Jim and Shawn in Haiti--Wednesday

Today we had a much smaller world that we lived in. After yesterday’s journey through tent cities and Port au Prince, today we spent with Marie and the orphans behind the confines of her security walls (if you could call them that now that they are leaning and broken. Marie is concerned with girls safety sleeping outside and the tremors have subsided to small almost unnoticeable movements, so last night the girls slept on the outside patio of maries home—a big step towards post earthquake living. Marie slept in one section of her house but was very nervous all night and did not sleep much.


After several car battery mishaps this morning we got to Marie’s and the girls had already been cleaned up and were already dirty. We did a little cleanup work inside the main portion of Marie’s home but things had already been cleaned by others for her.

The “men” (not Shawn and I) were given money to buy tools to begin the huge task of destroying what remains of the orphanage. Luckily they found several sledge hammers and they were working on putting the handles on them and practicing swinging them. They are preparing to break up the concrete and block into smaller chunks that can be hauled away in wheel barrows. I said they would probably do it with hand held hammers and they will—but I was talking a regular hammer so the sledge hammers are way better.

We met with the pastor of the second orphanage at Maries house and he verified that all his kids and staff are OK. His neighborhood is similar to all others, lots of destruction but not everything destroyed. Shawn and I hope to visit him tomorrow.

I think some of the Haitians who have homes they can live in are beginning to go back into them, maybe not for the night but they are becoming more comfortable that the quake is over—however there is a rumor going around that another large quake is likely to happen soon so many are still understandably afraid to be inside. Shawn and I are under a tin roof so we feel pretty good.

The battery in Maries car was changed at least five times today with other batteries and once it begins to run the old battery is put back in??? Not sure what that is all about but I would bet her car won’t start tomorrow just as it did not start this morning.

So, in summary things are slowly progressing toward more of a normal Haitian life—people feeling a little better about going inside. The neighborhood construction workers will now deconstruct the orphanage with sledge hammers—amazing.

One more side note, Shawn and I observed an older man within Marie’s walls, working on a bicycle that was clearly “destroyed” in the earthquake—at least if we were looking at it. He spent the entire day replacing spokes, making spokes, and worked on straightening the front wheel. He got close to getting it straight. I am not sure how he is going to fix the rest of the bike but I know he has a plan and he will carry it out. It is clearly a bike that would be garbage in the USA and no one would ever consider “fixing” it—but we are not in the USA—we are in Haiti—and the people here are determined. God bless them all.