Haiti Day 6

Q: How many Americans does it take to buy avocados?
A: Ask Ed. (Seriously. He took 15 minutes at the market...)

Today was a short work day and a hot one--101 F! Yes, it feels very hot, but we've acclimated to the extent that it was surprising to hear that figure.  You get used to swimming in your own clothes fairly quickly here.  In fact, one team member observed, Haiti is the only place in which she has ever prayed for cold shower water! (Little on the warm side today--no good).

Anyway, as you may be aware, the World Cup is going on and it couldn't be bigger in Haiti.  It always is, but this year a more than ever welcomed diversion.  People fly and sell Brazillian and Argentinian flags all over the streets, wear jerseys, even spray paint their vehicles(!) to show their loyalties.  Living in tent cities is apparently no obstacle to procuring the necessary technology to follow the games, as evidenced by the surround-sound wail we heard yesterday at our site when Brazil lost, and the 2 solid minutes of joyous shouting and dancing in the streets today when Germany beat Argentina!  (Those dancing were Brazil fans).  There is a tent home merely 8 feet from the temporary school in which is smaller than my bedroom closet, but has a jerry-rigged antenna and either TV or radio inside that the kids would flock to in between lessons to get the latest.

After work we were taken on a 3 hour tour (cue Gilligan music) for "sightseeing" around P-au-P and up the mountain to where we could see the entire city from high above.  All 2 million people.  In P-au-P alone. We have not uploaded our photos from today, but you have seen samples of the damage--piles of rubble in the streets, pancaked buildings, half-crumbled buildings with rebar hanging like spaghetti.  But what you really can't take your eyes off is the people.  You watch them and you see, in ways that the front page can never capture, life continuing.  You see children who point and yell, "Look, Mommy--white people!  Hi, people!" You see people selling mangoes, and pregnant women in sundresses shopping for mangoes.  You see people driving their taped up windowed/busted windshield trucks, working as ever.  You see groups of school kids in their uniforms laughing together on the corner waiting to cross the street.  Life is here. Therefore, God is here. And by the way, remember that cross we saw etched into the hillside the other day? Guess where it is? Right behind the smooshed president's palace.  We also saw the National Cathedral, once a magnificent building, now ruined beyond repair; half crumbled, the rose windows shattered, and yet we got the chills as we noticed that the 3/4 sized crucifix statue that is in the churchyard still stands, virtually unmarred.  Christ is here!  And we get to be his witnesses to you of the reality that there is a certain and real hope for Haiti. We could not be more privileged to play even a small part in it.  Glory to God!