"On This Rock"

Matthew 16: 18

“I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church”

It is often assumed, due to this passage, that Peter is the ‘rock” upon which Jesus chose to build his Church. And while Peter had three times denied him, it was his close bond with the Lord that Jesus believed made him best able to guide the Church after his crucifixion.

Many of us have rocks upon which we have built our lives, foundations of beliefs that support us even when everything else around us has collapsed. For some, their rock is indeed the Church, God, or Jesus. For other, like Jesus, it is a close relationship, with a parent, sibling, best friend, or spouse. And for others, sadly, it is in a material object such as money, fame, or popularity.

So what happens when our rocks, our foundations, are damaged, or worse, destroyed?

I have a friend, Moise, who was on the top floor of a building in Port-au-Prince when the earthquake hit that January afternoon two years ago. The foundation and supports for the building were not able to withstand the earth-shaking event, and the building collapsed. And out of a room full of people, Moise was one of only a very few who survived. He suggests divine providence. I suggest a combination of that and his Herculean strength. I feel certain he held the building up with his bare hands he is so strong; his biceps are the size of my thighs.

I’ve recently been reading a book suggested to me by my father entitled, The Brother of Jesus, that examines James, Jesus’ brother, and his importance and significance in the early Church. In it, the author suggests among other things that James, not Peter, was the “rock” upon which Jesus had truly desired to build his Church. This is indeed an earth shaking realization; something, which if proven correct, would obliterate the foundation of the modern Catholic Church which is physically headquartered on Peter’s rock, his tomb in Rome. So destructive it would be that even those scholars who support the theory on James are weary of its ramifications.

While I do not know for certain what I believe about James, I do know what I believe about earth-shattering realities.

We must accept them, for they are gifts from God.

Such acceptance will likely cause a great deal of damage. People will get hurt; some may even die. Beliefs will be crushed and institutions and individuals will be forced to change. But, like all things, God wants us to accept the Truth. If he had wanted us to believe otherwise, he would have never caused the earth-shattering reality to occur in the first place.

Our lives and our history are full of these overwhelming realities: Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, Copernicus’ planetary realignment, the death of a spouse, the loss of a best friend. But all of these events would have never occurred if God did not want us to learn something. It is in these darkest times that we humans are best able to grow.

Down here in Haiti, they are still picking up the rubble from earthquake 27 months ago. There are likely still numerous bodies buried under the piles of bricks and mortar, victims of the harsh reality of the very violent, unstable, and seemingly unfair world we call our home. How could God allow such a tragedy to occur in such a broken and impoverished society? Was he really punishing the posterity of Voodoo whose ancestors had “sold their souls to the devil” in order to free themselves from their oppressive slavery?

No.

Very simply, the Earth just moved. What had been years of tension between two determined pieces of land finally gave way, resulting in a destructive and powerful upheaval of rock. God did not intentionally cause this tension, nor did he deliberately cause the tectonic movement. The ever-changing, evolving planet he designed simply did what it was designed to do: change.

While roughly 300,000 perished, Moise, like millions of others, survived this catastrophe. Many lost their homes, their businesses, their jobs. Hundreds of thousands were forced to relocate to unknown places while many simply relied on their families and friends scattered around the island. But one thing, one foundation, remained through all of this mayhem: their faith. The Haitians, one of God’s most tested people, remained ever faithful in the ever-loving God. If anything, this disaster allowed their faith to grow.

Haiti will rebuild and recover. We all can rebuild and recover, with faith in God, in whom and with whom all things are possible. But right now, Haiti and the rest of the world are facing the incomprehensible question: How?

It will not be easy. And it will be very slow. It will continue to be a test on Haiti and other nations alike for years to come. But the Lord will give us a second chance; he already has when he sacrificed himself on that rocky hillside nearly two millennia ago. He has already given us his greatest gift.

Redemption.

With it, all that we have destroyed can be rebuilt. War-torn countries, polluted rivers, flattened cities, religious conflict, splintered relationships. With the gift of redemption, we can transform the rubble into something more beautiful than we can even imagine. There will be times where we will fail a second time, a third time, a thirty-third time. But God will always remain, our rock, our shelter from the storm, calming the waters for our thirty-fourth try. Upon him we can rebuild the foundations that once supported us. And, like Jesus, we should remember to rely on our brother, our brothers, to hold us up when everything around us seems to have collapsed. 

Rocks

I made the off-hand comment to my father during his stay in Haiti:
"If there was somehow an international market for rocks, Haiti would be the wealthiest nation in the world."

There are rocks everywhere. I have read extensively about Hispaniola's geology, but I have yet to figure out why every hillside and landscape is covered in stones. These rocks make farming an impossibility and a simple hike uphill a potentially deadly (or very painful) experience. It is almost as if some titan who used these rocks as golf balls was smacking his driver and Haiti was his driving range. Now, if I could only invent a range-cart to harvest all of these rocks...

Haiti was built on shaky ground. Besides the rocks that litter the land, the nation of Haiti literally sits in one of the worst areas in the world in regards to tectonic activity. The island of Hispaniola has the unfortunate prestige as being the only area in the world known to geologist where two major fault lines parallel each other so closely. Thus, a recipe for disaster that has played itself out numerous times.

The fault line to the south runs directly under Leogange, Port-au-Prince, and within mere miles of where my feet stand now. This is a strike-slip fault. The land to north of the fault line is determined to head east while the southern half of the island wants to go west. As you might assume, this doesn't work out too well and thus we get huge earthquakes such as the one on January 12, 2010 as a result.

The other fault line is more of a subduction fault. It lies just off the coast from Hispaniola. This fault line is where the Caribbean plate is literally colliding with the North American plate and subducting underneath it. It has also produced massive earthquakes, including the 1842 Cap-Haitien earthquake (an 8.1!) that destroyed much of the city.

Haiti: Resting on very unstable ground

After reading about the geology of this place, I found it fascinating as to the parallels the underlie the political foundations upon which this unstable nation rest, albeit likely just coincidence.
In 1791, Haitian slaves revolted and obtained freedom from France in 1804. Ever since then, the country has been at the throws of foreign powers and authoritarian governments. In 208 years of history, they have has 33 government overthrows. Talk about instability!


So let's look at the two different fault lines:

1) The subduction fault in the North. The island is literally colliding and trying to become a part of the North American plate (upon which the entirety of the US and Canada sit). The Caribbean Plate is getting shoved under the North American Plate. Quite fitting seeing as  almost every president that has ever found power has attempted to allow foreign investors (mostly American) to jump start the economy. And every time, the people get upset by the certain subservient nature under which they will be forced. At least two instances in the past, they have literally blown up the Presidential Palace, whose destruction in the 2010 fame received worldwide fame. So, it is pretty apparent that the island does not want to become part of North America.

2) And then there is the strike-slip fault in the middle of the nation, the one that is literally ripping the nation in half. Ever since Haiti received independence, the nation has been divided between factions who remain loyal to the north (capitaled interestingly enough in Cap-Haitien) and those who remain loyal to the South (capitaled, at, yes, Port-au-Prince). So much division, in fact, that the nation was actually two different nations (The Republic of Haiti in the south and the Kingdom of Haiti in the North) from 1811-1820. And, as 33 rebellions might point to, Haiti certainly does not like it when someone stays in power too long and establishes any sort of stability.

So, what does the future hold for this very unstable country? I am not very sure. I just finished a 400 page political history of this country and all it did was make the situation seem more insolvable and dire. All I can hope for in the next two months is that there is not another coup-d'etat. Oh yeah, and just two weeks ago, Pere Val told me that the Senators are attempting to overthrow President Martelly. Awesome.

Hands

Yesterday and today I used my hands, a lot. I spent both days reorganizing the file cabinets of Lespwa Timoun, determined to increase the efficiency of finding files of patients. I started by dividing the cabinets into letters by making cardboard dividers. I was in the zone; it was like arts and crafts time in elementary school. I was stapling together cardboard, coloring and sharpie-ing things. And I was getting some interesting stares from all of the Haitians who were surely thinking: "What is this crazy white boy doing?"
I then started (and will likely not finish for some time), dividing each letter into small folders (Ex: Sa, Se, Si) so as to make file finding even easier. Today I worked on the letter J for over 5 hours and STILL did not finish. I must have organized over 2,000 files.

Before: An Incredible jumbled mess of paper

After: A slightly more organized jumble.
More organizing to come.
Thanks for the skillz MOM!

Every day we all use our hands doing lots of things: brushing our teeth, drinking our coffee, or signing contracts. 

But I've been thinking a lot about my hands, hands in general. They are arguably the greatest gift of our physical body that God gave us. Especially the opposable thumb. Just ask the raccoon versus the dog. Who is able to open the ice chest and get all the goodies?

The idea about thinking about hands came to me the other day when I used the word "hands" as my centering prayer word. I had read one of the Psalms where David expounded upon God's hands on everything. It seemed like a fitting (and new) word to use for meditation. But what I found was that, as I kept repeating the word in my head was that I kept saying it in creole, which, interestingly enough, is "men".
So I kept trying to think about hands and kept saying men. And it was then that I started thinking about the incredible overlap between these two words: hands and men, or more importantly and PC, mankind...or humanity (if you want to be real PC).

         I have been incredibly fortunate the past few weeks to be using my hands in better ways, ways I had been desiring. Whether it has been digging in a garden, hammering nails in on a roof, holding back a Haitian's tongue with a tongue depressor, or taking blood pressures, I can sincerely say that my hands have are being used by God. Not that he was not using my hands in school when I would plug away at an Econ problem set, but all of that "handy"-work seems very trivial and intangible at this moment.
         Every day before all meals or before long days of medical and dental work, all of the members of the team (Haitian and American), all members of the one body of Christ, join hands together in a large, interlocked circle and pray. At first I did not think about this image, but the more I have done it, the more I think about the famous drawing of all of the children holding hands surrounding the world. We are all joining hands for one common purpose, for one common goal. Some of us might have better ways of organizing a file cabinet, or removing a decayed molar, or driving a flatbed truck all the way up to Crochu, but, in the end, we can only achieve success if we decide to take our brothers' hands and each give our strengths to the common good. It is when these gifts can be bonded and unified that men can truly form one body of Jesus Christ.

Today's Daily Office Lesson fits right in:
1 Corinithians 12: 4-7; 12
"Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it with Christ."

Ben Harper's "With My Own Two Hands"

"I'm having a love affair with this ice cream sandwich"- George Bluth

Foreword:
This title will likely seem very random and confusing if you do not watch the TV show Arrested Development.
In the scene of reference, George Bluth, an imprisoned executive who had embezzled millions from his family's business, is sitting in his orange jumpsuit talking to his son who is visiting him in prison. While his son is trying to desperately tell him about his impending trial, George happily eats an ice cream sandwich, declares he is "having a love affair" with it and then declares that he is "having the time of his life" doing time.

George and Michael Bluth from Arrested Development

Where am I going with all of this?

Yesterday was hot. Li fe tre tre cho! And while I did not have much to do besides relax and recover from an exhausting week, I couldn't escape the heat. And after an errand of refiling a bunch of propane tanks, Dominique, Moise, Ricardo, and I purchased some ice cream sandwiches from a man with a cooler on the side of the road.
My sandwich, entitled "Cake Flavored" was the best ice cream I have ever had, perhaps because I was so hot or perhaps because I hadn't eaten ice cream in months.

Yesterday marked the first of thirty straight days in which no teams will come down to Haiti and work with Pere Val and Carmel. I will spend all of my time working at the nutrition clinic. And in these 30 days, it seems as if I will rarely see any other Americans, let alone white people. Thus begins my most intense and serious "entrenchment".

And yet, on this first day of true Haitian living, it was about as American as it could be. After the ice cream sandwich, I had a delicious lunch of hot dogs and fried plantains while I sat with the three other guys and talked about "crazy girls", favorite types of beer, why cigarettes suck, and other crazy stories from our younger days.
Moise and Dominique begged Pere Val and Carmel to let me go with them to a party in Petionville, the only truly rich area of Port-au-Prince. They finally agreed and we went.
The disparity of this country amazes me. We arrived in Petionville in a rain storm and the streets running downhill were rivers of mud and trash. The poor Haitians were crowded under USAid awnings. And then we drove into the gated community where the party was, known as Belleville. It is where many of the NGO workers and UN workers live. Coming in through the gates, there were paved streets (an extreme rarity down here), palm-tree medians, and massive homes. It looked a great deal like Beverly Hills. Or at least some fancy suburb in Anywhere, USA.
And the party, well, it was about as American as it could be although there were only 3 Americans in attendance. We drank Prestige, cranberry vodka, danced to rap and Konpa music, and ate some delicious food. The house looked like any house you might rent for a week at the beach and for a few moments I actually forgot I was in Haiti (even though I was trying my drunken best to speak in a strange blend of Creole, Spanish, and English with this beautiful girl from the Dominican border). And then you drive back out the gates (or see the armed guard with a shotgun protecting the party), and you quickly realize exactly where you are.

So, back to the ice cream sandwich.  In Arrested Development, George Bluth is seemingly oblivious to not only the hardship that he is putting his family through but also to the fact that he is even locked away in prison. And driving by the compounds of members of the US Foreign Service,  the UN, wealthy Haitians, and innumerable NGO workers, I can't help but thinking about the realities that these people have sheltered themselves from, oblivious to the lack of opulence all around them. When you have wifi, Sargento pepperjack cheese, Mueshli cereal, and a plethora of other luxury items, it seems that you lose touch with why and what you are even working for. And I, like George Bluth am having "the time of my life". But at what expense does us (me included) having a great time come. We might be having a love affair with our seemingly plush conditions, but it seems like we are failing to recognize the situation we are perpetrating, that of wealthy foreigners controlling the lives of the poor.
Lou Dobbs and the Occupy Movement would hate this place. There is no middle class. Not surprising when 70% are unemployed. Without a middle class, this place will never change. It's time that the wealthy Haitians quit eating their ice cream sandwiches, relinquish some of the wealth they have and allow the 99% to at least get a job.

Losing Sight

            Well, it’s certainly been my longest week in Haiti. Monday through Thursday the 4 dentists from this week’s team saw over 250 patients. I spent my work week holding crying children, finding elevators and cow-horns (dental terms), and sterilizing hundreds of trays so that the clinic could continue to function. And I got to watch my father do some incredible work, especially with children, revealing to me why he was indeed the best father anyone could have ever hoped for. But more on that another night.

            Tonight I feel like writing about something which appears very frequently in the New Testament. The returning of sight to the blind. It is sung about in songs from “Amazing Grace” to Wilco’s song “Dawned on Me”. But the idea of being blind is something that the seeing world tends to forget about. Besides having four dentists work down here this week we had one optometrist who must have seen 500 Haitians and given them the gift of sight, a truly indescribable gift. My father, the tooth-yanker, truly believes that the work Dr. Tom Macmillan does down here is better than any tooth pull.

            All of the bags of glasses got me thinking. I have seen a lot of blindness in my month down here. Perhaps the first and most apparent case of blindness came when I visited St. Vincent’s, the home for disabled, blind, and deaf children. It was truly an awe-inspiring sight to see the deaf kids leading the blind kids around, showing them to the restroom and to the water fountain.

            The second instance was a much more powerful and moving story:

            One day at the nutrition clinic, a woman came in in hysteria. We quickly saw her and took her to the back to Carmel’s office. The woman, a resident of one of many of Haiti’s tent cities, had recently been left by her husband. He said she had demons, spirits. She was in hysteria because she believed that these spirits were going to take her life and leave her three children completely orphaned in a brutal, harsh world. As it turned out, the woman had epilepsy. Carmel told her that was she was seeing, and what was causing her seizures, was not voodoo spirits but a treatable, common disease. She told her that we could give her medication and that she did not have to worry about dying. This education and realization gave the woman a new vision to her future, of the life she could lead. She smiled and was in near ecstasy upon realizing that her children would indeed still have a mother.

Cannan, a Haitian tent city. Once a deforested hillside and degraded farmland, the area has been transformed into a community in which 8,000 families have relocated after the earthquake. 

            The third instance of blindness was my own. If there is anything I have learned in one month, its that there is island time (where things move very slow) and then there is Haitian time, where things are always 90 minutes late, and usually still have some problem awaiting you upon their outset, thus turning an afternoon errand run into a day-long trek of tire-changing, dehydration, and exhaustion. For a while, I just went with the flow, bringing along a book and headphones everywhere I went in order to cope with the inevitable delays. Luckily, my time here has also allowed me to learn a great deal about the history and culture of this place and why exactly it is the way it has become. And frequently I have stated that Haiti is an elaborate labyrinth in which one door is opened only to reveal four more. But this week, the continual door opening finally pushed me to my breaking point. Perpetuated by the negative energies produced by some others in this week’s group from Myrtle Beach, SC, I grew increasingly angry at the inefficiencies and inadequacies of Haitian culture. I became determined to translate a book about logistics and strategic planning into Creole.

            My anger and frustration boiled over when I vocalized my frustration to the whole group, [——————this sentence has been censored for its possibility to jeopardize good work—————]. And then my dad and Jeanne Fourrier reminded me of not only my story of the epileptic woman, but also all of the incredible miracles and acts of the Lord which these two amazing people, Pere Pierre Henry Fritz Valdema and his loving wife, Carmel, have done for this troubled, struggling nation. And I realized just how blinded I had allowed myself to become by the idea of money, efficiency, success and everything else that has been America’s greatest accomplishment and its utmost delinquency.  I now know, tonight, I must step back and be fully immersed in the culture and just go with the flow. Only then will I have any chance in being able to find exactly which door I want to open and struggle to unlock. 

Mwe papi te vini pou Ayiti!

My dad and team have been in the country since Saturday. We have been very very busy. More stories to come.

Learning to walk

Well, another day and another incredible story from a remarkable individual.
Tonight I had the fortune of meeting a 16-year-old boy named Stevenson Pierre. He is from the island of Ile Gonave. He had just returned from an 8-month stint in the United States where he had a massive surgery to get a prosthetic leg. He was born with his right leg being significantly shorter than his left. So short in fact that a "fully developed" right leg, foot and all, was not even as long as his femur of his left. He had never walked before.
He was found and taken in by a phenomenal organization called WellSpring International of Atlanta. He lived there and had his surgery at St. Jude's Hospital in Memphis.
And today, when I met him, he was proudly standing, Air Jordans and all, with the help of some crutches.

He was upset because he had left "paradise" and had gotten off the plane and suddenly realized he was back in hell. He wanted to stay in America where he could get a good job, make more money, and be able to have a guaranteed dinner every night. Carmel began to talk to him in Creole but I quickly butted in and began speaking in English, which I knew he understood.
I told him about Arkansas and how we have massive brain drain. Everyone wants to move away and get a better job in a better city and make more money. But all that does is make the situation worse and prevents the people who remain stuck in the state from ever being able to have better companies and better jobs come into the state. I told him that this model is the exact same with Haiti. If all of the smart, driven people left, this country would fall into even more disrepair than it is in now. He began to understand. I told him how he should be the best car mechanic (his dream job) in the entire country. And he will be able to feed his family and send his kids to school. But he should also use his knowledge to teach others so that they can do the same. Baby steps.
And then we began to talk about America. He asked me why Southerners ate alligator, possum, and frog legs. I asked him why they loved goat. He loved the TV show Swamp People and enjoyed watching baseball. He found hockey as confusing as I do. And he fell in love with the song "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" because his mother's name is Lucy.
Quote of the night, when asked about Chick-Fil-A: "Oh yeah, we used to go there at least twice a week."

Seeing this young man who had suddenly been given the gift to walk made me reflect back upon Ronnie in the wheel chair.
I think many people are looking for Haiti to be sprinting forward with the billions of dollars in aid which is poured into this country. But you can't run if you are just learning how to walk.


On a side note, I realized more today just how amazing Carmel and Pere Val are. They do so many great things for this country. Carmel single-handedly finds all of the children in Haiti who need surgery for WellSpring. They do not get their names in newspapers or on television. But they have changed or saved the lives of thousands of Haitians. They are two people who should be the utmost role models for young Haitians. Damn you FUSE (Haitian MTV) for convincing even more children that the lifestyles of Chris Brown and Lil Wayne are to be desired.

Bumpy Ride

Dixon Myers told me that my jaunt down to Haiti for a few months would be "like riding a wild stallion across an open field having never ridden a horse before." 

Today has certainly been a bumpy ride.

It started by riding in the back of a Rotary Daihatsu flatbed truck for over an hour up to Crochu. After a long medical clinic (where we saw 168 patients), I was back in the back of the truck to head back down the mountain, this time with 16 Haitians and 2 blans (white guys) crammed in the back. It was perhaps the most uncomfortable experience ever but something totally worth experiencing and doing...at least once.

And just ten minutes ago, we had a small earthquake, the first one I have ever felt. I was sitting on my bed on my computer and it suddenly felt like my bed was resting on a washing machine. We all ran outside and it was over. Just a nice reminder of where I am living.

The Children of Crochu.
The one in the middle is wearing a Camp McDowell shirt.

Driving back up to Crochu gave me some truly incredible experiences but also a more intense glimpse of the harshest realities I have ever seen. I saw one 9-year-old boy who was so malnourished that he looked like a kindergarden student. I saw another baby who's hair was so red he looked Irish. I also saw some very old people who were not even 50 years old. Every woman of child-bearing age had at least 4 children, with some having up to 8. And yet they haven't enough food for a single one.

These people live in the most horrendous conditions and have so very little. 

There were many children who remembered me from a few weeks back. And I was met by the same phrase every time:

"Daniel, Daniel...mwen grangou" (Translation: "Daniel, I'm hungry)

Its so very hard because I can't give them anything. I could go to the grocery store and buy them hundreds of dollars in groceries but when they run out, they will be back where they started. This has been the toughest experience of my time down here.

So I have been thinking a lot about their predicament. This whole country's predicament.

They truly have nothing but faith in God.

So, what do you do when everything you once had, all the resources which once sustained you, are completely gone. And you are left with nothing. And its no one's fault but your own.

How could we, they, whoever, allow it to come to this, living in a tropical desert, a place where life should flourish but instead there is only famine, disease, and dust?

What is the first step in establishing a foundation upon which you can build the rest of your life?

Who needs to help?

Where does God come into this?

Can there really be a second chance? Or are there indeed certain situations where we should just cut our losses and move forward, abandoning hope on revitalizing and rebuilding and instead focus on relocating and restarting?

These are questions relevant to not only Haiti and not even the environmental movement at large. But everything of which we are part which is not sustainable, which is failing. Our relationship with the land, our relationship with our neighbors, our relationship with our very best friends. 

I do not seek to find answers tonight or tomorrow. But hopefully they will one day become apparent.

Until then, may we all ride the bumpy ride up the mountainside, holding on to each other for support and singing songs in Creole.

Prison

            On Saturday, I was “trapped” in the Valdemas compound. I somehow missed my only ride in the late morning to the church. Fully expecting to be picked up by Pere Val to go do some work in the afternoon, I laid around all day reading, napping, and getting bored, entertained by the dogs. I easily could have ventured out of the gate and walked down the road, and probably be safe, but where would I go. There aren’t any Starbucks or stores to peruse.

            So, I spent the entire day behind a ten-foot concrete wall capped by a row of barbed wire. And in many ways I began to feel like a prisoner. Sure I had Wi-Fi, an organ to play, and a stack of books to read but I was still isolated in a third-world country with no contact with the only people I knew on the entire island.

            If there is anything I had learned in 2+ weeks, its that my feeling of imprisonment is one which is felt every day by almost all Haitians. The ones with money are forced to lock themselves away at night for safety. But even they are still prisoners on this small island. As I had mentioned about Juste, it is nearly impossible to get a visa to travel internationally. Even to travel to the Dominican Republic, merely 45 minutes away, it requires a slew of paper work, US approval, and then a steep $220 fee. Americans can cross the border at any time for $20. Dominicans can cross into Haiti for $2.50! So hardly anyone has ever left this impoverished place and seen the vast opportunities on the outside. They see rap music videos of mega-yachts and Ferraris on TV. And watch American movies. And every night they go to sleep, knowing they will never see it with their own eyes.

For most Haitians, the promise land is over a high wall they just can climb.

            And it is all for fear that they will see the “promise land” in America and never return home. In order to receive a visa to travel to the US, you must have not only extensive recommendations in the US, but also a laundry list of obligations back in Haiti you cannot leave (a hefty bank account, a high-paying job, a family, children in school, etc). I have another friend, Moses, whose parents have lived in Boston for many years. But he has never seen them there. He has finished college and is working a good job as a teacher before he plans on going to medical school. He is one of the most well-put-together people I have ever met. Fabulously dressed, very smart, extremely fluent in English, an amazing dancer and ladies man. But he has still been waiting on a visa for over 2 years. He is in a long line, whose end he might never see.

            This is a crime. The United States believes so strongly in freedom. And we always preach about bringing freedom and democracy to the world (i.e. Iraq and Afghanistan). So why cant we give this simple freedom to the people who have the money and desire to help stimulate OUR economy, staying at OUR hotels, eating in OUR restaurants. It only costs $60 one-way to fly to Miami. And still so many people who are doctors, priests, and architects cant even fly to Miami for a week to see their parents. It’s criminal!

            As such, I have made it my ultimate goal to find Juste a spot in an American institution. He wants to be a contractor or engineer. But he claims that a degree in ANYTHING in America will get him any job he wants here. He goes to the only school in Haiti (The Haitian-American Institute) that offers the TOEFL test. Thus, I feel confident his current credits would transfer. He deserves this opportunity. And he has a bunch of people in Richmond, Huntsville, and North Carolina who have all guaranteed him a place to live if such an opportunity arises. If you have any thoughts on how to get him into an American school, I will gladly take your advice. Tonight I will contact the admissions departments for U-Alabama- Huntsville and Virginia Commonwealth, among others.

            Again, let us circumvent the policies laid down by our government with the ever-powerful dollar and the ever-loving God and set these people free.

A Video by my new favorite reggae artist, Lucky Dube. It's called, fittingly, "I'm a Prisoner"

Babies and Konpa

Well, the past 2 days have been full of two common themes:
Babies and Konpa Dancing

On Thursday evening, the Huntsville team had a big send off party/ early birthday party for the Valdema's 22-year old son, Dominique. Some rum drinking led to music which led to Konpa dancing. I learned how to Konpa dance, which is essentially a very slow, loose merengue dance.
The Huntsville team (with 2 from Murfreesboro, TN) were really great. They (average age 30) were certainly a change from the Edenton team (average age 60), yet both were really good to be around and very welcoming. I have already made plans to visit the Huntsville folks after Anne Clark's wedding. And hopefully grab Chick-fil-a with the Murfreesboro folks whenever I might drive through.
I feel like I am going to know every Episcopalian in the South by the end of my 3 months down here. Take that Will Stanley!

So, to the babies.
If there is anything I have learned, its that I truly never know what the day brings when I wake up. That is why I have learned to always bring a backpack with extra food, a book, and headphones. Friday I went to work at the clinic (Lespwa Timoun) without Carmel and thus my only translator.
I soon found myself filling out the records and then holding a steady stream of crying babies who were receiving their vaccinations for Polio and DPT. And aside from one peeing on me, it was a truly amazing experience. I have never had too much time around babies but this was certainly good pre-parenting experience.
Then, at church Friday evening, Matt (a surgeon from a new team from Richmond) and I found ourselves sitting in the "nursery" of the chapel. There must have been 5 children within arms reach under the age of 3. Thus, the two of us ended up holding them and playing with them the whole service.

Back to Konpa:
Friday night was the big party for Dominique's birthday. Held at their house, it was full of good food, a bunch of Prestige, and thus konpa dancing. Dominique's friend, Moses, brought 2 American girls for me (Sarah and Lilly). They are working down here teaching at an American school in Port-au-prince. I ended up dancing a lot more konpa and was told by one of the American girls that I was "the best white guy konpa dancer she had ever danced with". I'll take that as a nice compliment.

Lesson 1

Well, I learned perhaps my first and biggest lesson from my 12 days here in Haiti.
Always have toilet paper with you, because you never know when the ethnic cuisine (manje), water (dlo), dehydration, or a combination with catch up to you. Because it will likely find you with only a sub-par latrine in the bush.
I now have the day off as I am still fighting something being very unfriendly to my intestines.