Haiti CSR

Bonjou from Jacsonville and jwayez Pak (Happy Easter)!  Here is what’s been going on down here lately.

We had a great holy week starting with Palm Sunday where everybody actually brings their own palms to church to be blessed.  Good Friday ended mass with a procession leaving the church and marching around the town while singing.  For Easter Sunday, the church was decorated with all kinds of crafts made by the school kids.  Dancing girls led in the opening procession followed by the deacons and priest.  The communion offertory consisted of dancers carrying fruit baskets on their heads and I even spotted a live rooster sitting in one of them.  All I know is that mass was long (3 hours) and beautiful even though I barely understood a word.

Procession after Good Friday mass through the streets of Pignon.  St. Joseph church is on the right.

We are already missing John Gallini and his family!  From his large Italian family, he brought down a select few (three daughters and three grandkids, along with chauffeur Timote).  The neighborhood kids prepared a new soccer field by clearing bushes and weeds from a nearby field.  John and family brought down a wealth of soccer supplies including jerseys, cleats, shorts, and soccer balls.  Word here gets around quick, and by the third day a team from lower Matabonit traveled here to play dressed complete with their uniforms!  They competed against the newly formed Jacsonville soccer team and ended up tying 1-1.  We held a coordinating meeting and our goal is to have each class at St. Rose of Lima have a team to compete against each other.  Out of all the trips this year, I have to say the kids had the most fun with this one.  I still hear games going on just about every afternoon.

Jaksonville team playing the lower Matabonite team.

John also brought down many supplies for the community garden, including seeds, drip tubes, and a handy back-saving planter. 

Right after their departure, my friend Jenny Totten came down for a ten day visit and reminded me that Americans can be just as destructive as Haitian kids.  We made a visit to visit Maricelle and the kids in Okap and nearby Canlouise beach.

Moussantou Dantil, the local veterinarian and an important figure in Jaksonvil, is clearing land for his new home.  We held several konbits (work parties) where about ten guys work from morning to 1pm clearing trees and uprooting stumps.  He has also hired guys to dig an open-pit well on the old soccer field.  This is all done with shovels and pick axes.  Water was found around 50 feet and will supply water for a new goat farm here.

We are nearing a monumental mark with the mission house.  The carpenters arrived two weeks ago and are setting up forms for the second roof.  All of the walls for the second floor are done.  Our only setback right now is money.  Right now while writing this, I am in a meeting with all of the town employees (teachers, school staff, and construction workers) and their pay will be held until the roof is finished.  We are trying to hurry now for their sake and also because the rainy season has come early this year (April 11 was the first big rain).  Bad news for the supply trucks, but good news for mango lovers!

First Communion will be the second Sunday of May at the school.  Sixteen of the seventeen eligible kids passed the exam and will take their next step in the church.  This is always followed by a large celebration.

The school kids are on Easter break right now after an exhausting week of final exams.  They start again Tuesday, April 21st.

I wish the best for all of you and please keep all of us down here in your prayers!  Na wè pwochèn mwa (See you next month).