In the meantime...

It's been a busy week, that's why I haven't posted anything.

What's been happening? Well, on Saturday we had a team of 8 from the States arrive to help at the clinic. The group was mainly medical professionals or students and they provided different service. They ran a vision clinic to test distance and reading and provided prescription glasses and they had lab specialists that did free mass screening tests for over 100 patients in the community! This ministry has been coming to the clinic for several years and we are thankful for how they have helped the lab staff and provided other services.

Also, Cal went to Port au Prince to hand in his visa application to the Canadian Embassy. Please join us in prayer that this would all go smoothly. He will return next week for his appointment on Wednesday to learn the results!

The Depot

I found some pictures taken of the depot over the past couple of years. Thought I would post them so that you can see HOW MUCH work has been done!

Work at the clinic

Since I can post photos now, I thought I'd show an update of the work that has been done at the clinic in the past few months.

New, updated sign at entrance. Eben-ezer Health Centre of Haut Limbe

New sidewalk and freshly painted exterior of day clinic.

Bridge over to the wound care room.

Wound care room. No more stinking up the clinic!

View of the cholera centre.

My absolute favourite - the depot!!!

View of the yard from the cholera centre.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this happen!!!

Limbe

Often times in the afternoon Cal and I make a trip to Limbe on the moto just to "get out of Haut Limbe" and go to the "big city"! Cal had gotten some work done on the moto, so we went to pick it up. I thought I'd take my camera along for the ride as well.

Driving to Limbe

Limbe River

Limbe River

Cal on the bridge

Other side of the bridge

They have been working on paving the market in Limbe! So exciting! It used to be a basically a big mud pit and hence why I rarely went shopping there. This will make things so much cleaner.

Yes, they do have a cement mixer in Haiti!

First Baptist Church of Limbe, at one end of the market.

Here is Fonkoze where we have our main bank account. Not only are they a bank, but they also provide microcredit to thousands of Haitian women. I like them a lot! Going there is a much more pleasant experience then waiting in the 2 hour plus lines at any other commercial bank in Haiti. Here, all the cashiers know us and get mad at Cal when he doesn't bring me with him! And who doesn't love a purple and orange building?

After picking up the bike, we decided to stop for a snack and a drink. Here's Cal enjoying his chicken.

You may be wondering why I'm all of the sudden posting more pictures? Well, our internet connection has greatly improved so it no longer takes 30 minutes to upload one photo! Whoo hoo! I'll try to keep posting pictures as long as the connection allows.

My guilty pleasure

When I lived in Canada, I was a big snacker. I was always grazing between meals. I could not make it from breakfast until lunch without a little something - crackers, granola bar, etc. And then after supper, I always had something before bed - cereal, popcorn, carrots, etc. I tried to not keep "junk food" at home like chips and such, but I ate a lot of small meals during the day.
 
Since moving to Haiti, I've broken the habit of snacking - it's just not really done here. Usually the meals are enough to fill me up and often times Cal and I don't really eat supper because we had a huge lunch (which is the main meal of our day) and we don't really have an appetite.

But, there is a snack food in Haiti that we do not have in Canada. It's called fritaj, literally - fried things! Often in the evening, Cal and I go down the road to Cece's and buy a little snack. Below you can see my favorites, marinad and banan peze (deep fried dough and twice fried plantains). Together with some pikliz (spicy coleslaw), this is the absolute best snack at a cheap price - 1 goud (about 3cents US) per piece of marinad! It's so not good for you, but I really don't care!

You can get other fried things as well - chicken, hot dogs, akra, sweet potato and if you are brave like Cal, chicken livers!

Road Trip

A few weeks ago, May 18 to be exact (Haitian Flag Day), Cal and I decided to take advantage of the holiday and take a road trip. We had seen on Facebook a picture of a waterfall that is apparently just a couple towns over, maybe a 20 minute drive. So we decided to search for it. By about 9:30 we were on the road on our moto ready for adventure.

We stopped in Limbe for gas and asked for directions to the waterfall, nobody could give us an answer. So we continued on to Camp Koq, the town where the waterfall is supposed to be. We arrived just before the local Flag Day parade started - complete with marching band, so got to watch it go by. After, we still couldn't find anyone who knew the location of the waterfall, so we had a decision to make.

Since it was still fairly early in the day and we had no where else to be, we decided to drive on to Plaisance, which is over the first mountain pass on the way to Gonaives and 22 kms from Limbe according to Google Maps. I had my camera with to take pictures of the waterfall if we every found it, so decided to get some shots of our journey since I really have very few pictures of anything here! The word Haiti (Ayiti in Creole) means mountainous, and from these photos, you can see why!

Limbe River

Catholic Church in Plaisance. Stopped here to buy some peanuts for a snack and then found a mechanic to fix our broken clutch.

Going back down the mountain.

People are often surprised how green and lush it is here when they visit. It isn't this lush all over the country, we are truly blessed to live in such a beautiful corner of it!

It's June???

Seriously, how did that happen? In December when I was looking at the calendar and all that would happen between then and now, June seemed like forever away, but here it is!

One week ago we put the last group on the plane for Miami. It was a successful and HOT week, reminding me again of why we don't host groups in the summer months. In spite of the heat, the group was able to help lay the concrete for a snazzy sidewalk from the entrance of the yard up to the clinic and fill SIXTEEN rubbermaid tubs of sorted needles and syringes in the depot! Woohoo! I will be forever grateful! After 2.5 years, the depot may finally be organized and useable!

So what am I doing now? Well, first we have been working on Cal's visa paperwork for Canada. He has an appointment at the Canadian Embassy for next Wednesday so that he can drop off his application. He gets to travel all the way there just to drop it off. And, if it is the same process as last time, we get to wait a week until he goes back to see the if he is accepted or denied. Please be praying for safe travel and for my nerves while he is away! Once he has his visa, we will be able to work on our future plans - to be announced at a later time. :)

Also, the clinic together with the local pastors are planning a spiritual retreat for sometime in July. I'm on the planning committee helping make some of those arrangements.

And before too long, we'll start looking at the schedule for groups for the coming year!

Other than that, I'm trying to stay cool - very challenging in 30 plus degree weather, with high humidity and limited electricity. But I'm surviving.

Oh, and the Europe 2012 Championship is on right now meaning that Cal has "important games" to watch everyday from now until the beginning of July. Yay for soccer!

The question of orphans

A question that comes up nearly every time I host a group is "How many orphans/orphanages are there in Haiti?" and "what are the orphanages like?".

I always have to pause before I attempt to answer the question, because it is a very complex issue and one that I do not have enough first hand knowledge or experience to make an intelligent response.

What I do know is that the number of true orphans (children with no living parent) is very low in Haiti as compared to the number of children living in institutions or with other families.

Below are a couple of links to blogs written by the Livesay family in Port au Prince, Haiti who can more eloquently discuss some of the complicated issues.


alleviate

A boat that needs rocking

Linking you