Bad News, Good News, and Hope

There is bad news for the Haitian people, and anyone wanting to go there and help them. You may have read in the news that gangs are taking power. The Haitian government and National Police are not able to stop them, so the deterioration of civic order is accelerating. The US government today advised Americans to leave the country while commercial flights are still available.

The good news is that we raised over $30,000 for earthquake relief through Haiti Ap Grandi. We distributed just under half of those funds for the critical needs of people in the Pestel area near Jeremie on the northern coast of the peninsula, north of Les Anglais. There are no water wells there (no water table to tap into), so they used concrete cisterns to store rainwater and spring water. All the cisterns in the area cracked and leaked out their water due to the earthquake this summer. Etienne and his team purchased a large number of plastic water tanks (called “chatados”) to distribute to the people so they can store water. This will help these families with their basic needs for drinking water! It is so important to life. The remaining relief funds will be spent as soon as supplies, fuel, and manpower become available.

Etienne and his team are also in the middle of planting coffee and cocoa plants in new areas for erosion control and cash generation for the farmers. They are having a very hard time getting the gas and diesel they need to do transportation for all these far-ranging projects. They are having to pay huge premiums for fuel when and if they can find it. Their work is so important right now. The country is in a bad state and their work continues to provide hope as well as tangible assistance.

Life there has returned to semi normal in the Les Anglais area after the earthquake. Most buildings withstood the tremors and we sent food and COVID masks to them immediately following the disaster. Several of the wells that we maintain need repair. We have relief funds available for this purpose, but we aren’t sure when the well repair folks can get to them. Like everyone else in Haiti now, they have a very hard time getting fuel and their schedule is filled with the many wells all over the SW arm of Haiti that need service. The mountain village of Boco is still inaccessible after the earthquake and landslides, so it will be some time before we can get their well fixed.

— adapted from a report by Jim Shaw