Haiti CSR

Matabonite Report January 2009

Bonjou and greetings from Matabonite!  This message is brought to you by Matabonite’s newest (and slightly burnt) resident, Shane Barnett, who will be spending the next year here living with Gabriel.

The kids were here for two weeks during Christmas and New Years and returned to their home in Cap Haitian.  They left with Elunot, one of the boys who helps to run the shop in front of the house.

Front of the Mission House taken late December

Kay Misyonnè

The Bishop Walter Sullivan Mission House is the talk of the town!  This house will be quite impressive, and will be the biggest building around, larger than any in the nearby city of Pignon of 40,000 people.  It will contain 9 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, a meeting room, chapel, kitchen, dining room, and a few balconies, not to mention a roof with a killer view of the mountains!  You may be asking, “Gaby, why such a monstrous house?”  With mission groups scheduled as large as 25 people, space is a necessity.  The chapel will also be used for a more permanent community church, and may even attract a resident priest.  And the author can count more blisters on his hands than fingers making room for the orange and grapefruit garden in the back, and also to be able to see the mountains while showering!  One resident recently came by to complain that everybody now looks at the mission house instead of his when passing.

Drilling the new well for the school and mission house

In just one month, the walls for the first floor were completed, electric wires were run for the first floor, all floors were filled with dirt, packed, and cemented, and work is now underway to pour the second floor.  Gaby is constantly finding ways to cut costs.  He has hired knowledgeable family members to help with the ceiling and electricity, and we have spent a few nights backing nails out of used wood to flatten out and use again.  Trees for making ceiling stakes while pouring the concrete stakes are cut from nearby fields by local teenagers.  This project is already directly helping the community, providing jobs to skilled residents who would otherwise move to cities to find work.  They work extremely hard just for $10 USD and a plate of rice a day.

We already have a few visits booked, with a group of 12 medical school students from Tulane coming at the end of February.  They will host several clinics to assess the medical needs of the community.  Penn State and Virginia Tech students arrive in March.

Water Project

            The other project newly underway is the school/mission house/community garden water project created in Covington, VA.  Haiti Outreach arrived January 5^th and should be here all week drilling for water.  They hit water around 60 feet and are continuing to dig.  This project will supply water by means of solar panels and a pump to the school.  Kids will no longer have to carry buckets of water with them to school each morning.  A constant supply of water will provide for cooking lunch, good hygiene, and teaching crop management.

Saint Rose of Lima School

This school year there are 284 students enrolled in grades K-7, with this year being the first year having a 7^th grade, or the beginning of a secondary school.  There are 23 students enrolled in this class.  The success rate for the first trimester was 74%, and the teachers were pushing the 6^th graders hard to prepare them for the national exam.  The kids stay busy and are learning new sports such as volleyball and soccer.