Sak pase (What's happening)

Christmas is over and put away and our minds have turned to planning for our January 6th trip. It looks like the indecision around elections continues. There was some isolated violence about 30 minutes outside of Cayes early this week when they tried to take someone's private property to use for a mass grave for cholera victims. Focusing on community education will be our primary goal this trip. The water project may or may not happen depending on how safe we determine it to be. In the meantime, we'll spend our time well doing community education.

I've obviously waited too long to try to encapsulate the political problems in Haiti right now.  It's very complicated, but let me try.  Overview:  Rene Preval is the outgoing president.  CEP is the Provisional Electoral Council -- the (political) group that makes all the decisions about the election.  CARICOM is the organization of Caribbean Communities; they were one of the overseers of the elections along with OAS (Organization of American States).

Posting updates been a mental challenge for me since all of the news about Haiti is so complicated right now.   It's like a disaster cocktail...a very sad one.  For this post, I'll narrow it down to "cholera".

We've been trying to get in touch with Pr. Saurel in Platon for the last few days.  Amoce was finally able to get through to him.  There's good news -- no kolera in Platon!!  However, there is kolera in areas not too far away, such as Chantal and Fond Palmiste. We're feeling a little hand-tied back here in the US, not able to do much.  One thing we were able to do was add minutes to their cell phones since no one dares go out on the streets right now to buy Digicel cards.  It feels good to be able to do something even if it's not much.

The CEP (electoral council) in Haiti has announced there will be an immediate recount for the three top contenders for the Presidential elections.  This is potentially good news since it may reduce tensions and quell some of the violence.  To read more go to click HERE.

This blog is worth a read.  The author makes a lot of very valid points.  http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/2010/12/quiet-sunday-in-haiti.html

We've been following the news very very closely, both for the elections and for the cholera situation. This Sunday will prove to be a critical point for the political stage.  They are supposed to announce the preliminary presidential election results.  The Haitian newsmedia is full of stories about the manifestations that have been going on, and about how demonstrations (aka/manifestations) have now been banned.  The political climate is very charged right now.

There are now 10 confirmed deaths and 192 cases of cholera in Les Cayes.  The Haitian health service will be setting up a Cholera Treatment Center in Les Cayes.  A CTC is set-up as a separate facility for treating cholera, so as to keep it contained within that single facility.  Pictures I've seen usually appear as a very large tent, with IV's strung across the room and beds made from 2x4's and plywood with a hole in the middle and a bucket underneath (for obvious reasons that don't need explaining).

After three phone calls with Amoce and his family, we have decided to postpone our trip until early January.  The post-election political situation is just too volatile right now.

Developments in Haiti have taken another turn for the worse with the situation regarding elections.  Presidential elections were held yesterday, and while there are many opinions about what happened, it's clear that there were irregularities and that there is a current state of disruption in the country.  We've been in contact with Amoce daily; the situation is difficult in Les Cayes, as well as outlying areas like Torbeck and Port Salut.