I know every single one of you is probably thinking that it’s about time I posted some more. I mean I know that I have kept you waiting day after day as you have often wondered of the well being of your favorite missionaries. But, much has gone on. Although the past year has seemed to pass fairly slowly, the last 2 months have flown by rather quickly, for many reasons I intend to update you right now!
I want to first continue on where I left off when Caitlin’s parents were here. We had many adventures. One adventure even took us to Haiti. For the first time Caitlin and I stepped foot into the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and one of the poorest in the whole world. It was night and day difference. The Dominican border town of Dajabon, was lush and green, with rich farming, and prospering people. Literally 100 yards away was the most black from white difference I have ever seen. Mud, dirt, grim, stinch, a sight we know all too familiar on the north coast in the cane fields. Only, Caraballo represents only a small percentage of hopelessness in the DR, while in Haiti there is no “right side of the tracks”. The day we went happened to be market day. Twice a week the DR opens it’s borders to allow for commerce. Chaos, is about the only word fit to describe market day. Thousands of Haitians run back and forth carrying precious supplies. Men handling huge carts with 100 pound bags stacked so high you can’t count, handling it barefoot through crowds yelling for people to make way, doing everything they can to make sure it doesn’t tip over or get going so fast that it crushes its handler. You see old men as old as what looks like 70 or 80 pushing wheel barrels with 4 or 5, hundred pound bags. There are women carrying goods on their head that easily exceed their height and weight. Men run for their lives, or so it seems with a hundred pound bag of flower or rice on their head, only so they can drop it with some friends and run back for more. It’s a sight I don’t think you see in too many places in the world. I’ve never seen people work so hard. And not for an early retirement do they do this, or to make sure and have a ‘sufficient’ amount in savings, or to save up for something they have been wanting, or even something as noble as paying off built up credit card debt. No, these people have something else in mind. They work like madmen, so their families can eat. I saw and met some of the most respectable people in the world that day. Not once did I feel threatened, scared, or fearful for even my wife, except for the danger of getting in the way of an overloaded cart handler. We spent well over half the day in Haiti walking around visiting people and trying not to look like tourists. No grass, no green, no trees. The main road used for heavy traffic on market day with 18 wheelers, and huge box trucks, looked like something we might build for an off-road course for fourwheelers. An entire country in conditions not suitable for a dog. There’s no way to describe it, its something you can’t understand unless you’ve been there, or you’ve visited the Haitian Bateys in the DR.
We did get to visit a school and orphanage in the border town in Haiti. We were quite impressed and encouraged. They serve 535 children, 80 of whom live at the orphanage. All of the children learn, Creole, French, Spanish, and English! And a good number of them know a great deal of all 4. We talked to kids as young as 10 who spoke English to us.
The rest of the trip that day continued back in the DR, where Mike, Caitlin’s Dad, noted that he never thought returning to the DR (which is a third world country) would feel like returning to advanced civilization. We continued to a town called Monti Cristi, where we saw the salt flats where it’s said that the US gets most of its table salt. We also so a beautiful natural beach, and walked along another shoreline where there was no shortage of beautiful shells.