I thought the following eyewitness report from Haiti would be of interest to all of you.

"Listened to an interview on the radio with the Minister of Justice - their building, the  Palace of Justice was totally destroyed - it was a beautiful building too and they lost about 30 people in the quake.  The Minister was asked about the many prisoners who "escaped" during the quake. He said that the prison was not damaged nor were the gates to the prison - so there was obviously someone who let them out and now they're trying to find out who this was!! Good luck with that!! They have captured many of them back again. But he was also asked about the situation in the prisons and he said that it was an unbearable situation. He said that in the prisons there were many cases of people who should not be left in prison for the time they had spent there. He quoted a case of one women who had got into a fight with another woman and bit her face and she was inside for 1.5 years!! Incredible.

American Airlines is going to pay US$70m to rebuild the PauP airport - they ought to too, as they are the ones making loads of money on peopl flying into Haiti. They had the exclusivity for at least 2 if not more weeks.

The European Union is giving money to help the Government get back on its feet - plus to pay for the salaries of the govt. employees - don't know for how long. Plus they are giving money to help the schools.  The schools have not opened yet but the Min. of Education is hoping this will happen by beginning of April. Nata at my house is still out of school although her school is fine. I gather they are trying to inspect all the schools before this date to give them approval or not. Something which should have been done over a year and a half ago when the school in Nerette collapsed due to poor workmanship. One of my Canadian Chinese nurses who stayed with me said that when this happened in China they put those responsible to death!! Here there has been no outcry about anything regarding this.  I guess they have too many other things on their minds.
Gabrielle is down outside of Aux Cayes still with little Jerry at their grandmother's house and Gabby is in school down there.

People are still asking me by email about the supposed lack of food and water!! Incredible what influence the press has by saying that there is no food here nor water!!! They are putting the Haitian economy in an even worse state because there is food and there are plenty of water companies. If they keep on sending in water they will put these companies out of business which means more people out of work!!

The removal of rubble seems to be taking a long time and I don't know why the donor people are not giving more people "cash for work" as there are plenty of people who need it and plenty of work to do.

I've been doing my bit to support the artists in encouraging people to do tours out to the metal art sculpture village as well as getting orders for Einstein's wonderful wooden bowls.  I'm hoping to send some flyers around to various hospitals where they have loads of aid'/medical workers to encourage them to buy a little souvenir and help the artists and the economy!!"

Well, now you know that the aid organizations will likely ruin more people than they help because they pay no attention to what is working and what isn't in given situations.

They are making money and that's enough.  let the feeding frenzy continue, despite the problems it causes.  If this keeps up, your money and mine will eventually  leave a devastated Haiti behind.  There may be plenty of shantytowns to replace the former shantytowns, but the people will have no more than they have now.  If the people win, the aid organizations lose and they will have to end business there. They will be out of jobs.

The best scenario would be for all of them to operate so their operations 'sunset' in Haiti and they take the development models that lead to this and export them to other poor countries.. They could have a goal of all being out of business in the next century.  Now that would be a goal worth funding.

I don't think Jesus meant that we will always have materially poor people among us.  he meant that there will always be the poor in spirit.   This could mean anyone who is mean-spirited toward another.  Who knows what the true interpretation is, but I opt for mine over the one we have been taught all these years.  I think that one allows people to make excuses for why we haven't solved the poverty question.  think about it.

Over and out,

Patrick