The city of Port-au-Prince is becoming more familiar to me as I spend one or two days a week traveling to this large city. Sometimes it is for meetings with other regarding the church plant. Sometimes it is to buy groceries. Sometimes it is to run other necessary errands that can only be accomplished in Port.
This week the day for errands and meetings was Friday. I left the house about 7:40AM to try and make it to the bank shortly after it opened. The office wires me money and I go to the local Unibank to make a withdrawal. When I arrive there is a line of about 15 people outside the door. The bank is obviously busy but I figure it will move fast. Today I was right. After about 30 minutes of waiting I have my cash and head back out the door.
Next stop is picking up the mail. The small temporary wood building is where we pick up our mail from Missionary Flights International. Our mailbox is in Florida but it is then put on a plane and brought to Haiti. Here it is sorted and ready for pickup on Wednesdays and Fridays. Since I don’t always get to Port on those days we average a mail pickup once a month.
It turns out to be quite a stack of mail. The kids are happy because their Lego magazines have arrived. And also several Christmas cards that might have made it on time but we were not able to pick them up before Christmas. Small packages under a pound make it through also, like individual books we order. After changing some US cash into Haitian gourdes it is off to a meeting at Adoration Christian School.
The church plant in Port-au-Prince makes meeting with fellow missionary Octavius Delfils an important part of the day. We discuss various parts of the ministry in the church. We are also wanting to have a sign made for the church to announce its present to those driving or walking by. It will be a painted sign and the men are hard at work even as we meet. The Port-au-Prince church is the Eglise Presbyterienne Reformee de Delmas or the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Delmas.
It is now early afternoon and still lots to do. I stop at Epi D’Or for takeout. Then it is off to Rocket Tire to have a couple tires repaired. They have been slowly leaking air and I am tired of checking on them and refilling them. It takes about 45 minutes all together for them to be checked and repaired. It is a professional shop with North American equipment that actually repairs the tire instead of just putting in an inner tube. That is the normal Haitian fix for flats.
Though I hoped to make it to Petionville for a final couple errands the traffic is starting to thicken. So I decide to get groceries at Eagle Market and make my way home. As I near the airport the traffic gets really heavy but it is still moving. I hear the siren of an ambulance trying to get through. Sorry but there is no where to go! Finally he jumps the median and gets through against oncoming traffic. I wonder if there is really anyone injured in the ambulance?!?
As I make my way out of town the trucks ahead of me are stopped again, this time by a bunch of cattle being herded home along the road. We squeeze by on the left and are out of Port-au-Prince. Just one more stop at the Cabaret market to pick up a flat of eggs.
As I drive along Route Nationale #1 north toward home I see the newly constructed memorial site for the earthquake victims. This is where they buried many of the victims in mass graves. The site is not new but the new gravel beds, crosses and banners are. We saw the Haitian road ministry doing work about a week before the anniversary on January 12th. How many victims are buried here? No one is sure but the figure is staggering any way you count it. It reminds one again that an event this large leaves no one unaffected.
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