Today…finally…I visited the Daughters of Wisdom.  They are a Haitian order of Sisters who HAD a huge school in the city which schooled over 600 teenage girls.  They have a tent-school in Port-au-Prince as well.  What once was a 400 student orphanage and school for the deaf was totally destroyed in the city.  As a result the sisters somehow (the miracles are amazing!) were given some land on which they built such a wonderful and joyous place!  Clean, accommodating and…get this…the first open field I saw that wasn’t filled with garbage or tents!  I promised all these skids a load of athletic stuff…soccer balls, etc.  This visit was the highlight of my trip as of now!  The beautiful children, so happy and expressive!  I, not speaking the lingo or being able to sign, used the old Deasy “give’m energy and play with them”.  We had a ball!

After some much needed water….after doing over 14 presentations to 14 classes of children who couldn’t hear a word I was saying (lucky kids, huh?)…we sat down and chatted with the sisters.  So much fun…and YOUNG!

Once leaving the Sisters, we went off to the town of Santo.  About 15 miles out of the city…which takes 30 minutes no traffic; one hour with traffic…we visited the Fr Jeanne Francois who was the pastor of St. Mary Magdalene’s.  With a destroyed school on one side (it’ll take $16,000 to demolish it) and with a school construction in progress (a simple two story 7 room structure in its third year of building…ouch!…you knew that a celebration was much needed and by God they were going to make one!. The place was abuzz with preparing for their big Feast Day Celebration tomorrow, July 21, the feast day.  We sat down with some other padres and seminarians and enjoyed a simple meal of rice and beans (which I didn’t need because, again, I was still raising sweat!)  Afterwards, I travelled to the tent city and/slum area right off the parish.  The flies, smell, garbage and mud that we had to walk through just to get there was enough to make you sick.  Really.  This was the worse one I’d seen.  You can see in the people’s eyes that look of “is this all there is to life”.  Just sitting there watching time go by maybe before going to take a shift at the one of a thousand road stands selling bananas or fresh(?) fish

Up for 6:30 mass with Fr. Joe….77 years young…born and raised in Maine.  47 years here in Haiti. He’s seen governments tumbles one after the other; as well as the buildings.  Believe me, here at CAMP OMI (as they call it) there is off and on electricity; now and then internet; air conditioners that don’t work; water but it doesn’t run through pipes as of now; and it’s still standing with some rooms and toilets and add on structures totally destroyed.

Again, many many many people don’t live in their homes anymore because they are absolutely terrified.  Remember, the quake came around 5:00 pm so everyone was pretty much out and about.  As a matter of fact, every afternoon around 5:00 pm we’ve been driving back from somewhere or the other and the traffic, the people traffic, the movement of United nations, military…people, people everywhere!  What doesn’t move?  Very Very little sign of clean up; very little signs of how to get rid of the trash that just mounts up. Even the wild pigs can’t keep up with it!

A recycler could make a fortune out here.  Plastic bottles are everywhere; plastic tarps, plastic baggies, plastic plastic plastic!  When the rains come, all that plastic washes into the streets, rivers and ocean.  If someone came out a paid the people 2-5 cents a can or soda bottle…people would be collecting the stuff because they need the money.  If the government would pay people $1 for a gvt. Distributed bad full of paper, spoiled fruits and assorted crap that just lies there and rots away…again, the city would be clean and the people would make some dinero.  Of course, I’m sure there’s some bullshit reason or bureaucratic reason that this couldn’t happen, so why put oneself in that frustration!  Right?

As I said, previously, there are about 40 nations out here manning (ladying?) local conciliates, embassy’s and local stations of the national police.   Cubans sent over 500 medical people.  The Italian army oversees one of the factories where the Italians pay Haitians to sew and make clothing to be distributed. USAID is seen everywhere on tarps that make up tents.  UNICEF has been big in providing tent-like structures to school children in and try to prevent them from being scorched by the sun.

The money that the USA government collected and/or was promised gathered HAS gone to Humanitarian Agencies/Programs that have been here way before the quake.  The Haitian government would love to have all the money collected to spend as it thinks best.  But “momma didn’t raise a fool”.  The president is up for re-election (which means, if defeated, a whole new government comes in with no line of succession of programs already set in motion.  Therefore, a lot of  the money is still in the hands of our government because the US  wants to know how it is going to be spent?  Show proposals, show bids, show phases of development.  In other words, “give us a plan and we’ll give you the dough.

Amazingly, with the EMERGENCY kind of in control (i.e., ways are back to normal…if you call this normal) and with the idea of reconstruction coming about, the first things the populace believes in are to rebuild the schools.  That’s where the future is and who will be able to rebuild this nation.  Almost every school…with almost every church… was destroyed.  Almost every destroyed school has been moved into temporary tent structures provided mostly by UNICEF while the destroyed school remains.  Their tent-like-schools are everywhere.  The schools have taken in anyone. The Catholic Schools under the OMI’s have taken in everyone in their schools. Their enrollment has skyrocketed and the teachers are spent because no additional teachers have been added because no additional $$, though promised, has come through.  The schools……also feed the children as an incentive for the parents to get them to attend school.  Of course, more kids equal more food which equals more money.  As you can imagine, the kids take a lot of their food home to their families in the slums or in the refugee tent cities..         

As I said, previously, there are about 40 nations out here manning (ladying?) local conciliates, embassy’s and local stations of the national police.   Cubans sent over 500 medical people.  The Italian army oversees one of the factories where the Italians pay Haitians to sew and make clothing to be distributed. USAID is seen everywhere on tarps that make up tents.  UNICEF has been big in providing tent-like structures to school children in and try to prevent them from being scorched by the sun.

The money that the USA government collected and/or was promised gathered HAS gone to Humanitarian Agencies/Programs that have been here way before the quake.  The Haitian government would love to have all the money collected to spend as it thinks best.  But “momma didn’t raise a fool”.  The president is up for re-election (which means, if defeated, a whole new government comes in with no line of succession of programs already set in motion.  Therefore, a lot of  the money is still in the hands of our government because the US  wants to know how it is going to be spent?  Show proposals, show bids, show phases of development.  In other words, “give us a plan and we’ll give you the dough.

Amazingly, with the EMERGENCY kind of in control (i.e., ways are back to normal…if you call this normal) and with the idea of reconstruction coming about, the first things the populace believes in are to rebuild the schools.  That’s where the future is and who will be able to rebuild this nation.  Almost every school…with almost every church… was destroyed.  Almost every destroyed school has been moved into temporary tent structures provided mostly by UNICEF while the destroyed school remains.  Their tent-like-schools are everywhere.  The schools have taken in anyone. The Catholic Schools under the OMI’s have taken in everyone in their schools. Their enrollment has skyrocketed and the teachers are spent because no additional teachers have been added because no additional $$, though promised, has come through.  The schools……also feed the children as an incentive for the parents to get them to attend school.  Of course, more kids equal more food which equals more money.  As you can imagine, the kids take a lot of their food home to their families in the slums or in the refugee tent cities..

Let’s see……..where did I leave off.  Ah yes……..The parish garbage disposal was hard at work (left)Fr. Maart was there in his tent coordinating the reconstruction of the demolished school and rectory. 

 Because Catholic Relief Services was close by he was able to make that political connection which is how he got some help so fast.  With any help in Haiti…whether Catholic, Christian or Government…you have to rob Peter to pay Paul!

While the Papal Nuncio in Haiti gave the imperative to welcome all children into the tent schools they were promised money to pay for the additional costs that come with extra food, water and medicine.  To take in every child is also to assure education plus food! It has not arrived and probably never will.  Not words but the sentiment expressed.  While there is little hope in Church and Government, more emphasis is on getting help from the U.S. and the other 35 countries there. 

For example, my organization HCA immediate started collecting monies from the children of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.  We raise over $400,000 and $50,000 was wired directly to 8 religious groups of priest and sisters who were already working in Haiti.  I can assure you, after visiting with them, that the money had been given for emergency aid of the people while they continue to live in damaged/condemned buildings.  As for the $70 million raised in the U.S. Catholic community and given to Catholic Relief Services to “assist” in the Haitian crisis, $30 million was given to the discretion of the bishops and $40million was and is being utilized to help in the emergency aid and reconstruction efforts.  Believe me, $70million is only a drop in the bucket.

People are still starving and living on top of their own waste.  You have the people in the slums (which have grown 400% over the past 50 years) helping (?) those people in the tent cities who have been displaced from their homes.

Day 2 fills me with “what to do’s” immediately and in the long run. 

I heard that the $1 billion of USA aid sent to Haiti, is mostly locked up in a bank somewhere until the Haitian government proposes their plan of cleaning up (not happening), food, medicine support of the Haitians (not happening), plan of reconstruction (not happening) and programs to continue education (not happening).  If it wasn’t for the UN and for outside humanitarian efforts….this place would be more of a wasteland that it already seems to have become.

Oh well……. 

Fr. Joe continues to apologize for the house, my quarters and that there is no cook.  He  is coming to learn that I’m nothing and can hang quite easily on what little there is.  He’s awesome!  They don’t get many stayover visitors from the USA Church and is happy that he has some companionship.

My goal for tomorrow…is to find a flower.  Haven’t seen one yet.

ACTUALLY, I SURE AS HECK DID!!!!!!!   THE REAL DEAL

I moved on to the hills to visit the parish that Fr. Joe helps out at…St. Anthony’s.  There we have a convent…Sister of St. Anthony of Padua…an orphanage, a Church, Parish center, Rectory and parish Hall. We lunched in their plywood convent (a makeshift shack) of rice and beans.  They offered me a Haitian Beer and…I didn’t take it!  Unbelievable !  I was a little distracted.  Impressed?  well, Check it out….

Here we have the parish conference room and learning center the rectory and the church below

I am totally drained!  Day 2 was more amazing than day                 1 here in Haiti, Port au Prince and surrounding areas.

Let me tell you right off the bat…I am totally humbled by the way these men and women in Haiti serve the poor AND live within the means of the people they serve. 

Presently, I am staying  in their Provincial house which other members of the Oblates won’t stay in.  This is the neighborhood. These guys were here during the earthquake; I was not.  So, I don’t have the memory and the experience of horror that they had to endure.   As one priest said it, “so where are we going to live, if not here?”  Mind you, they did the tent thing for a few months. But there’s not much room for tents anymore so they gave theirs up.   So, alas, I am staying with Fr. Joe and Fr. Provincial (a French name)

This is the view from the porch of Provincial House.  This view wasn’t there until after the earthquake.  There use to be a buliding structure here.  I can’t help but only wonder what dust must have covered the city…like a 9/11…after the quake at 5:00 pm.  

Another observation….there is so much destruction everywhere you turn. I mean everywhere (knowing very well that we are taught “you can’t say everywhere”  but I am telling you…destruction is everywhere.  Absolutely, EVERY building has been destroyed, damaged and/or condemned.  I’ve only seen one church that survived.  I’ve only seen one school that has survived.  I haven’t seen a single bulldozer.  I haven’t seen any observable MISERY in the faces of the people.  (They are so use to this.)  It’s not that they don’t know any better.  They don’t feel they will have any better.  Endless tent cities in the street, on the highway islands, in the mountains, on the river banks…there must be hundreds of tent compounds.  Hundreds of thousands remain dead; the missing in action remain in the rubble that we drive by on every side.

The faces.  Oh my God the faces.  The life expectancy age out here is 54.  Therefore, there is youth.  Young beautiful people who go about their days working in the gutters selling their wares to return home to the tent. 

Yet…

They are clean. I don’t know how they do it…but when I see Haitians walking the streets their clothes are clean.  They have a sense of dignity.  Though they can ONLY survive (let alone believe they could somehow thrive) that seems to be enough, I guess. I have to admit, when I see them all huddled under a tree sharing shelter from the sun, when I see them all gathered around a fire talking and smiling with each other among each other’s trash, when I see the sense of peace among st the struggle… it is actually enticing. There is dust everywhere.  From the American point of view there is poverty everywhere. There is dust everywhere.  There are people everywhere.  There are children everywhere.  There is disorder everywhere.  Yet, THERE  IS LIFE EVERYWHERE!  Something very attractive and freeing  about this. Though I am living in a condemned building, I am not living in a tent as, presently, the rain comes pounding down on us and the people of the tents are getting drenched because their tents on not built on any dry/stable foundation.  Tomorrow will be a mess. Rains are coming.  Those living in tents ontop of wooden pallets will be more comfortable than those without.   I am curious to see if they walk about as clean and dressed as they did today.

 Their skin smooth as silk. Their teeth bright and white from chomping on the sugar cane/ fruit husks.  The little girls dress neatly in their uniforms with ribbons in their black hair; the white of their smiles only magic the beauty of their eyes.  In the sweltering tents in which they are being taught, there is discipline, manners and respect. Their French is magnificent.  They’re bodies lean and strong from carring over the years hundreds and hundreds of pounds of meat, rubble, laundry, bricks over the  years.

Yes, what you’ve heard in the U.S. press is that the money promised Haiti has not yet arrived.  I AM TOLD that that’s because there is no major plan as of yet for reconstruction.  Frankly, I don’t know where you begin. You would have to literally  bulldoze the city for, I mean it, EvERY home is in need of demolition and/or repair.  How can you demolish a home with no bulldozers, remove the debris with no place to move it too and reconstruct a new home in a newer and more stable way…which means more money?

Presently, there are about 35 nations out here helping the Haitians.  In one place I am told the French rebuilt this highway and the Syrians run this U.N. compound.  There are so many charitable and helping organizations out here that you can’t count them.  Protestants, Catholics, Charities, Children based organizations, etc.  Catholics abound and they have total respect for the clergy, women and men religious who sacrifice so much in order to experience God in them.  There is no other way to put it.

Fr. Joe, Fr. Jeanne Pierre and I drove to ther parish, St. Anthony of Padua, in Fondoies…along the road to Jamel.  The countryside was beautiful and it was good to get out of the city…which, in itself, too a whole long time.  Traffic, congestion, stalled cars, destroyed/stripped cars, awful roads still not fixed and dangerous due to quake destruction, etc.  Road are dirt, awful and filled with debris and trash.  Haitians are packed into vans, sit on top of garbage trucks and stow-away on anything moving to get where they are going.  They can walk for miles up hill and then miles downhill back home.

Before our arrival there we stopped in at St. Rose of Lima in Leogane.  The parish garbage disposal was hard at work (left)Fr. Maart was there in his tent coordinating the reconstruction of the demolished school and rectory. 

Time to get a drink of anything My ass is sore from the bumps along the road.  It took us an hour to travel 10 miles.  be right back.

day 1   7/20/10Haiti…I have arrived safe and in Port-au-prince this morning, Monday, 8:00 am.  Fr. Joe and Fr. John Pierre, Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, picked me up which was great because I was the only Yankee Doodle standing around with Haitians cramped under a tree to protect us from the sun.

Yes, it is amazingly hot here.  Modesty seems to dictate the norm of clothing for most men are in longpants, women are dressed more casually.  I am sweating like a dog.  The Haitians, especially those with their own wheelbarrow, seem to work with USA aid groups to clean up rubble…which is everywhere!  You can’t drive or walk a mile without seen endless number of evacuation camps/compounds which occupy literally every open piece of land, park, highway island, backyard, courtyard, church square, riverbed, …. everywhere.

People are everywhere on the streets walking, selling stuff, finding any protection from the heat.  It’s better to be outside of the tents than inside; you;d know that if you ever were in a tent when the sun was beating on it.
Yet, there are smiles among the dust; you can see who is sick with HIV/AIDS which I am told is still around as before the quake.  Though the people seem to be enjoying some process of getting food and water and shelter for living… from our standpoint this aint living.
I toured some schools today where the sisters of divine wisdom….adorable…have taken in endless numbers of little girls into their schools.  Again, this is all done in hot facric tents or wooden sided tents largely supplied by UNICEF and USAAID.  NO ONE wants to go into the buildings…
…but, of course, I am staying in a heavily damaged but SECURE building in the hills of Port Au Prince at the remainder of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate Provincial house. No running water; no phone.  I am presently hooking onto an internet signal that I know not the owner.  I can’t wait to pour some water out of a bucket over my head and wash off the day’s heat and dust.
The JOY among the missionaries abounds.  These are awesome young and old men and women.  Fr. Joe has been here for 47 years.  The sister who runs the school for the deaf and blind has been here for 40.  So much in one day!

Pictures will follow, I hope, of the destroyed the amazingly huge cathedral, the house where the bishop died, destruction and smiles of the children.  I hope. I shot mostly video today but will try to grab and upload some pics tomorrow.
So much to talk about…Catholic Relief Services, Relief from all over the world sent to PAP (port a prince), where i am told world relief money is and/or where it is not and life Living around here.  But, I am tired. 20100719220849
Just wanted to let you know that I’m okay and safe.  I’m not staying in the most stable place but seeing that the quake before this year’s wasn’t until 1911.  God is good so I’m really not worried. None of the other residents are…thuogh I do know the escape route (i aint stupid)  be grateful for all the gifts we Americans enjoy.  Don’t sweat the small shit.  As you can see around here…life’s way to brittle and easy to be snuffed out.   Ken          20100719220849