Haiti Day 9 and 10: Finally Some Pictures and Video

In case you missed this on my twitter, this conversation is from the US border in Buffalo on our way to Haiti.

Us Border Guard: your going to haiti?
Us: yes.
Board Guard: you better be careful because your going to get torn from limb to limb
Us: thanks

Here are a few more zingers from Pastor Martinez.

pastor: that was a good prayer, because it was short

Bob is backing up and gets really close to a guy who wasn’t paying attention, the guy throws his hands up with a shocked laugh, and pastor yells out the window, “two inches” as we drive away.

As we drive down the road, there is a younger lady sitting in the lap of a younger man. Pastor yells out of the window “its on you if she gets pregnant.”

pastor: I know someone who is tired, and it’s not me. pastor says this as he looks at Chris leaning on the truck falling asleep.

The last few days have felt a bit slower in terms of actually seeing results. It was a lot of administration. Making calls, setting up meetings, filling out forms and such. However, around noon today things started to pick up. I was working away this morning on some stuff and I was being serenaded by a loud group who was singing songs on the street. I realized a few hours later that they were still singing, and they were getting louder. So I went out and took some footage and pictures. I gave my camera to one of the boys who also took some footage. They were fasting for a good chunk of the day and when they fast, they sing the entire time. There is nothing better than this. This is right outside my front door. If you look closely, you can see their tarps that is their homes. That is all they have. Yet here they are.

Then we went to meet with an engineering group who wants to help setting up some permanent water filtration systems for our sites. Then we went to the airport and picked up a Shelterbox rep and she brought a tent with us, showed us how to set it up and we got to give it to a family. She was impressed with how our site was setup and was confident enough to tell us that whenever we needed tents that we could just swing by their warehouse and pick them up. This of course is extremely good news because these are long lasting temporary shelters, along with blankets, cooking utensils, water jugs and a few other things. They are worth over $1000 each and they are just giving them to us. So Monday morning we are going to pick up 30 and start distributing them to our most vulnerable families.

Tonight we are filling out a WFP form. This form is going to help them determine which NGO’s they are going to partner with to distribute all their supplies. We are hoping we can become one of those partners, and since EI has been setup here for quite a while and has good relationship with their sites and a good enough infrastructure setup to get food around, we are hoping that they see that and work with us. The WFP has been a little unpredictable since we have got here. They have changed their logistics around a few times, and we have yet to see any food from them yet. However, they are runing a big operation and and are trying to deal with over 500 NGO’s knocking on their door for food all the while trying to be accountable for it and stay away from bad press. Hopefully they figure things out soon, so our people can get the food they need. We did a distribution of 170 bags of food today, and there was probably another 200 waiting who didn’t get any. That sucks.

Chris got hit with some sort of bug today and is now laying in bed, streaming the Toronto Maple Leaf game. Hopefully he is feeling better tomorrow. Rachel is here in two days. Daniel (pastor’s son) is working hard at putting together a entire plan for the rebuild over the next number of years and things are happening. It’s exciting and devastating all at the same time. However, when you have hungry, fasting Haitians singing for hours on end as your background music, you are strengthened and given hope.

I have withheld putting pictures online yet because I haven’t really had the means to do so, but here are a few that hopefully gives you a little peek of what I’m seeing from my point of view. When I get back I’ll post a more exhaustive album.

I will keep this collection of photos updated constantly here. But here are a few.

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