Here Comes the Sun!

I guess hurricane Sandy is the news for today.  It seems that is all we've talked about.  The whole situation was kind of surreal!  It all started on Tues. afternoon and it was like in the old western movies where everyone know the gunslinger was coming into town but they were afraid to talk about it or go out in the streets or anything.  We'd heard about this weather system that might be coming, but didn't have any real information.  We had exhausted the last of our computer batteries Monday night looking for information on the storm and all we found out was there was a storm that was heading for Jamaica and might hit Haiti.  The skies were lowering and it started raining in the early afternoon.

We didn't see the sun again until Saturday.  This was our first experience with a big storm, but from what we had heard, Sandy wasn't supposed to be a real big deal.  She didn't really start to kick in until Wednesday afternoon.  The rain didn't really increase a lot, but the winds picked up gusting to about 40 mph.  That was enough to rattle the tin covering our windows and put the tarps around the school to the test.

We had been having some trouble with water coming into the house and I'd done some digging around the back and side and that seemed to be helping a lot.  Long about dark, the rain really started picking up and the water problems in the house started showing up.  We mopped until we saw that we would never keep up and went to bed, not really knowing what we would find come morning.  I got up about 10:00 and stepped into a puddle in the bedroom and most of the floor in the house was covered in water.  

We swept and mopped until after midnight and again saw we were not going to keep up so back to bed we go.  Actually we slept pretty good amidst the banging of the window coverings and the thoughts of rising water.   Morning was really better than we thought.  Without the interference of our mops and brooms, the water kinda channeled and pooled until it reached the level that it overflowed under the front door.  Thursday was pretty much a battle between getting caught up when the rain slowed and trying to catch back up when it picked up again.  Through out the day occasionally someone would stop by and we baked and cooked, mainly because that was something we could do and something we could share with people as they stopped by.  By Friday afternoon we had to get out of the house and the rain was down to a drizzle.  18" had fallen to this point and we were curious about what the river looked like because we knew that it usually flooded after significant rain events.  Massouk, one of our young friends that speaks some English came by and walked down with us.  He'd been down and just kept saying, 'big, big water!'  He was right, big, big water!  That is the real story of this storm. The river was a raging torrent of big, brown water carving away at everything in it's path.

The big brown river in the back is usually less than 10' wide!

It's hard to get a good feel without hearing the roar!

By morning this tree was completely gone!

The gravel in the foreground is the road up to the trailhead
to our house.  The water in the background is where the
road used to be!

Tons of soil on it's way to the Dominican Republic!

Friday night was still off and on rain, but we woke up Saturday to dry floors, blue skies and bright sunshine!

After three days of cold and dampness, the sun felt
sooooo good!

Thank you Lord for the sun!  

All the earth rejoices in to see the sun!

Saturday we walked back down to see how much the water had gone down.  It had dramatically, but a lot of the landscape and road had gone down with it!

This is the road, or what's left of it at the just down hill from
the trailhead to our house

People were struggling to get from point 'A' to point 'B'.

Unless you have been here, it's really hard to understand the impact of this storm.  Overall, over 20" of rain had fallen in 72 hrs.  The runnoff of this water is what really has made the impact.  The road we are talking about is the only road north to south through the mountains.  Right now, and for probably a couple weeks at least, commerce and traffic has come to a complete standstill.  The markets south of us will only have what is available locally or carried in on mules or motos.  It's a hungry time in the mountains already.  This will not help at all!  Sunday, we decided to come to Fond Parisienne to see what the rest of the road was like, visit Vlad and Ashly, charge our batteries and catch up on emails and posts.  Moto's were plentiful, and business was good for them because there was no other way out of the mountains.  

The road is washed out in many places, but we've heard that the government is moving quickly to rebuild it.  Other roads have been washed out too.  Two bridges on the main (the only) road from Fond Parisienne to Port au Prince are out.  Motos are running between washed out places and you have to walk across the water to get through.  But that's life in Haiti.  Sandy blew out of here 3 days ago now and conditions are what they are.  Is it inconvenient? Yes! Is there anything you can do about it?  No!  It is what it is and that's life in Haiti.  Not a lot is different than every other day.  Here, everything is on hold every day until you have what you need to do what you want to do.  In the mean time you work in the garden if you have a garden.  You talk if you have someone to talk to.  You just take life one day at a time and thank God for that!

There are things going on that I'd like to tell you about, but this is getting pretty long.  One thing I do want to share is one of our friends had her baby last Sunday and Cheryl has been checking on her. Her name is Klotid (pronounced clotseed with a long 'o') and she appreciated Cheryl's visits so much, she asked Cheryl to name her son.  So this is Klotid and Samyell (Samuel).

Thanks also to our friend at Hopewell Methodist Church outside of Bellefontaine for the layette kit they sent.  She really appreciated it.  Momma and baby are doing fine.  I'll let Cheryl fill you in on that experience next time.  Love you all!  Without your prayers, we would be lost!  Drop us a note if you get a minute.  It get's kinda lonely here and words from home are precious!  God Bless you all!  Rest in His Peace.

Farmers are Farmers

Farming in Hiati, at least up here in the mountains, is very, very basic.  A well equipped farmer owns a pick, a hoe, a machete and a sekle (pronounced seekla) knife.  

A sekla knife is a large hooked knife that is bent so you can cut underground roots and pull weeds from the ground.  I don’t own one yet.  Mine is just a broken pick end that I’ve attached to a wood handle.  It works, but not as good as a knife.

Haitian farmers are no different than their American counterparts in liking to see clean fields.  Clean takes o a whole new meaning when you move from the world of pre-emergent herbicides and Roundup ready plants.  Welcome to the world of ‘sekle’.

We inherited a house with Pwa Nwa (Black Beans) planted virtually right up to the doorstep.  So I had been sekleing he areas we looked at most often.  I was even refered to as an ‘abiton’ (farmer) this week. I consider that a high complement! 

 First of all, there are often 2 and sometimes 3 different crops planted together along with the occasional volunteer stalk of corn that is also valuable.  Second, all the plants are the same size and everything is planted randomly across the ’jaden’ (garden or field) so you are weeding through individual plants and not rows.  Finally, all the plants are 6-8” tall which means you spend the whole day bent over at the waist or squatting!  The one good thing is the jadens are steep, so working uphill means you don’t have to bend over so far.

Monday, a crew hired by the person who planted our Pwa Nwa came through and cleaned the jaden.  There were 7 of them and it took most of the day to sekle our ½ acre of Pwa Nwa.  They were paid no more than $20.00 Haitian ($2.50 US!) and a meal.  

At the end of the day the jaden was clean, the workers were fed and it felt good to be considered and ‘abiton’!

Good evening!  We are still struggling with communications!  WE have better internet service now, but still struggling with keeping/getting batteries charged.  It’s been overcast and not the best conditions for our little solar panel, the one that works that is.  Right now it’s raining quite hard and water is running across the floor.  

The mop mistress is keeping up, but it might be a long night for her.  The rain is a real blessing for the crops, so we won’t complain.  But join us in praying for our neighbors who have leaky roofs and walls and some have dirt floors. We’re thankful for our little leaks!

We had a little break in the storm and God was showing off a little in the sky!  Too bad a picture cannot capture His Majesty

It is a really hungry time here in the mountains.  They are between harvests and hurricane Isaac was really hard on the gardens!  We’ve really struggled with how and when to help.  Most are working through it, some ask politely and some beg constantly.  We were a little rough on some of the beggars on Saturday, and we were feeling kinda bad.  Then Cher had a great idea.  Sunday was our son Nick’s birthday, so we decided to invite them for a birthday meal, complete with a cake.  

It took a while to explain the whole concept of birthday celebrations and cakes and gifts and such because it was pretty foreign to most of them.  They knew the happy birthday song, even in English, but that was about it. There isn’t really a Kreole word for birthday.

Anyhow  we had a great time eating, singing, praying and playing with bubbles.  Everything got ate and everyone left with smiles on their faces.  God is working in all of us. Pray that He would give us discernment in how, when, who and if to help.

                It’s really great to know we have people praying for us!  We have so much to learn!  The language is coming very slowly, the things in the garden are growing, school is back in session and you never know what will walk up to the door.  We’re learning to plan a little better to make best use of our internet resources.  Hopefully, the updates will be more frequent gut probably short! 

                Love you all!

                Pat n Cheryl