Haiti visit post training

Yesterday Kelly gave Crystal and I a tour of downtown Port-au-Prince. It was neat to see. Amazing to see collapsed houses sometimes just next door to a standing one. Others were leaning and yet others had large cracks. She showed us that the houses are being inspected. If they have a green mark then they are good and stable, yellow means that they need some repairs to be stable and red means that the house is condemned and not liveable. She told us lots of stories of people lost, trapped or dying. Somehow everything revolves around the earthquake, and some buildings look war-torn from the earthquake. Many parks and even the palace have been overtaken by tent cities. Amazing.

 

At noon, Crystal went to the airport and Kelly and I had lunch at a cool bakery/café. We had an amazing steak sandwich and fries. Yumm. Then I moved over to Kelly’s house for the remainder of my time. In her house she has a teenage girl, Judeline living with her, a gal with a baby and a caretaker of the baby. It is a relatively organized circus here.

 

Kelly’s next short-termer, a vet student from Wisconsin arrived today. Tomorrow he & I will be going out with Keith Flanagan to deliver some supplies out to the valley—the cholera affected area. I’m looking forward to seeing some of the Haitian countryside.

 

Hurricane Tomas is coming towards Haiti area. I fly out on Tuesday noon…a little before the hurricane is forecast to be sweeping past. Pray for me that it won’t affect my flight. Pray for Haiti. Lots of people are living in tents. Can’t imagine that tents and hurricanes mix well. The latest forecast shows that it may hit Haiti harder than previously expected.

 

I’ll try to post some photos later.