Sunday, January 10, 2010

hello to everyone.  yes, blogging has become a chore for me recently and I have little motivation in it.  however, I will endeavor to persevere until the writers block reaches a conclusion.

warm, cloudy, some afternoon sun, intermittent rain even though we are in dry season.   read it is 1 deg in St. Louis this morning....glad I am here.  cold weather does not appeal to me much anymore, not that it really ever did.   I admit it is fun at times to get the snow thing going, but zero temps are beyond what this old body wants to go thru. 

Nancy is up in the mountains now, doing a dental clinic starting tomorrow.  she is in the Jacmel area, nice tourist area, but up in the mountains around it in a village.  it can get very cold up in the mountains, and she took a lot of extra clothes for the trip.

school is ready to roll tomorrow.   went over yesterday and did some last clean up's in some of the rooms, we are good to go.  we will be arranging some teachers and kids differently this year, promoting some, trying to encourage others who don't seem to have much interest in learning.  the thing here is that the girls go to school, the boys reluctantly go, and as soon as they can do anything, like drive a taxi, they drop out and seal their future.  Haiti is a "today" place.   if someone can get a little now, it is worth far more than what may come in the future.   reminds me of a story Charles Mellon told in his book about seeing a man chopping down a tree.  He tried to stop him, as he knew even then that Haiti was being deforrested at an alarming rate.   He asked the man how much money he could get for the crop of the fruit tree each year, and then what he could get for cutting down the tree for charcoal.   The answer to both was about $75 Haitian.   he tried to convince him to wait for the crop.  the man told him he didn't know if his family had a tomorrow, all they had was today, and they needed food now.   that mindset is so pervasive here. 

on the good side, things do seem to be changing for the better.  the new road construction is continuing to come north and it seems will hit St. Marc w/i a few months.  the road is already so much better, the trip to Port is MUCH easier than when I started here.  it has gone from 3 1/2 hrs, to about 1 1/2 hrs.  you can drive highway speed's on most of the road there.  the down side to that is that the vehicles are very poorly maintained and overloaded, and the fear is that accidents will increase as speeds increase.  many people die each year in road accidents here.   there are no traffic laws, speed limits, and big trucks and busses just basically fly down the road and it is your job to get out of their way. 

life in Haiti continues, no great changes, but a succession of little ones.  the new Delimart store in town has spurred another competitor to spruce up his store.   things like that.    so as we get ready for the school routine to resume, it is so easy to lose focus on the other things here.  but as in everyones life, things work out one way or another.   I hope everyone is warm, or at least safe.   

Dieu benis ou

Dan Joshu