Triple post, we have not had internet access

This is a little long, but we have not had internet access.

The Vicar General was in Gros Morne Sunday. He came to give the long awaited announcement that areas of Gros Morne and Riviere Mancelle are being combined into a new parish. The areas of Riviere Mancell are Garcin, where we live, and Buchan Richard, where the Fr. Jim Bretl Agriculture Center is located. The areas from Gros Morne include Sr. Pat and Sr. Jackie’s home, the school Sr. Pat oversees in Fonibo, and the area where our friends Elwood and Anita live.

These changes will result in some challenges as well as new opportunities. Denise and I work in duel capacities. Our work began when we visited the parish on a fact-finding mission as representatives of the Parish Twinning Program. The Parish Twinning Program aids in establishing “twin” parishes in the United States with parishes in Haiti. The parish of Riviere Mancelle is “twinned” with four US parishes, including St Gregory, our home parish. Collections from these US parishes are sent directly to the priest to run the parish. The Haiti Project funds and support projects within the parish. The Haiti Project also collaborates with other parishes addressing common problems.

When the idea of forming a new parish first surfaced, Fr. Gracia asked Denise and me what our response would be. Ultimately, he asked us to make a choice between serving the parish of Riviere Mancelle or the new, as of yet unnamed, parish.

Our response was that as part of the Parish Twinning Program, we did not have authority to make any changes concerning the Parish Twinning relationship. As far as we know, we will continue to work with the parish of Riviere Mancelle in that capacity. However, as the Haiti Project, we have relationships with two schools located in the new parish. We will continue to support these schools. We also have been developing the Fr. Jim Bretl Agriculture Center, and in the future will continue to do so. At first, he protested saying we would have to make a choice. Therefore, I asked him if that meant if we chose the new parish, would he refuse money from the Haiti Project for school tuition, lunches, or other projects. His response was a firm “NO”.

There will be challenges as we work through these changes, but I believe that the opportunities that new relationships offer will offset the difficulties we encounter.

The details of the new parish have not been decided as of yet. We do not know where the central church will be located, but the new priest will be diocesan, and that he will be in place by January.

 

From Denise.

September 24, 2015

This week started out well. We had a very good visit in Kalabot. Our welcome was very warm, there is always good food, and many friends came to visit. We were able to discuss a number of issues with Fr, Gracia. On Saturday there was a meeting of the Leaders from the different areas of the parish. During this meeting we were able to explain the changes we would like to see in the Sponsorship program, and school lunches.

We have suggested three changes in the Sponsorship program. These changes became evident to us as we have lived here and worked amongst the people .I don’t think many people anywhere truly appreciate things they receive for free, so it will become mandatory for parents of sponsored children to work at  the school, such as in the garden, cleaning, helping to prepare the lunches, and maintenance. I have seen in the US the parents being involved in the school as being positive for all .The second change is the child’s attendance; they need to have a good attendance record. The third item is they have to pass the previous year. There are too many children that want to go to school, and are not able, to waste resources on children that are not trying. I explained to the people in the meeting that the reason for the program is to build a better Haiti. Bob included the program was to create leaders for the communities.

Our lunch program has had its challenges. The Haitian government made a decision last year that private schools will not receive food from The World Food Program. We have heard many assumptions but do not know why this decision was made. There is food received from Food for the Poor but this would not even feed the children for a month. The Sisters of the Divine along with several Parishes collected over 22,000.00 US dollars for the program this year. We have over 800 children and staff to feed 181 days even at .25 a meal, we will still be short of funds to feed the children every day. So instead of the traditional meal of Beans and rice and red sauce with dried fish we are changing to the rice and beans one day a week and then serving soup another and bread and peanut butter a third day. We still will not be able to feed the children every day, so we have decided every other day will be the best choice. Some of the children may not receive anything to eat over the weekend, so feeding them on Mondays and Fridays will be important. At the meeting we expressed the importance of gardens at each school, and buying locally produced food to help the local farmers.

Thank you for your interest and your prayers,

Denise,

October 5^th

Medical

The clinic we opened last spring has slowly declined in participation. The first day we saw over fifty people, now there are maybe one or two. So last week Sr. Julian asked me if she could close the clinic, because she does not even raise enough money to pay for her moto. She explained that when the medical team comes, or when I was here and helped in the clinic, people will come, but when it is just her or her assistant people do not come. So I told her it was up to her, if she needed to close the clinic then that’s what she needs to do.

Then a woman brought in her twins that were born last spring. They had congestion and were malnourished. The mother could not breast feed and cannot afford the formula they need. She has an enlarged heart and is weak.  The twins needed to go to the hospital. Then there was a man who had a bad hernia and enlarged testicles, he also needed to go to the hospital. While I was preparing to take these people to the hospital in our truck, another woman came to the clinic. She had been in the hospital for 21 days, but could not afford the prescriptions so she was still sick. Sister asked me to help her, she is a young mother. So we had her load up also.

Going to the hospital in Haiti is totally different than in the US.  Each service is paid for before it is granted. So you stand in line to pay the cashier for the consultation. Once the twins were admitted I had to go back to stand in line to pay for their prescriptions and lab tests. The prescriptions were written not only for the medications but also for the IV fluid, needles, and volume controller for the IV.

I then went to the Pharmacy to get the prescriptions filled; although she gave me two bottles of IV fluid she only gave me one needle, tubing and controller kit. I told the lady that there were two babies but she said no this was correct. So Okay, she then told me to go to the lab and pointed to the next door which said lab. I went in to the room and gave the woman in charge the papers and receipts showing they were paid for.  She then started yelling at me. (People everywhere think if you don’t understand what they are, saying it louder will help). I understood the Creole I just didn’t understand how I could get pee-pee from the babies.

The admitting nurse spoke good English so I tracked her down to ask her how I was suppose to get the urine from the babies. She explained that the lab didn’t know the babies had been admitted and wrote something on the lab request and told me to return to the lab. Once again they were not happy with me and told me I was in the wrong place.

Now keep in mind it is very hot and all of this has taken hours. Haitians did not go to kindergarten and don’t stand in line and wait their turn, they push in front of you. When I caught on to this I thought Ok,ay I am from Detroit and I can be just as aggressive. Finally the lab assistant realized I really didn’t know where to go and she showed me a little shack in the court yard of the Hospital. This is where they gave me to plastic cups to get the pee pee.

So I returned to the mother who now had two crying babies I took one of them and she dug out a bottle from her bag, it had what looked to me to be some kind of tea in it. I then gave her money, and the woman that came with the man with the hernia, went to buy the babies milk.

I then went to the administrator of the hospital to set up an account so the babies would be cared for while I was in PAP for the rest of the week. All of this took over three hours to accomplish, but I thanked God that for the most part my Creole got me through the process.

I then returned to the truck and Bob and I decided we needed more Haitian goudes for our trip the next day to PAP. So I went to go into Fonkoze, the bank, they had just closed, but the man let me in anyway. There were several people so I had to wait over an hour for my turn. Exchanging money is a trip in its self; the exchange rate that day was a little over 52 goudes to the American dollar. So you get this big pile of money. I asked her if she had a sack. She pointed to my back pack but this is a big pile of money and to just shove it into your back pack didn’t seem like the best idea. So she got me a large envelope and I put the money in it then the back pack.

When I returned to the truck Bob was relieved nothing had happened to me, because I had been in the ban for an hour and a half. We happily were heading home when we saw Sr. Julian coming down the road on a moto. We stopped and she needed us to go get a lady who was in labor. She needed to go to the hospital. They had called an ambulance, but it had not come yet. So we went to the ladies house, loaded her and several family members in the truck, then proceeded back to town. Just as we got to town we met the ambulance. The woman, Sister and the family piled into the ambulance. We were relieved because she needed to go to Gonaive which is an hour each way over a very bad road.

I mentioned to Sister that I thought God was telling us he didn’t want the clinic to close.

Thank you for your interest and your prayers,

Denise