Jacmel Day 3

The road is long and windy. That was the story of today for me. We spent about four hours on the road to a place called Gran Gwas. This little town is located near Loanes, the epicenter of the earthquake. Everywhere one turns there is destruction and destitution. Six weeks after the first major quake there continue to be minor aftershocks with ratings as high as 4.7 on the Richter scale. The latest just three days ago. Hence people are not sleeping in their houses still. They continue to dwell in the streets of towns like Jacmel where I am, Jeremie, Les Cayes, Pignon, and even as far away as Cap Haiti.

Grand Guavve is a little town near Leogone. They are maybe 5 kilometers apart. Needless to say that GG is pretty much destroyed. If a building has not been toppled by the earthquake it has been rendered uninhabitable. In this town of GG there is much going on to assist the people of the town. Pastor Lex and his wife Renee are doing a fabulous work feeding over 1500 people a day. The food is all donated to him from various sources including GO Ministries. There are two small refugee camps that have sprung up next to and near where Lex and Renee are working. People are needing food still.

The markets have started to grow back into opportunities for local business but they are still not at the amount of pre-quake range. The variety of items available is growing each day, however. So Lex and Renee are also housing about fifty orphans. They want to build an orphanage in GG soon in order to house more orphans. This is a growing problem in Haiti-- orphans. One hears about the problem in some countries but like so many other things in our life we don’t understand it until we see it with our own eyes. I have seen it now with my own eyes, there is a problem with kids on the street wandering and lost. Many times kids with parents don’t have much but at least they have a sheet tent and parents. If I had to estimate right now in the places I have been, 90% of the population is sleeping outside and about 50 percent of those have durable tents. The other half have sheet tents or palm tents. There are some who are using zinc or metal but not many.

Today I saw the most organized food distribution I have ever seen in Haiti. Really it was an amazing thing because Haitians in general do not form lines but while waiting for food today they were in line. It was so good to see people waiting to get food that was sent mostly from the United States.