Post # 7, A walkabout with Jane.

  

Jane, our Hostess Missionary (center), took our team on a walk outside the compound.  She said she had never taken a whole team before.  We lived on the other side of the wall to our left.  So what you are seeing is just outside the OMS compound.  The adult Haitian to the right talking to the 2 boys is Wadner 'LoLo', Thermidor.  He speaks English very well and came into the compound everyday. 

We stepped in through the iron gates and these boys followed us.  They proceeded to make small kites on the hood of this car.  These trashed out cars are all over the city.  Their is no iron salvage.  Where is Husker Salvage when you need it?  This is private property and the front yard is so full of banana trees you can't see the house.  Wadner told us the owner played in a rock band and was a drug dealer and was killed.  His friends squat on his property.  It is their home now.  These cars are free game for anything you can salvage off them.  The windows get broken out and the seats taken and that is about it.  Our compound is on the other side of the wall you see outside the gate.

Jane said this mason is a Christian from one of the local churches.  This is one of the hundreds of hand pump wells around the city.  He was repairing it.  He took the handle off so nobody could pump water until his mortar set up.  He gave us permission to photograph him. 

This is another well not far away.  A different style base.  I don't know why.  The boy is pumping and Wadner is drinking.  We never drank from these wells.  The Haitians use it for everything, cooking, bathing, drinking, laundry, etc..

This is Robin and Carl Henry.  This is Carl's house.  One room.  This is everything.  Bed to the left, a plastic chair to the left and a chair to the right just inside the door.  You can see the book shelves.  His cell phone is on the stand.  Everybody has cell phones.  When your time runs out, you save up for another card.  I don't know where his clothes were.  He had a small padlock at the top of the door on the outside.  The door was 3/4 inch plywood.  Carl speaks English very well and is a Believer.  Most of these Haitian men graduated from Emmaus Seminary I believe.  They are really gentle and helpful young men.  OMS has had this compound here for 50 years.  These men grew up with OMS.  They are what you call second generation and there is some third generation now.  God is really becoming entrenched in Haiti.  God is really helping these people overcome voodoo, illiteracy and poverty.

By the time our walkabout was ending we had an entourage.  Like the Pied Piper.  The children wanted to follow us around and wanted us to take their picture and show it to them right away on the camera.  Jonathan used to live in Haiti, (orange shirt to the left), and he speaks Creole fluently.  Some men sneered at us and swore at us on the walkabout and Jonathan turned to them and said, "I speak Creole"... they apologized and moved away.