Haiti - Part 1 (revised)

Hopelessness, Desperation, Powerlessness, Starvation

Can you imagine a country where this is the reality?

Day 1~ 12 hour car ride to Port-au-Prince

What I thought would have been one of the longest days of my life turned out to be so fun! I was in the van with Lowell, Cheryl, Josh, and Chastity. (The rest of the van was full of our luggage and our supplies.) We had SO much fun joking around and teasing each other that the time passed by quickly. Our fun and games came to a sudden halt when we reached the border and had to sit in the most chaotic mess I've ever seen in my entire life. It took us about 2 hours to get through because of the disorganization. This border crossing is nothing like one could imagine without experiencing it for themselves. When you arrive to the crossing you would never know that you had actually approached it because of the heap of semi trucks lining the road as they wait to cross over. The many people walking around and selling things in the mud and heat is also a distraction to what awaits. When we finally reached what could be mistaken as a traffic jam, turns out to be a building and a few security guards deciding who to let through without trouble and who to hassle - we were hasseled... I think I actually saw money signs in their eyes when they saw us. After about 3 different stops - all within 70 yards - we were finally through! Once we were in Haiti our van was silent as we watched. Every now and then someone would comment on similiarities or differences to the D.R. but we all just watched.

We made it into the city of Port-au-Prince about an hour before dark. At one time in my life I thought 5:00pm traffic in Kirkland was bad, but this was worse! Because the city is without power, everyone tries to get home before dark. We hardly moved, just inched our way through the streets trying to find our way with the written directions we had. Luckily we brought along a Haitian lady with us who was able to guide us to our destination for the night, but not before Nate tried to do it himself... we had to turn 3 vehicles around in the middle of the street where traffic wasn't moving, and our van was hauling a trailer! INSANE!!!

Once we made it to the hospitality house we all just crashed. It was 7:30pm and it was hot! We ate dinner, took showers (BTW 23 people, 2 single-person bathrooms), a few of us sang worship music and then tried to sleep in the heat with ridiculous humidity. The entire city is without electricity so after 11pm the generator was turned off which meant no fans... we were all sleeping and sweating... gross.

Poor photo quality, I know, but it was through the car window. I really wanted to show you this one because this happened to several buildings we saw... they completely crumbled, one floor on the next.




In this community you can see houses that stood and houses that fell. Lowell was telling us a lot of the buildings that crumbled did so because of poor construction or really old constuction. On the side of the street we could see people making the "block" that is used for the walls. Lowell said that they are not using the chemicles in them that make them strong and durable.




This is the same community, just a different view



Same community, different view





There were 2 men knocking down the walls in the upper level. You can see a pile of rubble in front of the house from what had been the roof, other walls, and balcony.




This photo was taken right in front of the Presidential Palace. A huge tent community living right on the street. There is a line of Honey Buckets out in front, which is a huge advantage, many communities have no place to go to the bathroom.

Presidential Palace - Left side. You can see a UN vehicle sitting on the lawn in front of the building. There were a few UN members standing at the entrances keeping guard.

Presidential Palace - Middle

Presidential Palace - Right Side

There were people sitting all around the palace just looking at it. It's a constant reminder of their failed government. No one knows what the President is doing besides sitting in his mountain home over looking the destruction from his air conditioned, comfortable, well stocked home.

This was the legal building holding all the records of the country and its people in it. Most of the legal records were destroyed in this building when it collapsed.

Another view of the legal buiding with documents all over the road.


Tent community in the middle of the city.

Driving through the city with difficulty as we had to watch for large pieces of rubble in the road.

We rarely saw restaurants or stores, everything was just sold on the street. Here this women is preparing her little road-side restaurant.




Another tent community

Another tent community

The UN kind of left a bad taste in mouths while we were there. We never, not once, saw them doing anything but driving around in their vehicles holding their guns. I'm sure their job is be a presence to keep some kind of order, but we never saw them helping out... that was dissappointing.

The streets were lined with people all the time. Everywhere we went looked like this, packed with people.

Below are some short videos I took from the van we were driving in, they will give you a little glimpse into what we saw.

This short video offers a breif look of the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. Many people are walking, headed toward the city. The paintings on the walls are advertizements for local buisnesses or brands. You can see that people have set up things to sell on the street, this is their market. We rarely saw any shops, everything is sold on the street by vendors. Once we got into the city, the streets were just packed with people, there was little room to walk on the side walks because everyone is selling their goods there.

This video is just outside the heart of the capitol. (In the capitol the traffic is too crazy that I couldn't get a good video.) There is rubble all over the sides of all the streets. As we would drive around we would have to dodge huge piles of block and rebar. 13 seconds into the video you can see a truck with people on it pull out in front of us; this truck is called a tap-tap and it is a taxi. All the taxis look like that.

You can see in the beginning the market on the side of the road... this is what it looks like everywhere in the heart of town. On the right you can see a building that came down. As we went on our tour around the capitol we would see buildings that were completely unharmed by the earthquake standing next to buildings that were completely destroyed.

More to come tomorrow... thanks for being patient!

Jarabacoa Half Marathon 2010

Sunday April 18, 2010
Jarabacoa Half Marathon
Start Time: 6:30am

Being that I was the only contestant in the race and my husband was the President of the function, we started a few minutes late at 6:45am. The race began at a hotel near our house called Hotel Pinar Dorado. After Josh took a few “start of the line” pictures he said go and off I went. It was a perfect day for a race, bright but slightly overcast with white clouds which kept the morning cool. The beginning of the race was out in the country where cows and horses were waking and wandering in their fields. The middle of the race was through town where street market vendors were getting set up for the day; and then for the last few miles I was on the main street and at last, ended at the river, which I gladly sat in once I crossed the finish line.

Josh rode his moto alongside me, almost the entire time, shouting “Go Vicki!” and “you’re doing great!” among other words of encouragement. He also told me my time, estimated about how much further I had yet to run, told me how many minutes I had left to beat my time from the race in 2008, took pictures, and handed me water. Talk about an amazing guy!

Our friends, Ryan and Caroline Holloway, ran the final mile with me. They encouraged me along the way and Ryan finished out the end in a sprint with me, challenging me the whole time. I finished the race in 2 hours 7 minutes and 9 seconds. I have to check with my dad but I think this beat our November 2008 time.

After I pulled my pruny body from the river, we headed home and celebrated with Ryan & Caroline over waffles and Wizard (a card game). Then Caroline and I enjoyed some girl time over mocha frappaccinos (which I made) while the boys went off to play ping pong (a daily event) and we all met up for lunch at the Holloway’s house and watched the movie “The Blind Side.” To wrap up the evening, Josh played in a soft ball game, which I left shortly after arriving due to finding out that the game wouldn’t be starting for another 45 minutes and I didn’t want to sit alone on a hard concrete bench. So I relaxed at home with Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and have been listening to Moon River non-stop since.

My final thoughts: I have now enjoyed and conquered 3 half-marathon races and am ready for something more challenging – possibly a full is on the horizon.

Interesting Fact: I have worn that red WSU shirt in all 3 Half Marathons

Before the race began in front of the hotel sign.

About 1/2 mile into the race headed out to the cows and horses

Almost 4 miles... I still have some spunk

Running my final steps in town, headed for mile 7

Last 75 feet... that's Ryan, he volunteered to run the final stretch with me to make sure I didn't wimp out

The President & The Champ

My race shirt - Josh made it for me

Life up-to-date

There's no better way to enjoy R&R than spending it on the couch with Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon 1-4. Watching them blow things up in four exciting movies was how we decided to enjoy our few days off before getting back to work; well that and sleep and eat what little food we had in our house. Our vacating also consisted of battling over games like backgammon and eurorail, drinking homemade frappuccinos, exercising (believe it or not), and grocery shopping in Santiago... so that we'd actually have more to eat than pancakes and water.

Life since Snicker's passing has been fine. We have all adjusted well and are enjoying our time as the 3 Musketeers. Lucy and Josh have enjoyed sleeping together at night (I lay comfortably - at times- on my side alone, happily I might add); and our morning routine has changed in her favor, she's learning to run with us. We alternate days, so every other day she's with me and I have been taking her for 2 mile runs. We are highly considering finding another dog for safety purposes and to keep her company, especially for when the summer hits, but we're not rushing into anything.

The rain has been moving in which has made it much cooler, I must admit that its quite nice to have a break.

Tonight at staff Bible study we learned Creole in preparation for our up-coming Haiti trip. It was fun to do this as a team, we had a great time and our instructor laughed at us a lot... all in good fun of course. We're all really pumped and excited to go - 2 weeks exactly from today!

My half-marathon is on the 18th, the one Josh is putting on for me... so tomorrow is a 9 mile run day, which means I need to go to bed now. Good Night, Buenas Noches, and I can't remember what it is in Creole... uh oh

The Lord Gives and the Lord Takes Away

"The Lord gives and the Lord takes away"

This is one of the those verses that many of us hope to be able to understand or receive clarity on when someone or something is taken from us; but many of us know that "complete understanding" is a place to far off to reach. The hope we have lies in knowing that God is with us no matter what, he permits that things - good and bad - happen to us but He is also there with us to grieve, laugh, cry, smile, scream, etc.

March 30, 2010: between 4:30-9pm someone poisoned the first dog we've had as a couple leading to his death. Snickers was a Doberman who entered our lives when we first arrived in this country. He and his mother were given to us by two missionary woman who also work for SI. Diamond (Snicker's mother) died within the first month we were here, she was very old. We believed however that Snickers would still be with us for another 2-3 years.

I've been asked "why would someone do that?" I'm not entirely sure, though we have our speculations. Taking all the circumstances into consideration we believe it to be the neighbors next door who own the chicken coop. They haven't taken any precautions to keep their chickens from entering our yard, though we have taken every precaution to ensure that our dogs don't get out the yard let alone onto their property. All that to say, their chickens come wandering into our yard all the time, and Snickers - being the protector that he was - would kill the chickens... I know of 4 chickens for sure that he killed. So we think it was them, but we don't have any proof, nor are we liked too.

Please pray for wisdom, that God would give us forgiving hearts and that we would be able to work things out with whoever did it.

More Work, Less Vacation...

Today's writing definitely calls for some orange - my favorite color. Yesterday I spent some time driving in the car with some "first-timers" (they had never been to the D.R., let alone a 3rd world country). It caused me to think, trying to remember what I felt when I first visited here in 2007. These two women who were in the car with me were asking all sorts of questions that I thought were really weird, but then it brought to mind - I wonder what kind of silly or weird questions I asked when I first arrived. It's amazing to think about humans adaptability... what used to be odd to me is now just the "norm".

After I dropped them off and headed back home I spent some time trying to recall "un-normal" things. Chickens running around all over the place, unreliable electricity, loud music and vehicles everywhere, crazy driving, lizards, random wandering cows and horses, I'm sure the list goes on but I'm having trouble remembering more.

Yesterday evening we received some very exciting news, all of the staff who are interested get to go on a very short mission trip to Haiti! I am so excited. There is a man in our town, Samuel, who is partnering with an organization in Haiti to help. So we are going to lend our assistance. Lowell, Cheryl, Nate, Maggie, and Samuel just got back yesterday from a "vision trip" to see what we can do to help, especially since we are only going to be working with them for 2 days. There is a tent community of 200 families that we are specifically going to work with. I can tell you briefly what I know now, and fill in more detail later. Our dentist is coming and will work on people's teeth for free for 2 days; Maggie, Cheryl and I are going to teach the woman how to bake bread, this will then give them something to eat and sell; there will be a team to play with the kids (these people literally have nothing, no toys, no balls, no clothes, no dishes, no entertainment), so for these kids it will be a huge blessing; I'm sure about the other teams yet, but will learn more tomorrow in the meeting. Besides the day activities we are going to show a movie one evening (we just have to find one in French) - we will bring a generator and sound system (there is no electricty in this tent city). I'm SOOO excited!

At Bible study last night we had a Haitian guest speaker who shared about the history and culture of Haiti so that when we go we'll have a better understanding of the people. Haitians speak Creol and many French as well, but no Spanish or English, so the speaker is going to come back and for 2 hours teach us a little about Creol. Neat, eh?

"Vacation" Day 2

The title I chose may have been slightly deceiving as Josh and I are not technically on vacation. We are on a break from teams, which feels like vacation, but we still have planning and administrative tasks to do. One of the perks of being "on break" is that we can work from home. The photo below is our "home office". This is where all the great thinking takes place *wink wink*.





Tuesday was a great day. The morning we spent reading - I'm reading a new book called "Forgotten God" by Francis Chan, he is the author of another book I loved - "Crazy Love". My brother Stephen told me about them. I completely recommend both books, they're amazing.


Following a lovely and relaxing morning of reading and laundry we played games, took our car into the car wash - it's only 120 pesos ($4.00) to get the car cleaned inside and out! After lunch we went to work in "our office" where we enjoyed the gorgeous day of 86 degrees (in the shade).
The rest of the evening was great and relaxing, we watched the movie "Fools Rush In" - funny movie.


Josh is sitting in "our office" waiting for me to work, so off I go to join in!

Vacation Day One Adventures

The day started off at the wonderful hour of 5am. As the alarm went off - quickly followed by the whines and jumping at the door from our dogs, Lucy and Snickers - we sleepily rolled out of bed, grabbed our shoes and keys, and walked outside to take the dogs for their regular morning walk when we realized that we lost Snickers collar the night before as we had left it on the back of the CRV and then went out. What could have been a huge crisis was quickly adverted by our quick thinking, suprisingly our minds were still working, and we found a substitute! We made one quick lap with the dogs, hurried through the shower and hopped in the car. We picked up our traveling companian, Lowell, and then began our trek down the mountain and to the capitol for their (Josh and Lowell's) 8:30am appointment with the US Embassy. Josh had a few things to do for our residency process, and Lowell needed more pages in his passport, so we decided to go for the adventure together!

We made great time getting to Santo Domingo 1 1/2 hours, but then something happened... traffic! And not just any kind of traffic, Dominican traffic... the worst kind! We thought we would be okay, that we would make it right on time because we still had one hour - who knew it would take us 1 hour 20 minutes to go 10 miles. But the fun doesn't end there - who knew that the directions from the embassy website would be incorrect! So, once we found the embassy another suprise was awaiting us, the embassy was not where we were suppose to go, we were suppose to go to the consulate (none of these buildings were clearly marked). Once the embassy people directed us to the consulate building we were so worn out just from trying to find the embassy AND parking, that we disappontingly staggered our way down the street to the consulate - really frustrated that we drove all this way and probably would not get assistance.

Once we finally made it through the first line (which is outside in like 110 degree weather) to went to the second line, Lowell remembered something... no cell phones allowed. Just as he said that, the woman who was checking my purse said I'm not allowed in with phones (as she's saying this Josh and Lowell handed me theirs and walked through to the next room - boys). They direct me back outside and tell me to come back when I have no phones. Great! All I could think was "I'm alone, in the capitol, I'm American, and I'm a woman... awesome." So after I thought over my options I decided I would walk back to the car, lock the phones inside, and try to get back in even though I have no paperwork and no passport. Once I returned to the consulate the guards decided that they "didn't remember me" (I had only spoken with them 5 minutes ago) and they made me go stand back in line in the increasing heat. After about 5 minutes a guy came to tend the lines. When he got to me and I told him what had happened (with the phones and all), he didn't believe me and thought that I was lying. At long last I was able to convince to speak with the woman who had helped me before, once she noticed me she said that I could go back in.

After I made it in, I wasn't sure I really wanted to be there, the waiting room was like something out of a movie... only worse. It was hot, the air was muggy, and there were probably 200 people waiting in uncomfortable chairs just sitting and waiting for their situation to be addressed. After I looked around a little, I remembered overhearing what the attendant had told Lowell earlier on and recalled that he and Josh probably wouldn't be waiting in this room. I found my way through the sweaty crowd to - at long last - find Lowell and Josh. The process was a little crazy, but both Josh and Lowell were tended too, even with having missed our appointment.

The experience in the consulate is something I hope never to repeat, it was insane. But one thing I really do appreciate is how friendly the Dominicans are, even the ones who work in jobs like these. I can recall every visit I have made to the DMV in the states, and each attentand was rude, appeared to be annoyed just from the sight of the people in the room, and short in their dealings with me. The attendants here, aside from the guy outside, were all friendly and patient.

And this was the start our first full vacation day... oh the adventures*