Election Fever

The elections in Haiti are due to start on 28th November. I say "start" because they will go on for over a month! Already demonstrations have begun, and the general view is that they will only get more frequent and more violent as time goes on. There is increasing unrest about the lack of progress on moving out of camps. People who look like dodgy car salesmen smile out from 10 foot high billboards all around Port au Prince, and there are rumours that the key candidate (the son-in-law of the current President) has $12m to spend on his campaign. And as we run up to the elections there are more and more posters appearing. People want to know why he has such a ridiculously large amount of money to spend when there are thoousands of children who cannot go to school because their parents cannot afford uniforms and school fees. They see it as throwing money away and more abandonment of the people of Haiti, for the sake of political gain. People are sick of failed promises and false hope. We need to pray that a good candidate gets in to power. Someone who genuinely wants to change people's lives, and not just their own!

Money, Money, Money

Everyday I get junk mail from a variety of people offering me money: usually around 30 e-mails a day in my junk mail. This can range from someone who says they have a terminal illness and no-one to leave the money to, to the Swiss lottery announcing I have won a competition that I never entered, to someone posing as Microsoft or even on one occasion Bishop Desmond Tutu!! Today I was offered £156m that is lying unclaimed in some bank account somewhere. Sometimes these offers make me laugh, but sometimes they make me sad.  Who comes up with such terrible stories of terminal illness, sons who have died in Iraq, or money that came from Saddam Hussein? Who can be so evil as to prey on the desperate? It is after all only the desperate who would respond to such obviously ridiculous offers. Someone will end up losing what little they have becasue they will be desperate enough to believe it is true. There was a story of a lady recently who gave £60k to someone she had never met because he said he loved her and needed her help. It is sad to know that people are so lonely and vulnerable that they will believe anything that makes them feel a little better. There are so many people in the world who are lonely, and sadly there are people who just want to profit from that. Befriend someone today and make their lives a little happier!!

Storm Damage

I was out of PAP today until late on. Coming back into the city the roads were jammed and I had no idea why. Then I found out there had been an unexpected (i.e. not forecast!) storm earlier in the day. Trees were down, power lines were down, giant billboards had fallen. It was really bizarre because other than it being wet, and being stuck in an interminable traffic jam, there was almost no trace of the earlier storm. But I have discovered that thousands of already homeless people have now also had their tents blow away or be destroyed, and so have now lost even more if that is possible... People who had managed to put together some semblence of a life under canvass have now lost everything once again. The broken but vitally important items now even more damaged or lost for good. It is hard to imagine what life must be like for these people in their camps where they live every day in fear of their lives and worried their children may be abused, only to have more trouble brought down on them. We can only pray that a hurricane does not come this year!

Mud!

I was thinking I would have a nice easy day visiting a couple of places where we work. It was a beautiful day, sun shining and lovely countryside. We got out of the car and began to descend a long path. I was thinking "I have to walk back up here". Then it began to rain... and rain... and rain. We sheltered in the porch of a house for 90 mins and decided we couldn't wait any longer. So we began to walk back up the hill. The only problem was I only had my crocs on, and they are really slippy in the rain. So on the mud they were useless! After about 25 yards trying to go uphill I had to take them off and walk in my bare feet. But that didn;t help! It was like Bambi on the ice. Poor Matt who was with me had to practically drag me up the hill. I had mud all over my feet, squelching between my toes. As my boss pointed out, some people pay lots of money for mud treatments and mine was free! Eventually we got so far up the hill  and got the car to come down and meet us. The only problem was it couldn't get back up again. So we had to get lots of local people to push us, and at one stage we were sliding backwards down the hill and heading towards a deep ditch! After much prayer, a broken pickaxe and a lot of pushing we finally got out. I washed my feet and was grateful I don't live in that every day! And just to prove I don;t mind embarrassing myself: pictures...

River fun

I went to Leogaqne on Friday to visit some of our kids clubs in South. I had no idea how difficult it was to get to them! We went over miles of tracks which only a very good 4x4 could get along, through, and along rivers, and then we had to walk for 20 mins. We also got stuck in a river on the way, and had to get out and push... The joys of working in a disaster zone. It was so worth it though! The kids were amazing! They were singing songs about malaria, as well as learning all about how to avoid all kinds of diseases and receiving psychosocial support. Then they played games, and had loads of fun. I realised that I need to make time to spend visiting all the work we do to remind myself why I'm here. Noit that I've forgotten, but it was just such an uplifting and encouraging experience that I kind of wished I could spend all my time playing with the kids!.They are so cool! So I have made a mental note to myself to get out to the programme as much as I can and see the difference we are making in people's lives, and see the smiles of the children as they have fun and forget for a little while the trauma they've been through. Here's a video of them playing...

Lack of control

Ever feel that your entire life is running away from you?  I went to New York but ended staying longer than planned because I was interviewing people. Then I got sick while I was there and came back to PAP with flu, and it's taken a week to get over that. It feels like life has passed me by for the last two weeks, and I am not in control of what I do. There are so many things that need to be done, important meetings to attend, donors to see, contacts to make, and yet I can't do what I know I need to because other priorities or demands get in the way. Sometimes I feel that things are out of my control, and if you know me, you know that is not a comfortable situation for me!! I am someone who likes to be able to go with the flow, or to be spontaneous. Instead my life is mapped out weeks ahead, and then things happen to get in the way that I cannot control. So I have to accept my limitations. I can only do what I can do. I am not multi-handed, and cannot clone myself so I am in a hundred places at once! I am not God, so I am not omniscient or omnipresent. I am just me. So instead I focus on what's important: why I'm here, and what I can do to change the little part of the world I live in, and pray I don't screw it up!

When rain turns into a river...

I was out the other evening meeting with some NGO colleagues when out of the blue it started to rain. The rain was so heavy it was impossible to walk in. We managed to get into our car under cover to go home, but then we had to go up Delmas, the main street in PAP that runs from the port up to Petionville, where we live. It is a steep hill! It had only been raining for 15 minutes, and already Delmas had turned into a fast flowing river. It was pouring down, and was above the bottom the engine and halfway up the car even on 4x4s. Women got out plastic bags to cover their hairdos and weaves (a very common practice in Haiti and funny for those of us not used to it to see a woman walking around with a supermarket bag on her head!) So there we were driving up a deep river flowing very fast downhill. It seems the drainage trenches that used to exist were destroyed in the earthquake, so the water had nowhere else to go. Pretty soon cars were stuck and being abandoned, and I wondered if we would even get home. Then suddenly it stopped as quickly as it had started, though the river kept flowing. It was in a way fascinating to watch. But then all I could think about were the people living in their tents. They would be very wet, even if their plastic tarpaulins could withstand the force of the rain, and the vast wastelands they live on would have turned to mud. Some even had their "homes" collapse. Hurricane season is coming, and there is little hope for Haiti to avoid it. More misery awaits, as even the few belongings people have left will continue to get wet, damaged and destroyed. I live here and yet I have no concept of what it means to live like that. I can only be thankful, again, that I get to live in a house, and work even harder to raise the money and build the houses that these people need!