park there were a lot of agricultural exhibits on display and we walked along looking at them. It was good that the children could see what is grown here in Haiti. A group of a couple of hundred people protesting to raise the minimum wage tried to protest by the palace but were not able to get near it. The police chased them away with tear gas. I am glad this didn’t take place while we were there because we were parked in this area. The children enjoyed their outing but said that they would have rather gone to the “sous” (watering hole).
The International Crisis Group issued its latest report on Haiti. It is entitled, “Haiti: Saving the Environment, Preventing Instability and Conflict”. This report can be accessed by following the link
www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=6078&l=1
The key is that where there is an environmental crisis there is also instability and conflict. Pray that the people in Haiti will focus on improving their environment.
A situation where the environment causes instability and conflict occurred in the Leogane area this week. The rains that we had this week caused some flooding there. People in anger blocked the national highway with a tractor-trailer to get the government to take steps to improve drainage of the nearby river.
On Tuesday we went to the Kenscoff area to see some people who have medical problems that will be requiring surgery. We added their names to our medical search list. Pastor Pierre has a list of 12 women who have large “goiters”. A lot of these are caused by iodine deficiencies in the Haitian diet. One of the women who were there had the largest goiter I have ever seen. I am going to see if the hospital in Cange would be able to help her. Pray we can find a way to help her. Another purpose of the visit was to see the site that Pastor Pierre had picked out to hold a clinic at near the end of May. We had to see what shape the road was in. The medical team will be traveling by bus and we had to figure out which route the bus could take. We found out that the bus won’t be able to get to the clinic site but fairly close. Kimosabee had no trouble driving the mountain road/trail! Pray for the preparations that are taking place. This medical team will be willing to see 200 people and will also do a clinic another day here at Coram Deo as well. This is great because at the same time they will be doing a mini vacation bible school as well for the children!
Sterline Bonhomme is a 4-month-old hydrocephalus baby. She is one of the babies who had surgery in April. Since her surgery she has not been doing well. The mother is not able to breastfeed and is not able to purchase baby formula. As a result she has been weakening because of malnutrition. I asked Dorothy of Faith, Hope, Love Infant Rescue if she could help her and she was able to take her in. Her weight was down from 9 pounds at 3 months of age to 6 pounds at 4 months. She is taking formula now. Pray she will get stronger and for those caring for her.
Magdala died last Thursday. She was 16 years old and a quadriplegic. The family lives in the ravine area on the other side of Delmas 31. I have known her since she was 5 years old. The family took good care of her over the years. She never had pressure sores. Her family regularly changed her positions. She never really grew either and she was about the size of a 7 year old. The children in the community would visit her and they would study their lessons together. Even though her body couldn’t move she was able to speak well and was normal mentally. Her family would carry her out of the ravine and bring her in a wheelchair to a school that was nearby every school day. At the end of the school day they would carry her back. Last Wednesday evening she was feeling sick and told her mother that she was going to die. At 2:00am Thursday morning she suddenly died. It didn’t take long for the news to travel. Everyone in the ravine knew Magdala. We visited the family after hearing the news and told them that they could take comfort in knowing that she is in heaven. Pray for Magdala’s family.
Jn. Eddy found out the results of his Rheto exam re-write. Rheto is one of the graduating years of secondary school (like Grade 12). Only 9% of those who wrote the exams passed and he was one of them! He passed after failing on 3 other occasions but he never gave up. Now he can start Philo (like Grade 13 in the old secondary school system in Ontario) in September.
The results of the senatorial elections were released and nobody won! To qualify a candidate must have 50% +1 votes and none had this. There will now be a second round of elections in June of the top 2 candidates. Port-au-Prince is part of the West Department of the country. Only 2% of eligible voters participated in the recent elections from this area. In total there were 18 candidates vying for the one senate seat for the west. It is interesting that the “no candidate” selection finished in 4th place with 7.2% of the vote. “Spoiled ballots” were not included in the totals but if the “no candidate” votes and the “spoiled ballots” were added together and included in the total “nobody” would have finished in 2nd place and the second round would feature the candidate from the Lespwa party and “nobody”! Pray for the electoral process here in Haiti.
That’s all the news for today. Have a good weekend!
Karen Bultje, Coram Deo

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