Haiti

Haiti is suffering from the massive Jan 12 earthquake and needs our help. Below I've posted some first-hand accounts of the quake from people in Haiti. Please consider a donation to an organization in Haiti. If you would like to give directly to a Haitian family, please contact me (anna.versluis@gmail.com).

Thursday, July 06, 2006

From Friday, June 29

I haven't made as much progress on the research these last few days. At this point I mostly need to be in the field rather than Port-au-Prince. I've been doing GIS work on my computer for the most part. I went and bought two pairs of pants at an outdoor thrift market since I'll be riding a motorcycle next week and only brought a white pair of pants along from home. I spent many hours scanning two books that are classic works on the Haitian environment. Both books are out-of-print (and thus my editor husband gave his approval of my copyright enfringement) but Zalinx had loaned me his copies. I decided to go the digital route instead of photocopying even though getting the MCC scanner to work was a pain and it took such a long time, and now I am glad because I passed on copies of the scanned books to Zalinx and Andrenor and they were extremely pleased to have digital copies since hardcopies are so hard (no pun intended) to come by. I also spent more time than I like to remember attempting to get through to various people by telephone to arrange field visit logistics, and finding a working printer to make a copy of a report for Andrenor.

I forgot to mention! The girls and Chrismene left for Florida on Friday. Actually Pierre surprised everyone and announced at the last minute that he was going too, though he returned on Sunday. The house is very different and quiet without the girls around. It is a nice change for a bit and then it gets boring. I miss having Da run to greet me when I get home, and D and N to catch me up on the news of the day.

Not only did the girls and Chrismene go, but a 1-year-old cousin, their grandmother, and a great-aunt. There must have been at least 16 large black suitcases and it took two SUVs to transport everyone to the airport. I asked N and D who would get to have the window seats and they both quickly yelled, ME!

D, like the rest of her family, is an Argentina fan for the World Cup. Most Haitians root for Brazil, the most popular team here, or Argentina, since Haiti has never made it to the Cup. Unfortunately and surprisingly, neither South American team made it to the final four of the World Cup this year. (It's what most people here are currently talking about.) Last weekend after Argentina won a game, I went to the "fancy" grocery store with the girls and Pierre and Stephanie. They were all dressed in their blue-and-white Argentina jerseys, as were most other people in the store!

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