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Sunday, February 28

Sorry for the lack of postings the last couple of days. After spending all day friday in the hospital, I needed a little time to rest and "recoop". I am beginning to feel better, so no worries!! After hearing the news that Mayor showed up with armed security guards and set the tent city on fire, Heather went down to take photos and interview anyone she could find. Many of the people fled, and we have yet to locate them. But the ones who stayed around, we were able to tape their side of the story. We met with Sara from IOM today, and she was with a UN Security Officer. He said he wanted all the information and any photos we had. He wanted to notify the UN of the site, and make sure officers were on hand. Sara has been feverishly working on this case for us, and we feel that we might get somewhere now. She is personally seeing to it that representatives show up tomorrow, and we will meet them there. Because their tents (which were bed sheets and wool blankets) were torched by the Thug of the town, they need shelter now more than ever. It has been raining hard the last two days, and these people are literally homeless, in the dirt. Myriam personally went down and located some of the people and made sure they had at least food from us. Once we find the rest, we can give them their food. We have a very busy day planned for tomorrow, including a trip the warehouse for our final food purchase. Mick, the owner of the Highland pub, has failed to return our emails or contact us, so we have not had those funds to work with. I am only hoping that something serious didn't happen to him. Otherwise, in the event that I receive the money when I return, half of it will be wired immediately to Cajuste in Haiti so he can buy more food. The other half will be held on to in the event we need to buy more food, or that I can hop on a flight to return to see this project through. My hope for the future, is that PINP can take over responsibility for these 100 people. In order to make that happen, we NEED to get approved for funding. If and WHEN that happens, we can hire a full time employee here on ground to facilitate everything Heather and I have set in motion. That way, I can come and stay for a month at a time to oversee everything, but not be bound to staying here permanently. It is my belief, and my personal instinct, that these people will fall through the cracks if we don't help them. They are defenseless against the corruption of the government. There is no aide, and very little hope. I came here to help provide food for people in need. I came here to help provide hope for people who had lost their faith in their government. I did not realize when I boarded that plane in Portland, that my life was going to take on a whole new direction. I wanted to make a difference, and this is the way we can do it together. It will take more NGO's like us, to adopt and take on responsibility for a small group of people. And together, we can change the lives of each person within that camp. Yes we can, Yes we can....

Feb 28, 2010

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