A day in Haiti

Today we worked at the hospital, Shea and some of the girls were painting, I laid some tile, and Ray worked with a Haitian crew putting in a foundation for the containers that we bought.

Blue Ridge worked at putting in a hand pump in the well at Nan Plezi.

At 5:45pm, John called to tell me that the road is blocked and they can't come home. The Yutzy had been in Port-au-Prince buying groceries, food to distribute, and picking up Matt and Alicia at the airport (Matt and Alicia Newcomer are coming to take the Yutzy place at the children's home).

In the middle of a land dispute, in which the local people of Ganthier have already burned a road grader, a bulldozer, a tractor-trailer, and a payloader; they now blocked the main international highway from DR to Haiti. At gunpoint they had several truckers park their semis cross ways in the road and then unhook, leaving the trailors blocking the road. They also piled a huge pile of rocks across too, completely blocking the roadway.

There is some land in Ganthier that does not have papers, but has been claimed and squatted on by local people. Apparently some rich people are claiming it; or either they bought it from a government official. The community is upset, because they believe that they, the local population, should get the land, not some rich business man.