9 February 2010

Where to start. The days are starting to stream together, literally. The Americans are used to working during the day so we start around 7:00 am but the Haitians want to work in the evening, at least with the food distribution. So our days are long. But we are making good progress. The Bishops are accessing the needs of their members and making arrangements to either pick up the food or have it delivered. For the most part the deliveries are orderly. Saturday night we delivered to a Chapel that literally had tarps hung over the top of the whole parking lot, which was about 50' x 100'. They Bishop organized the men into a line and we passed the food down the line which snaked into a class room. The women stood around and made comments. Pretty soon we had a little chant going on, du ba du for heavy bags that required two men to lift or o ba o for light bags. I am sure I have the spelling and pronounciation wrong but the ladies would sure laugh when I would yell out du ba du.

Yesterday I went to the border again. No mans land was astonishing. There was a continuous flow of people carrying amazing quantities of food and liquid. There are boys with wheel barrows that get paid for carrying goods from no mans land to the Haitian side to be loaded on tap taps. You have to understand that there is nothing about it that would make it easy. It is not a paved road but a rocky dusty bare strip of land. The wheel barrows are not new but look like they have been rebuilt and patched together several times. The boys are not big and strong but look to be about twelve and slightly undernourished. And the traffic, I can't describe it in a sentence. And the noise, honking talking, banging, literally sensory overload.

There are many small miracles occuring, I think I am becoming desensitized to them. For example, the delivery truck went to Jacmel last night. They left here at 7:00 pm (it gets dark around 6:00 pm) and they returned about 5:00 am. Of course the house is all locked up, but one of the guys woke up with the thought that he should go open the door. So he went downstairs opened the door and the delivery truck pulled up. Doesn't seem like much to you and me but to Neal and Jean Philipe and Roberto it was a relieve to be able to walk right in and collapse.

Got to go the day is taking off. Sorry.