Tree, Airport Run, Friend

We had a little sun yesterday morning and then it rained lightly all day. There is sun again this morning and hopefully it will last. Our low temperature over the last week was 65 with a high of 80.

Tree

I wanted to mention a few things about the tree falling down early in the week. In the US, we would have chopped that tree up and lightly considered what was done with the wood. Here in Haiti, however, a tree like the one that fell is of significant value. The wood could be used for many months to cook with and some of it could be sold to purchase food. The owner of the property is really entitled to the remains of the tree. There were some people that apparently taking the large pieces of the main trunk and putting them in their vehicles (stealing the tree). The owner may not care, but the much higher value placed on a downed tree than I what I had normally understood is something that I came to realize through this event.

Airport Run

Yesterday morning I was called to drive Pastor Rob and his wife to the airport. Usually they would have a driver do this, but they couldn't reach him to tell him to come earlier after they decided that it would be best to leave early (the airport had been closed for two days because of the hurricane and it would be busy). We left at about 6:15 AM. I knew most of my way there with the exception of the last two turns (this was the first time I had been to the airport since we arrived two months ago). It was VERY BUSY.


One of the things that we had to do on this trip was to drop off a cooking burner/stove. We needed to get it to a person who would be going way up north to drop it off (to where I was last week). We were dropping it off in a pretty bad part of town. When we arrived to where we were dropping it off, the four Haitian guys in the vehicle were telling me that this is a real bad part of town and that they wanted to get out of there fairly quickly. They said that there were kidnappings, shootings, and misc. violence. They also told me that we should turn the air conditioning on and roll up the windows so we could lock the doors - so we did. We made it back with no problems - stopping at the grocery store on the way back so I could pick up some things for Tina and stopping by a street vendor to pick up some wicker baskets for her as well.


Friend

About a week ago we received an email from Kris. Kris is a person who works with the orphanage and adoption agency and she coordinated and attended our first trip to Haiti in June 2007. She is going to be in town today with another group of adopting parents and is going to be stopping by. She has graciously offered to bring some things for us. It took Tina and I a little while to figure out what we wanted to ask her for since we assumed that her space/weight would be limited. One thing that she offered to do is to pick something up for me to give to Tina and for Tina to give to me (keeping it a secret) - this is a great idea and a lot of fun!

Tina realized that getting a printer here would be a great help to her homeschooling and so at the very last minute we inquired if she had enough room and time to pick up a printer for us. I looked quickly on the web to find one that I liked as an example and sent it to here so she knew what we were looking for. She emailed back and said that she found the exact one that I listed and that after thinking they were maxed out on weight, she was able to fit it.

We are looking forward to reconnecting with her after 14 months!