Mission Trips

Up at 4 AM to get the bus. We're taking the public air-conditioned bus to PAP. Costs just $10 US. This is a first for us and we're glad to learn how it works. Amoce knows the driver so he came to our house to pick us up, then we went to the bus station at the rotary. We arrived before 5 AM and waited there (with the engine running) till 6 AM while the bus filled up. Women were selling bags of cashews, men were selling phone cards (minutes) and one woman began sweeping the street with a hand-broom.[singlepic id=66 w=320 h=240 float=right]

The news today is all about the Cholera outbreak that was first announced in St. Marc. That's a long way from us, but the news says there's a probable case in Croix de Bouquet right outside of PAP. Even the cell phones have text messages with notices about "kolera".

8:00 AM - The sounds of work all around us. After many inches of rain and a very cool night it is bright and sunny with blue skies this morning. Everyone has their laundry hung on the line already. Paul is making project lists. He and Robert will head to Nira (mini home depot) and the concrete block factory today. One project is building a block incinerator in the back yard. Our steel drum has rusted away to nothing. Eli is moving rocks around in the back yard to make room for the burn pit. Clorene is busy doing laundry.

We heard a heavy thunderstorm approaching about 4 AM and had very heavy rain until about 8 AM. Since then we've had intermittent thunder and heavy rain throughout the day. It appears that we've gotten at least 4". Amoce and Yanie arrived back in Cayes about 1:00 PM. Amoce said it hadn't been raining in Port.

Up at 4:30 AM the team began taking down their mosquito nets, collecting all the dirty linen, before grabbing a quick cup of coffee and hard-boiled egg. The bus was at the front door at 5:30 and everyone was ready to go.

Tonight's blog will be short. It's been a long week and it's late tonight. When we arrived at Doti there were not many people and the pastor had not finished giving out the tickets for today. He had also not given out any for tomorrow. As a result we have rescheduled tomorrow and will go back to Dubreil.

We woke up to low cloudy skies. At 7 am it began raining for about a half hour, enough to stall our departure. We arrived at Dubreil at 9:30. The street was full of people waiting -- over 100. We were set up by 10:00. Only a few of the people waiting were from Platon. Vilia, Amoce's 17 year old sister, came with us to observe today. She's considering a medical career so this was a good chance for her to be involved. Syly, the Haitian nurse, took her under her wing and she pitched right in for the whole long day.

Travel just to the river crossing and set up clinic there before crossing the river. (Matt walked to the river and said it was running knee high but really swift and lotd of big rocks. )