January 13, 2009

Life continues on here. weather is fabulous, high was 85 today, no humidity, slight breeze. Life otherwise is, well, Haitian. there is no gas in the stations either here or in Port au Prince. it seems the local tenders of the fuel have mastered the art of black market profiteering. it is illegal for a gas station to sell fuel at above approved prices. so when there is a shortage, they sell it to front vendors by the barrell, deplete their supplies down to nothing. the "vendors" then sell it at an incredible mark up and it is legal, or at least something they don't take any time to monitor. then the "vendor" kicks back to the station operator. so gas now (when it is available) is selling for about $50-100 Haitian a gallon. that translates to $6-12 dollars a gallon. glad the generator and truck are diesel!!!! for whatever reason there is no shortage of diesel. guess they save on all the fuel oil they don't use here and make diesel! :)

this morning a ship was docked in port here and it had it's lights on, green and such. it was before dawn and the ship was sitting in the harbor, very pretty sight. tried to take a picture and got a great shot of the green screening on the porch, it reflected the light and, well, the picture didn't amount to much.

for several reasons, slavery has been a regular topic around here, both in conversation and at school in books. I have talked to several of the staff about restaveks, kids literally givento relatives to work as forced labor. and Kesmy is working in a civics book highlighting the civil war in America. Kesmy brought up an intersting question. Robert E Lee was supposed to be a very good man, a real "Christian". how then could he have fought and killed to preserve slavery?

it goes hand in hand with a book that has come up in the english class regarding the church in Topeka Ks in the 50's, I believe that started the WWJD movement. a great story about a pastor that challenged his congregation to live as Jesus would in EVERY step of their lives, both personal and in business. really changed many people. and it leads to a book I am reading about releasing power of Jesus by Bill Johnson that speaks of understanding really what Jesus called His followers to do, and that was the impossible. Jesus told the disciples to feed the thousands with nothing, and He said His followers would do greater things than He did. it seems maybe I should rethink this Christian thing I thought I had been living for some time now. maybe I don't understand all I thought I did, maybe there is more to challenging myself in how I live and what I expect to do with the life God gave me. maybe there is more.

anyway, I (again) will try to get more pictures to post as I know I would greatly appreciate them if I was reading some boring blog. pictures make it more interesting! the Creole is improving day by day, I find myself even starting to think some in the language. only some words, but some. so, arevwa e bonnuit tout moun! Djebenis! (goodbye and goodnight everyone! God bless) :)