It poured hard early on. The anticipated downpour at dawn rocked my frail tent like a bucket of hail or a barrage of barrel-sized buckshot crashing down on a hot tin roof on a dusty, summer day.
I tossed then turned and rolled as much as my sleeping pad could take. Then I popped out, greeted by wetness that made me feel freshly renewed, the aroma of spring, soaked wood chips, like a tropical waterfall amidst a rich, thriving rain forest in the middle of some Caribbean isle, no where close to man.
Back home, the weather is warming drastically, around the tidal basin the first buds of cherry blossoms are popping, their eyes gleaming -- a welcomed harbinger of spring. baseball and half smokes roasting. Here in Haiti, the woesome rains bring clean water for washing, for drinking, to cool off the sweatness after a long day of hectic heat and harsh, muddy humidity. But in conjuction with the rains come the deluge, the dreaded diseases, the dawn of a new season of harsh, bitter realities.
From patty to patty, block to block, pityful tent city to supposed village, corner upon blunted corners, people are spread out in all shapes and directions wherever existence will allow it to thrive. They are utterly surviving on the streets not even a blanket to cover their souls from the torrential downpours, but perhaps a tattered piece of canvas strewn together by some duct tape or jagged pieces of wood or anything that closely resembles a possible solution or a cure. Here in Port-au-Prince, anything goes. A tarp tied together with rigid pieces of PVC molded in the shape of a shelter becomes suddenly a marvel of 21st century engineeering. Here in this country of dread and destruction, improvisation takes a new name, resources clawed out of dumpsters and trash from supposedly middle-class denizens, suddenly becomes something to sit on, something to put on, something to make life better to see yet another hopeful sunrise, another bitter sunfall.
And the rains bring not only flooding, they don't just wash away the only pieces of shelter they hold dear to their name. The rains brings diseases, of all types ever imagined or wanting to forget. Dysentery, Typhoid, Malaria. Those who were fortunate to survive the earthquake, those who lived to bury their dead may be faced with another calamity of epic proportion later this spring. The torrid rainy season will bring days, nights, sleepless weeks of rain to the tippy point of desperation that even the beating sound of barrels of fist against a strained canvas tarp will be endearing sound compared to the brush of torrid downpour or horizontal rain at the edge of a Haitian horrid nightmare.
Suddenly and dramatically, like a bases loaded walk at the bottom of the 9th innning, the skies stopped pouring overtaken by the freshness of a rich dew drop on a fresh spring petal, a hustle of honeybees; even the tatterred sun took an occassional peek through a musky cloud cover offering hope, new life, humanity. Around the campground, a bold rooster cranked its rich, deep horn, signaling to the rest of the world that the night had drawn and it was now time to start a new day and earn a day's wages, even in a city where work was almost non existent, even living was day by day.
have never seen anything this painful. Not where I grew up onboard a 40-foot yacht sailing to remote parts of the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia. Not two years ago, on the hot, dusty streets of Kabul. Not last summer on my marathon train ride from Turkey, Romania, Hungary and Poland.
"Nice to meet you Pastor Luc. It's a tremendous honor." Pastor Luc St Felix is a gentle, kind-hearted minister whose complete loss of his three-story church not only affected his intermediate family but his entire church family.
As we stand next to the mountain rubble that used to be the 3-story Port-au-Prince Pentecostal church, we are forever touched by the tremendous attitude and amazing fortitude of his congregation.
One feisty jackhammer cranks away, smashing full-sized walls into a clump of bricks and large, jagged balls of concrete and rebar. But the main tool of the undertaking is not machine or automation but one rusted out wheelbarrow and a dozen shovels loading pile after pile of dirt and debris only to be dumped just 20 feet away.
Here at the church, everyone helps out. There is one lady wearing a night gown, a wide-brimmed hat and flip flops that had seen its last days, sometime last year. Initially, there appeared that there was little for her to do. Yet, she methodically bent over and grabbed whatever pieces of rubble she could carry. Here in Haiti, people of all ages claw away with their own hands the debris -- anything they could do to make a small difference. In the back, several ladies helped out, concocting a nice pot of bean soup and stew. They were cooking on a large stainless pot over charcoal and wood. Although, the cooks labored hard, I wouldn't define it as tasty -- I personally don't think I would eat it. But if my stomach was growling like theirs, anything that nourished my body was fine cuisine for me.
Mud Cakes
I even heard about the infamous Haiti mud cakes that have become the staple diet for many in the villages: mud mixed with salt, vegetable oil and maybe butter -- to stave off hunger. This practice was rampant a couple of years ago when food prices soared (due to higher oil prices). Tragically, Sadly, many Haitians thrive on only $2 per day. Eating dirt cannot be good for you. Soil is contaminated with viruses and bacteria, not to mention toxins. At worst, you could get poisoned. At best, it could lead to gastrointestinal problems or diarrhea.
Already the church is on the second round of debris removal -- which was positive news, considering that the debris had already piled over rooftops, jagged pieces of rebar, so flexible that you could easily bend it 90 degrees with a quick flip of the wrist.
"Pastor Luke, what do you need the most? Would you like a team from the US to come down and assist with debris removal?"
"Yes, that would be great. I have a team of 20 plus coming from Alabama tomorrow. Some will be doing medical work."
"But I also need money to rebuild and my people need tent and flip flops. Pastor Luke had lost several of his congregation to the earthquake -- a few were still buried in buildings.
But he would not lose hope. He would keep his faith that his church will be able to clean up and rebuild.
"After all, "The church was too small anyways. We don't need to just rebuild. We need to grow."
Tomorrow, Pastor Luc will be heading up the mountains to visit three different villages. Some very remote, they are a stone's throw from the Dominican Republic. In the villages, Pastor Luc conducts a feeding program that feeds 43 village churches, 13 village schools and three village feeding programs where 500 children are fed twice a week. Pastor Luc provides three different feeding programs, church and school --something that is never taken for granted in this desolate country.
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