 Hi everyone,
This last month has been a rather eventful one with a hurricane, presidential elections and the continuation of the cholera epidemic. Each one of them is the last thing needed by a country recovering from an earthquake, so it hasn’t been easy coping with three of them coming along within the space of less than 6 weeks. I experienced a small tremor in Port au Prince when I was there three weeks ago so that is obviously still a fear for people. That being said, Haitians are incredibly resilient people. I am constantly amazed at how people are coping, especially our national staff.
Although the last few weeks have been challenging, I’m still ‘enjoying’ it here. I returned to Port au Prince a couple of weeks ago and was once again struck by how different it is to where I live now. It is much noisier and busier; the atmosphere is far more intense. As I write this email all I can hear is my iPod and the faint hum of the generator on the roof. If I were writing this in Port au Prince there would be fumes from the generator coming into the house and trucks that make the room shake as they shoot up the road outside the house tooting their horns loudly. I now wake up to cockerels crowing and cows mooing! I have started to have French lessons twice a week so I’m really hoping that it will help my French will improve. Some of our national staff have started English lessons and their English is much better than my French.
 As you’ll probably have heard, elections for Haiti’s next President and senators took place on Sunday. Most people will happily tell you who they think should win however hardly anyone I spoke to last week said they were going to vote. Despite most of the candidates calling for the election to be discounted on account of suspected fraud, the election has been acknowledged as valid. It is expected that election results will start to come in from 5 th December with the final announcement made on 7 th December. The political situation is now increasingly unstable and there continue to be a lot of protests. We were grounded from Friday to Monday and I think we were all rather frustrated. One of my colleagues said he felt like an inmate in his cell! By Monday evening we resorted to Rummikub, a bottle of wine and listening to Christmas songs (I know it’s not December but Advent has started after all).
I haven’t visited many projects recently but I hope to visit some later this week. Our teams have been preparing for World Aids Day and will be doing a lot of events in the communities, so I have been asked to go with some of our staff. I’m really looking forward to it as I am always so inspired when I meet people that we’re working with. One of our national staff got married a couple of weeks ago and we were invited to the wedding service. Many of the staff from Léogâne and Tom Gato came and it was good to experience a Haitian wedding. The main difference to British weddings was that there were three different groups of bridesmaids that all entered in matching dresses dancing down the aisle. The three maids of honour wore wedding dresses as well and each entered separately. Each time one of them entered we kept thinking it was the bride!
 Fortunately I was able to have a break a few weeks ago and went to the Dominican Republic for 5 days. I was surprised at how different the country is from Haiti; despite sharing the same land mass. Spanish is the official language and the country has a very Hispanic influence. I’ve never been to South America, but I’m pretty sure that if you didn’t know you were in the Caribbean you would think you were in South America. The snorkeling was incredible and I made the most of fresh fruit and salad being available. I went with four other people that I work with and looking back it didn’t really feel like I got a break from work, so I’m looking forward to going home for Christmas. I think I’ll avoid eating chicken and rice though for my whole time in the UK! I arrive back on 22 nd December and leave again on 3 rd January. It would be lovely to see people but I imagine that most of you are very busy. If you are around then do let me know.
For those of you that pray, here are some prayer points:
- Thanksgiving that the hurricane didn’t have the devastating effect we expected.
- For peace in the aftermath of the election and lead up to and subsequent announcement of the result.
- For the cholera epidemic that is continuing to plague Haiti. Particularly for the medical teams as they cope, humanitarian agencies as they distribute resources and train people and for those coordinating the response. Also for those suffering and grieving and protection for us and our staff from cholera.
- For our national staff and their families as they face the cholera epidemic and civil unrest.
- Continue to pray for more institutional funding for us to be able to meet more of the need in the communities.
- For energy for the expat team. Many of us are feeling run down and are all counting down the days until we go home for Christmas.
I hope you all survive the snow, it’s cooler here but I’m still wearing my flip-flops and we’re planning a trip to the beach on Saturday!
Lots of love
Janet
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