The Journey in Haiti Tuesday January 12th 2010

Tuesday
Day of the Earth Quake
Bible verse of study in the Morning…. Revelations 1:8 “ I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” Says the Lord, “Who is and who was and who is to come, the almighty.”
Up and at it early, 6:30 am devotional on the veranda. Excited, to go to the market today in town, after feeding the kids lunch. Hoping to buy a lot of groceries there and have something to cook with. Power is out again we have gas stove going. Jeanette shows us her way to cook the rice, we pulled stuff out of the packets, boiled water first, added smashed onions and peppers then extra rice to the pot. Learned that they save the seasoning from the packets and only use a little at a time as they think it is too strong. Lot of irony there, because that is where the vitamins are in the mix. I saved some of the mix to bring back to the states. David cooks the meal and we go to the market. We go with Pastor _________. He tells me that the only vehicle we have to go on is the four wheeler and I will need to pay for gas, he brings me a bill from the last gas. I am excited to go. We head out all three of us on a four wheeler, we are bottomed out and I am on the back hanging on to the rack. Quite a sight, we pass donkeys loaded down on the dirt road to town, people walking, small motorcycles with up to three people on them and whatever they can carry etc. Not a good road, we get to town and change the money over into “Haitian Gouds,” we translate the conversion and I am obviously paying a “small” service fee, guess they need the money more than me. I have decided to let Jeannette the cook spend the money on what she needs first before I buy things to cook. We go to the center of town. The first sight I see is half a pig cut down the middle with flies on it, sitting in a dirty wheel barrow at the opening to the market. We go into a large walled court yard. This is like something out of medieval times, people everywhere with little squares in the dirt mapped out by wooden sticks, broken tarps and burlap up to keep the sun out. We quickly wind our way through the market to a small stall where Jeannette begins to pick out goods. I feel bad for her as I am being heckled as soon as we arrived. I am the only white person in the market and stand out like The Pink Panther. The prices are high for me, I can see from the interpreters face. I am amazed at the poor quality of the vegetables and the small variety of products to work with. We spend money very quickly, I joke with Jeannette that she spends money faster than my wife. A couple of minutes later she asks if I have children. I proudly state that I have two boys, she fires back that she has 60 children! We spend our money quickly as we head out of town. We have to buy a couple of large rice sacks to carry our purchases, and hire a wheel barrow guy to cart our stuff out to the four wheeler. We strap it down and Jeanette gets a ride back on a motorcycle taxi. I have a sack of flour that I bought at the market; they sell it by the scoop. I am excited to try and bake some bread today!
We come back to the orphanage in time to help serve lunch. It is amazing to see them crowd in for food, and eat everything down to the last drop. Even the little kids eat every last drop, careful not to spill, hard to tell the ages as many are awful small for their ages. I think of my sons at home and their size in comparison.
Back to work, I guess there was a fire in the propane stove this morning and the cook girls are scared to use the stove. We tear apart the oven, find a mouse nest and everything is corroded and rusted like it was sitting under water. Damn weather, we light the oven and sure enough gas starts shooting out of the line immediately. My hopes of bread baking are dashed again!
Reluctantly, I come to the conclusion that we need to crimp the gas lines going down to save the cook top and 86 the oven for now. I wish Fred my repair guy was around with his truck full of parts. We try to convince the girls that it is ok to use now.
I start working on pulling wires. Looking for some tools, I went up to a large blue storage container they call “Home Depot,” when all of a sudden everything starts creaking and shaking. I jump out into the courtyard where the ground is shaking and a low rumble comes through. Dazed and pumped full of adrenaline, I wonder, could that be an earthquake? The children are scared and are trying to run into the orphanage. Many people run to stop them. We all gather around with the children and try to comfort them, talk amongst ourselves quietly about the earthquake. Some kids are still shaken up, many just seem happy for the attention. There are deaf kids here from another orphanage down the way. There is a group from Iowa that came in today to help with them. I feel bad for them as one of their group stayed in Port au Prince with Pastor ________.
There is no phone service, as the power is out and not coming back now. We fire up the generator and have satellite Internet. We take turns sending out e-mails to family that we are okay. Seems everything is still shaking, probably really is once in a while and but otherwise mostly in my head. I am scared for some of the people here like Ronny, the interpreter who has family back in PAP. We walked around looking for cracks in the concrete, etc. Only one building shows damage, a large crack up the wall. All others seem to be good, thank God for American Rebar and concrete. Up the way some buildings have problems, Mike came back with a handful of dried clay, muttering about no concrete or rebar to re-enforce it.
Chickens and voodoo drums keep us up at night with our thoughts………