Thursday

I think it is time to tell other stories about the trip, the very somber ones.  Each of us were stunned as we looked at the crumbled buildings, and saw people attempting to carve out a family home from rubble and stone structures.  Garbage litters the streets and children everywhere wander in the blazing heat, begging for any water we are carrying.  Yet it is the individual stories we heard this week that were so stunningly sad.  One baby, aged 8 months, was brought to the orphanage because the mother no longer wanted to care for him.  Another child in the area was found too weak to stand up, still vomiting and weak.  He was rushed to the hospital where he was identified as having cholera.  Another mother rushed her baby with cholera to the hospital where a  well-meaning but untrained person ran to grab the bleach diffuser and sprayed the baby directly with the bleach. Another expectant mother came to their clinic, complaining of pains and so malnourished that the poor baby came early and was dead at birth.  At the feeding program that is held here 3 times a week, we learned that for many children it is their only source of food.  These are the real stories we heard, and we have been here less than one week!  It just seems incredible what this orphanage, and school, and vocational training center can do.  The Manassero's are so part of the whole fabric of this community, and they are really serving people in situations of life or death.
Today we walked to the place where Haitians are building "our" house, which might surprise many of you.  We fund raised before we arrived, and thought we were paying for a house kit that we could build.  Little did we know that Haitians could be paid to do the work, which seemed like such a smarter way to use the money.  There were so many other jobs we could do that Haitians couldn't, so it seemed such a wise way to provide work for local Haitians and create a home for a tent family.  Plus it is being built in the area recently ravaged by flooding and there was much damage around the area!  It was obviously needed. 
Therese