Sowing Seeds of Hope Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King

Sowing Seeds of Hope Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King.

Sowing Hope

Sowing Hope.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year.

Failing wells

We arrived in Hinche a couple of hours after lunch. Pauleon, our host, came up to have lunch with us. Lunch turned quickly into a business meeting as Pauleon brought someone over to translate for me. We established our itinerary for the next three days, revisited the priorities that we had established for the next projects, and the problem of well pump failures. I had just retreated to our guest house when Pauleon brought Jacque, a member of the well drilling team, over to demonstrate their pump and how wells and pumps can be compromised by community mismanagement. It was great. I had seen the outside of many pumps, but I hadn’t seen the innards! So, now I at least understood the explanation behind some of the failed wells I’d seen on my last trip. After dinner, Jacque was joined by a more senior team member, Janel, and we discussed the technical aspects of well/pump failure further. I thought we had a bead on what was going wrong. Well….maybe.

Well failure is a world-wide problem. That’s why people get trained in well repair. But developing an effective system to prevent it — that’s a real trick.

Mireblais violence

Haiti – Elections : Violence in Mirebalais, the tension rises
16/03/2011 09:55:03

4 days before the second round of the elections, Presidential and legislative in Haiti, the tension and violence increased.

A meeting on the public square in Mirebalais, scheduled for Tuesday afternoon by the candidate Mirlande Manigat, who was returning from Hinche, was disrupted by a group of individuals, before to turn into clashes between supporters of both camps, obliging the candidate to cancel her meeting.

The anti-Manigat, who had invested the crowd, waving posters of Michel Martelly have made understand to the candidate that she was not the welcome in Mirebalais, screaming for more than 30 minutes, preventing the candidate to speak.

Security agents of the candidate Mirlande Manigat then intervened bluntly to stop this noise and have bludgeoned the disruptive, causing several casualties. The anti-Manigat have then threw stones on the supporters of Manigat, provoking an immediate response from them rapidly transforming the meeting into a violent confrontation. The police fired into the air to try to control the situation, triggering panic among the supporters of both camps.

Without having had time to speak, the candidate had to cancel her meeting and be evacuated, protected by her bodyguards and support staff of the Departmental Unit of Maintenance of Order (UDMO). The police reported several minor injuries by throwing stones.

Mirlande Manigat, denounced the attitude and the violence of supporters of his rival and is preparing to file a complaint before the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP). She also complained of the passivity of the police who did nothing against the disrupters.

The Mirage Hotel, an establishment owned by a supporter of Michel Martelly, was targeted by stone-throwing coming from the pro-Manigat supporters after the spread of the unrest in several parts of the city.

Violence against one or the other candidate, contribute these days to rot the climate of the second round and lets fear serious violences for the vote of March 20 and the days that follow. The Organization of the American States (OAS) had condemned the day before, the electoral violence and urged both sides to calm their supporters to allow the vote next Sunday in the best conditions.

HL/ HaitiLibre
There was a commotion in Mirebalais on Tuesday the day before we drove through.  We went by the square where the incident occurred.  All was calm.  We missed the excitement by less than 24 hours. 🙂

The Airport “interrogation”

So my companion mentioned it was strange to have a stranger in a suit come chat with us in English, mention casually that he was also a member of the group supposed to meet us, be driven 100 meters?  Was that a Haitian political operative interrogating us, was it a Haitian kidnapping crew trying to decide whether we were worth their while, or what?  I don’t tend towards conspiracy theories, but it did make me wonder.  When we reached our destination, I asked one of our hosts about it.  I was particularly concerned about the possibility that someone might be trying to obtain “intelligence” through us — how remarkably silly that would be, but in light of the pendency of the Sunday elections, I just wanted to let them know.  Our host  gave me the standard lecture:  we have to be careful of strangers in Port au Prince, with which I fully concur.  But just in case, he called to confirm what had happened.  As it turned out, someone I had met on a previous trip was indeed the familiar face, and it was indeed his friend from the States who “interrogated” us, and we were indeed safe and secure the entire time.  All of the election stuff has everyone a bit on edge, including me, I guess.  But all is well.

Coming to Haiti

I arrived in Haiti after a redeye flight to Miami on Tuesday.  Today is Thursday.  Much has transpired since then. 

The flight from Portland went through Seattle.  That was uneventful for the most part, except for two things.  First, the woman I sat next to on the Seattle to Miami leg.  She was an Alaskan with fascinating stories about her life decisions after getting her masters in Germanic studies from Middlebury College in the 60s.  She sounded as if she  had been a wild and crazy gal in her youth.  I would repeat them, except some things are best left between strangers.  One story I can share is that of the very nervous student she taught at Duke: in a huge proctored hall, this student dutifully wrote his entire German exam, IN SPANISH, not his native English or German!  Ultimately, she found love on a mission trip in Montana and that was all she wrote about her plans to finish her Ph.D.  She teaches in Alaska, but doesn’t have the pay and benefits of being a professor.  She raised three children though and has a lifelong partner.  A wonderful trade perhaps….  Second, about 2 hours out of Miami, a woman took ill.  They called for a doctor and two responded.  There was lot of commotion where they examined and treated her, but finally everything quieted down.  Then a little more than an hour outside of Miami, they called for the doctors again, this time with a quite frantic tone of voice.  The doctors dashed to the back where again there was great commotion.  Some consultation on telephones with the 1st officer led me to worry that they were going to land us shy of Miami, perhaps Tampa or some other place that would result in me missing my flight to Haiti.  But again things settled down and we landed in Miami, no worse for wear other than the 15 minutes or so necessary for the paramedics to come, examine the woman for the third time, and lead her off of the plane, walking!

My connection in Miami was very tight to begin with: less than 75 minutes.  That’s why I had lugged my extraordinarily heavy backpack with me as carry-on.  I had to check in again because my Miami-PAP flight was on Insel Air, a Caribbean carrier that does not have an agreement with Alaska to issue boarding passes.  Unfortunately, I arrived at the airline desk about 20 minutes after they closed the flight, since it was international (we had also lost about 15-20 minutes from dropping out of the jetstream due to clear air turbulence).   The woman at the desk took pity on me and tagged my baggage.  I sprinted for the gate…meeting my traveling companion, Mark, at the gate.

It was a typical fascinating flight from Miami to PAP.  Almost entirely Haitian residents and Haitian diaspora returning home.  Both of course are returning home.  I don’t think one ever leaves Haiti…even if you are a non-Haitian who visits…it captures your heart and holds it tight.  I listened to the Creole…but everyone spoke so quickly that I could scarcely pick up a word here or there.  Unlike my patient Haitian hosts and radio announcers, the Creole is spoken rapid fire.  Most of the time, I feel like ducking.  There were, as always, a number of older people who needed help with their immigration forms.  Not that they had lost their faculties or had not traveled internationally before, simply because they are illiterate.  The flight was on a smaller plane, no American 747, and the food was actually free and edible!  I won’t look up their safety record…I’m sure its like many regional carriers, far more dangerous than the average major US carrier.

Once we touched down in Haiti, I felt some anxiety.  I had a companion who had traveled a great deal internationally, but still I felt responsible for him because it was his first trip to Haiti.  And I had found out, when filling out my immigration form, that I must have left my phone number list at home.  So when I put down my address and phone number in Haiti I improvised.  It also meant that I had no way to call someone if we weren’t met.

So, sure enough, no one came….even though they had been waiting for us patiently the previous three trips.  I literally trust my life to them — and I consider that trust well-placed.  So, how to explain to Mark that my always reliable friends were not there and I had no phone number to call them.  But we waited.

I expected Pauleon, my closest contact, to come down to meet us.  But there was no one.  The airport attendants and taxi drivers, of course, noticed that we were waiting and offered to help.  Many legitimate offers no doubt, and some less legitimate.  That’s the problem.  Especially if you don’t know the language, its is very hard to tell one from the other.  So we waited.

Finally Mark suggested that we set a time limit on waiting, despite his extensive experience in developing countries.  How American!  Actually Mark is one of the least American Americans culturally that I have met.  But still, he is linear and non-magical in his thinking and he has a western sense of time.

But, sure enough, here came someone with a sign.  A friendly familiar face that I believed I recognized.  So we hopped in the truck and waited.   He told us that we were waiting for someone else to come and sure enough about 30 minutes later someone did.  We chatted with the new passenger who was a Haitian coming back from the US who spoke English.  Then we drove about 100 yards and the driver and new passenger told us that we were going to transfer to another truck.  They left in the first truck and we left in the second, headed in different directions.

(to be continued – the generator is about to turn off and when it does, the lights in the compound will turn off.  Then it will be hard to get home, even with the beautiful la lun (moon).)

Surrounded by saints

She told me she wanted to talk before I left .  So I went back into the sanctuary to chat. She is one of those wonderful people who has participated in our Drink Water for Life lenten campaign since she joined the church six years ago.

She was so excited…the joy just leaped from her eyes.She has never been able to give up that favorite beverage and drink water instead.  She tried.  She’s been getting closer.  She’s meditated on Haiti as she tried to keep her resolve [of course, we never expected anyone to be perfect …but that’s another story].  But this year, she told me she thinks she’ll be able to do it….go all 40 days, sacrificing the expensive beverage for mere beautiful clean water …and saving the money to fund water projects in communities that regard clean water as a dream come true rather than a sacrifice.  A dream that so many are still waiting to realize.

40 days of sacrifice for people you’ve never met.  When I talk with my friends in Papay this week, I’ll lift up her name… one of the many saints who surround me!

They didn’t have potable tap water in Port au Prince!?!

I spoke recently with some of the folks from my  congregation about the work we’re doing in the ceentral plateau of Haiti.  I mentioned that in Port au Prince even before the earthquake that people did not have potable water available at their household tap.  If they have taps, the water is not potable and they have to treat it.  And they buy water from water tankers to fill their cisterns, if they’re rich.  and that much of the limited distribution system was destroyed in the earthquake.  They were amazed.  They assumed that only rural Haiti lacked potable tap water.  a city must have potable water.

It reminded me of how much Americans take clean drinking water absolutely for granted.  And then they are tricked into additional filtration and other extravagances, when in 99% of the cases, our tap water is just fine.

There are places in the United States, very small private water systems that provide water to mobile home parks or other tiny communities, that violate our Safe DDrinking Water Act maximum contaminant limits.  And occasionally, you will see a small town that has some problem with contamination.  But, its relatively uncommon.

Our  water infrastructure is remarkable and I wish Americans appreciated it more.

Still absorbing the earthquake news

I just heard about the massive earthquake off the coast of Japan and the tsunami that followed. Though I offer a prayer for the many lives lost, I still measure earthquakes by the devastation of the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti.  We lost 250,000 lives from that earthquake.

And, as happened with the Chilean earthquake, people carelessly comment about Haiti’s lack of planning and poor construction as the primary reasons that so many died.  That’s true as far as it goes.

Some of the difference comes from the nature of the Haitian quake.   It was a different sort of quake, than either the Chilean quake or the Japanese quake.  It was shallow with intense damage in the immediate locale, rather than deep with remote consequences as both of them appear to be.  And, of course, the Japanese quake damages may be largely the result of the tsunami, which was not a problem for Haiti.

But we have to look deeper for the real reasons that the Haitian earthquake killed so many, look deeper to find the roots of poor governance that allowed poorly constructed buildings, inadequate emergency response systems, and limited medical facilities.  When we do, we find the fingerprints of the American government all over the crime scene.

We have always treated other countries as places we could invade and displace, exile, and assassinate leaders, if we choose.  The hubris of wealth and power has guided our foreign policy, not compassion and integrity.

We have abused Haiti many times…invading at will and deposing leaders when they did suit us ideologically.  Even now, we prevent the return of Aristide to Haiti.  Don’t get me wrong.  I too want him to wait to come back.  But it’s not my choice to make or the American government’s choice to make.  It is a matter for Haiti and Aristide.

When we learn that we don’t have the right to make decisions for other people just because we are rich and powerful, that is the beginning of wisdom.