Back in school, Abigiels new prescription shades and the current situation in Haiti

Schools were opened in Haiti in late November and our children have been attending since then.  The protests have stopped and the Haitian people have seemingly accepted that the current president, Jovenel Moise, will finish his term, which ends in 2021. The JRF is paying for 130 private school scholarships this year, that includes books but the families must pay for the uniform. We have about 100 children that attend the center daily, they all get scholarships and we then provide about 30 scholarships to local children who excel academically but come from households with financial issues. Children on scholarship need to maintain an above average grade point in order to remain on scholarship and are also expected to volunteer at the JRF occasionally. Children at the JRF just need to pass in order to maintain their full scholarship. Private school tuition is one of our 3 largest expenditures, teacher salaries and food being the other 2. I am of the opinion that our private school payments should have been reduced by 40% as the children missed about 40% of the school year. We were able to get a one private school director to agree to a 25% discount but the catholic school that we send most of our children to was not amenable to that logic.  They did extend the school day and cut some vacation days to make up for some of the missed time but gave a 0% discount. Negotiating with nuns was pretty funny, they were not as amenable to the what would Jesus do argument as you might think. Personally, I think Jesus would have given us a discount but that is just one man’s opinion and apparently not one shared by those nuns. Maybe I’ll bring some scripture quotes next time.

Below is Abigiel.  I wrote about her a few months back. She is albino and entered the foundation in May.  I do not believe lots of sun is great for Albino’s in general and it is definitely bad for their vision. Unfortunately staying out of the sun is not really an option for Abigiel and she developed vision issues. We sent her to some doctors and were able to get some prescription shades for her.  She now wears them everyday, with the attached neck cord. Her vision is normal or close to normal and her performance in school has improved.  Generally I hate health issues as the consequences of being wrong are dire and the Haitian health system is garbage. That being said this was a health issue win for the JRF and we are thrilled to have been able to help Abigiel get the medical care and glasses she needed.   It was not too pricey, maybe 200 dollars total, which again, as far as I am concerned was a win.

We are hopeful and believe that things will stay pretty tranquil for the next couple months. The long term outlook for Haiti is quite grim but hopefully the country waits until the next presidential election to go nuts again. There are two issues that are troubling and not great signs of whats to come.  Those are a strike/revolt by the national police force and a reemergence of kidnappings in Port Au Prince. Haiti has a couple decade history with kidnappings.  The government started the kidnappings in the 90’s. The people they used to perform the kidnappings developed a taste for it and went rogue after that government was deposed and started kidnapping people themselves.  It was endemic in the early 2000’s.  The kidnappings were being run by a wealthy Haitian family, they were eventually caught and the kidnappings stopped. Back then the kidnappings were of relatively important/powerful individuals. The recent spat of kidnappings have not discriminated based on income level or importance.  They have kidnapped old women going to work at the market and may ask for 100 dollars to give them back and have also kidnapped wealthier individuals and asked for hundreds of thousands.  I know of someone who was kidnapped in Port Au Prince and their friends and family had to come up with 150,000 USD in a day in order to free them or the person would have presumably been executed. The friends and family of the guy were able to come up with the money and the kidnappers let him go.  The kidnappings don’t seem to have any central organizing body this time and some kidnappers have not released people even after payment was made. A friend of a friend was kidnapped, his church raised the money to get him free.  The church sent a young man to deliver the money in exchange for the hostage but that young man was killed, the money taken and the hostage was not released.  This does not seem to be the norm, usually if you pay they seem to let the person go.  Thank god kidnappings have not made their way to Jacmel and god willing it will stay that way.

Last Friday Port Au Prince was supposed to celebrate Karnaval but the party was cancelled as off duty police officers burned the stages and floats that had been set up by the government.  They went in heavy with some big guns and there was gunfire all day. I am not sure if they were shooting randomly or if there were some other police groups who were trying to stop them and they shot at those guys but there was gunfire all day in downtown Port Au Prince. There is a video making the rounds on facebook of a masked policeman laying out their thoughts.  He makes some good points, principally that if a large portion of the country is starving and police officers are only making 100 dollars a month then the government should not be spending large amounts of money to throw a party.  The ex-president, who was a famous singer before becoming president, was supposed to perform in Cap Haitian, the biggest city in Northern Haiti and second biggest city in Haiti. Police officers and locals ran him out of town before the performance as the guy robbed the nation blind while president and then had the audacity to charge god knows how many tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to perform at this Karnaval. The police officer in the video called for a mass uprising and promised to kill any police officers that stand with the current administration/government.  If cops start killing cops that would be less than ideal, Haiti has no official army as they disbanded it in the 90’s after like the 5th coup in 8 years. The US is helping them rebuild an army and the police officer on film also promised to bring death to the members of that force if they stand in the way.  I don’t know that Haiti is organized enough to have a traditional revolution, it isn’t as if there are Democrats and Republicans and they could start fighting each other, there are dozens if not hundreds of powerful factions and if things really devolve I imagine it will be more of a mass looting and lawless situation and less of a x side vs y side situation.  A lot of people feel that this is inevitable when the Presidents term ends as their congress hates the president and will force him to leave but there is no election budget or realistic plan to hold elections. I hope things don’t devolve to the point that the US steps in but take comfort in the knowledge that if things get bad enough America will probably step in. Assuming I don’t fall victim to the chaos, it would probably be a great opportunity for me to increase my and the JRF’s local efficacy.

As always none of this would be possible without all of you.  Together we are making a real difference in our people’s lives.