It’s raining and raining

We've been getting a little touch of Hurricane Sandy the last few days.  Despite that, Sr Pat and I, plus Tiden the driver, had to go to Port-au-Prince (PAP) yesterday. We took 5 passengers down; 4 humans and 1 chicken.  Can't explain the chicken.

It's not a fun drive on a good day (4 hours each way about 1 hour of which is on an unpaved road) and certainly not fun in the rain.  We had to go because our primary mission was to pick up food and supplies from Food for the Poor.  This is a US Catholic non-profit based in Miami.  The office in PAP is very nice, even air conditioned, not that we needed that yesterday. I attach a photo of the sculpture that greets you when you first walk into the lobby.  It may have a name but I call it the nameless, faceless beggar, meant, I suppose to suggest the poor that most of the world does not see. As in the photos, pretty much all you can see is a hand sticking out.  The hand has hole in it like a stab wound. 

Anyway, FFP provides mostly food but also all manner of other supplies (medical supplies, desks, tables, chairs and god know what else which probably explains why there are boxes and boxes of random things in the house like Cling-who has a dryer in Haiti?!) to probably hundreds of agencies in Haiti.  You get an assigned day to come down and collect your "stuff" and you pretty much need to show up, rain or shine.  We (mostly Sr. Pat) were collecting for 15 different groups in the Gros Morne area including schools, churches, hospitals and I don't know who all.  We had enough stuff to fill 2 large trucks but poor Pat was there all day dealing with bureaucracy, Haitian style. 

Meanwhile, Tiden and I were running other errands, including picking up Sr. Vivian, an RJM who lives in PAP.

PAP is not a nice place even on a good day and, in the rain, well it's a pretty darn depressing, miserable place.

After 6 hours at FFP, the two very large trucks were finally full and we headed back home with Sr. Vivian (and no chickens).  It's still raining and it's dark before we get home at about 8:30 PM.  We passed one fatal accident on the way so Sr. Vivian said a prayer but it was in Creole so I don't know exactly what was said.  Before we made it back, Tiden got a phone call that one truck got in an accident but at least nobody got hurt and they both showed up this morning.

Today, long before I got up, Sr. Pat was up and gone to where the unloading of the trucks was to occur.  This, of course, was done in the rain because it's still raining. I managed to miss that duty which is why I have the time to write this blog.

Oh, I left out the part about how one of the trucks didn't show in PAP so Tiden, after much yelling into the phone, had to find another truck and driver which, of course, delayed the whole truck loading process and did not make Sr. Pat very happy.

The upside to all the rain is that it keeps the animals quiet so it's not so noisy at night.  One of the many, many downsides and a very minor one at that, is that my laundry has been on the line since Tuesday and I'm getting low on clean undies!

Things in Gros Morne are nothing like they are in PAP.  But, you do have to learn to roll with the punches because nothing is going to go the way you would like and things are always a bit chaotic. 

I can do that.