Trisha left today. She's flying to the US for 2.5 weeks to speak at a few churches and hopefully raise some money. While she's gone Abra will be the main man in charge of the house during the day, as Ray & I will still be working on the new house.
Over the past 13 days, since we arrived, Abra has evolved from a soft-spoken, asker or attention, to a hard-yelling disciplinarian, so I think it'll work. If not, I'll stay home a few days. I'm pretty good at yelling at the kids. And I've learned a few words in Creole to do so:
Sa'k pace? - 'What happened?'
Manjay! - 'EAT!' (they like to play with their food)
Ale! - 'Go!'
Koun ya! - 'Now!'
Li bon! - 'You're fine!' (the kids like to cry about the littlest things)
Fine! - 'Stop!'
There are a few more, but you get the idea.
The babies are easy. They play, and fall, but rarely get hurt. They'll cry if you take away a toy, but seem to forget about it in a matter of minutes. Especially after a few 'Fine!! Li bon!'. It's the older kids that are a problem. Nadia (8) has been the biggest help, while Gessica likes to pout. The boys are trouble-makers. They're typical American kids.
I went to the local soccer game this past weekend. The stadium was just a field, surrounded by a 9 foot wall, with just a regular door letting in traffic. The outside was packed with throngs of people fightening to get in, with just a few security guys letting people past. If you didn't know it was a sports match going on inside, you would have thought they were distributing food or medical supplies based on how desperate people were to get inside.
Fenah didn't make much progress in pushing us past the rest, so I thought I'd try my hand, and was basically escorted inside. I was the only white guy, so they must have figured at least I had money to pay for my ticket. Once inside it was fairly sparcely populated, just a few rows deep of people surrounding the field. We saw Mayko, a local politician running for Senate (his face is plastered all over town). I tried to start a 'Mayko!' chant, but no one followed.
Around half time, people started climbing the wall to get in. Then security started beating them with sticks (or at least trying, little contact was made) as they climbed down the inside of the wall. In response, the crowd outside started throwing rocks and chunks of cement over the wall. Fans inside the stadium started running away, and as I did so I saw at least one lady get pelted in the back. The mob outside stopped, and I saw a few security guys (one with an uzzie, another with a shotgun) go outside to settle them down. No shots were fired.
Otherwise things here are fine. I'm excited for the upcoming Nov. 28 elections, as this will be the first peaceful transition of power for Haiti (assuming it's peaceful). Up until now, it's been one coup after another as Haitians are dissatisfied with their government.
Cholera deaths have climbed to about 300, but they say it's slowing down. Not sure if that's true.
Today Ray brought Trisha to the airport, so Abra and I have control of the house. So far everyone still has all 10 fingers and 10 toes, but we got 3 more hours to go.
Take care!
Sorry no pictures.
Posted by Hans
That sounds like fun. I would love building shit.
ReplyDeleteI'm really interested to know more details about the election if you happen to notice anything first-hand. Is it being monitored by an outside party? Are there open machinations and bribing by candidates?
You would love building shit! ha
ReplyDeletethe election isn't until nov. 28th, if they're actually held. THere's a cholera outbreak in the country, and there's talk of postponing the election because they don't want people gathering (might spread the disease). But unless it gets much worse, I doubt that would happen.
It is being monitored by the UN. The UN is here as a peacekeeping/stabilizing force. There are guatamalen police, Nepalese police, and lots of Brazilian and Argentinian soldiers (from the UN, I mean).
I've been told it's very easy to bribe to win an election here. Because people are so poor, the candidates just have to pay them each a little money for their vote.
Also, one of the leading candidates, Jude Celestin, works for a road-building company, and he's busy building lots of roads right now to increase his popularity. Apparently this is one of the major times things get built/done, as candidates are trying to win over the population.
Celestin is the hand-picked successor of the current president Rene Preval (he's from the same party, and married to Preval's daughter). But Preval isn't much liked right now because he didn't handle the earthquake well.
It looks like it'll be a close match between Celestin and the main opposition leader, Mirlande Manigat. I think I'm rooting for her. Another major candidate is Charles Henri Baker, but he's the candidate for Haiti's rich, and isn't much for the poor.