Hard Trip

February , 2019

A hard Trip

I know I have not written for a long time, and a lot has happened. Most of you know that last August a week before we were planning to return to Haiti, I lost sight in my right eye. I went to the emergency room, they thought I was having a stroke and gave me immediate care. After many tests and twenty-four hours observation it was determined I had a atypical migraine in my eye.

During the Cat scan done of my head they found a spot in the top lobe of my right lung. They did a cat scan of my chest and found that this was the only spot. Later in the week a pet scan was preformed and the spot was found to be highly suspicions for cancer. I had already quit smoking the week before. Within the week the upper lobe of my right lobe was removed. I am blessed to be considered cancer free, I have not had to under go Chemo or Radiation the cancer was contained to the one small spot ( less than 1cm). Was God with me or what?

It has been a long recovery but I am pretty well back to myself again, just not smoking , fatter, and I get tired more easily. The whole experience gave me more time with my family which I really enjoyed. I have not been home

for 8 months straight in years.

Our trip to return to Haiti was delayed a additional month so we could welcome our 17th grand child into the world. He is a healthy little boy and already a wonderful addition to our family. It was hard to leave him and his family.

A week after his birth we made plans to leave for Haiti. The day before we were to leave the creek in front of our farm rose to the point we could not cross it. The water came up very fast and we had no time to leave before we were shut in. We called American Airlines and they were kind enough to waive the fees to change the ticket and we left the next day.

It turned out that God was looking out for us once again because there were terrible demonstrations in Port au Prince the day we were to arrive. These demonstrations have continued, we had to wait another day to come home to our apartment. We left very early in the morning. We had some Haitian friends traveling to Port Au Prince the same day and they ran into multiple problems. God was with us once again , we had no problems .

Haiti is having extreme difficulties right now. Their currency the Haitian Gourde is inflating at a rapid rate in September of 2018 it was 69 Haitian gourde to the American dollar now its 79.5 Haitian gourds to the American dollar. When this happens wages do not go up but the cost of food and other essentials do, which leaves the people hungry and angry. On top of this there has been a gas/diesel shortage. The tankards are sitting off shore but the government dose not have the money to buy the gas so it sits off shore. All things rely on other things, the gas shortage means the internet is out most of the time because the internet providers rely on generators to power their signal. There are food shortages because nothing is moving around the country. Areas of the country that have electricity have been out also.

We are safe up here in the mountains, we call ahead to see if it is safe to come to town. We have plenty of food stored and neighbors have brought us many gifts of fruit and beans, even some eggs. Yesterday our Ladies were able to go to the market and buy us food. There were no eggs in the market, or potatoes or frozen chicken( comes from the US , we want to eat breast meat so the legs and thighs get frozen and sent to Haiti ). Schools are closed down, clinics and Hospitals are running out of medicines, banks have not received delivery of money so they are only letting people take out small amounts. We also had very little to no internet and all communication services were being shut off for long periods of time.

Although we remained safe in our village thing continued to get worse not better. We did not feel safe to travel, not only because of demonstrations popping up, and not knowing when we could buy more diesel, but there were also bandits on the road. As things started to decline we were concerned for our safety and our friends who would try to protect us. The compound we live in is not secure.

One of the volunteers for the Sister’s Sophia needed to return home to Argentina. She had travelers insurance that would pay for a helicopter to come and get her so she could return home. The helicopter held ten people, so she invited us and other Americans to join her. We decided we were not being able to work, because of the situation. We were not sure what was going to happen so we took the helicopter and returned to the US last Wednesday.

It was very emotional for me to leave. Since we left things have been calmer, gas was delivered, schools have opened, but no one knows what is going to happen, nothing has been resolved. Bob and I are watching the situation and are planning on returning to Haiti once it is safe enough. The travel warning is still a level 4,( do not travel).

The experience of Haiti has taught me many things. This is just one more. When asked if I thought I would continue to work in Haiti because of the political unrest. I just thought we have plenty of unrest in our country, plenty of corruption, disparity among the classes,. We don’t take to the streets because we are not hungry, we are not suffering. Maybe if we were put into the same circumstances we would also take to the street.

Thank you for your interest,

Denise

This could take me a while to post because of the lack of internet.

In another note at the end of December a donor notified me their check was returned, the post office put a sticker saying there was no receptical for our mail. This was not true there is a mail box with the address clearly written. The post master thought maybe it was a substitute delivery person that made this mistake.