General

It has been a while since I have posted. When we first returned from Haiti, right after Easter, we both worked on the shipping container, and then, we were blessed with a wonderful job for me. We have also been blessed with a wonderful family, and friends. And now I am adjusting to living back in first world time. As opposed to Haiti time. This is my excuse for not writing. Today, our friend, Derys Louinel, last name first, just sent us two pictures of the big Flag Day celebration in our home village of Garcin, Haiti. There was a […]

Breaking the attitude of poverty. Or, From entitlement to empowerment.. part one Poverty can is defined by both lack of resorces and a lack of choices. The poorest of the poor have few choices with few resources. They are faced with making a choice like, “Do I spend the only five gourdes I have on clean water, or do I by a piece of bread, and drink from the polluted river?” With little if any education, how does someone know how to make a good choice between, “When I sell my vegetables in the market, do I buy more food,

March 23, 2016 Leaving Haiti again Time has flown by, we have been here since the beginning of January but it seems like weeks not months. We have been able to accomplish a lot on this trip. Having more language skills, is helpful, understanding the culture better, and having a support group to work with helps the most. It takes time to be accepted within any community. But we both feel much more a part of both the Haitian community and the Americans that are also working here. We have many good friends both Haitian and American. The first trips

All of those years designing kitchens and bathrooms has finally paid off! New moveable pit composting toilet at the Fr Jim Bretl Agricultural Center.

March 22, 2016 Nutritional Workshops While here in Haiti last fall I was involved in many cases of severely malnourished children. Two of which were so severe that they were hospitalized for Koshcores (a lack of protein that causes major swelling in all the body parts). The swelling can cause the child to have a heart attack and untreated will result in death. There are many children that with lesser degrees of malnourishment and all the children are probably under nourished. We have the school lunch program that is helping the 750 children that attend our five schools. But there

Life for an American in Haiti March 4th 2016 Haiti is a beautiful country, especially in the Northern area where we work and there are some trees. Then there are the beaches with the white sand and beautiful blue water of the Caribbean. Unfortunately many of the beaches have trash floating in the water so developing a tourist trade could prove to be difficult. Trash is a major problem here. They dont have any plan for the disposal of waste so it is all over the streets. Up here where we live in the mountains the people buy very little

The new office and guardian\’s house is almost done. We are also adding a little color by painting the front gate.

Today we are feeding over 100 women at a nutritional formation workshop for women. For breakfast we are serving peanut butter on bread. We asked the ladies that were buying the food to buy peanut butter. Instead, they bought fresh peanuts. This picture is Mdm. Fritznel roasting the peanuts. There is a local organization that has a hand crank peanut butter grinder. They processed the peanuts into peanut butter.

Zoom in on the wheel of this one. The wheel is made from an institutional sized can that tomato sauce came in from the school lunch program. I like it!