Hello all:

This Sat. evening my thought drift to Hamilton where my family and a number of good friends and the Board of the Canadian Friends of Hopital Albert Schweitzer ( my former employer in Haiti) are putting on a huge fund raising dinner. This year because of the attention due to the earthquake they sold over 500 tickets.......I know it will be a busy evening for all, but the effort is always worth it when you know where the money goes. We are so blessed to having so many people working for Haiti. Speaking of which we have your share too as I welcomed Julie Hupp's team from Joyful Spirit Lutheran Church from Bollingbrook, Ill this evening.

We got to the airport extra early to get a parking spot..and a good thing too as I lost all of the oil in my car due to it all shooting up the little pipe where the gauge is that you check the oil level.. For some reason it was loose and the hot oil went spewing out all over everywhere. Joseph came to the rescue and we were able to find more oil nearby to fill it up again. Things were not so harry this time getting out of the airport but it was a madhouse around the truck and pickup as fellow were fighting over putting the bags in the truck. I had organized 4 fellows and there must have been at least ten holding their hands out for money. I finally got some order that I could pay the four I had organized and then had to just jump in the car to get away from the rest of them. I paid two guys from the window and even that was something as a so many hands appeared in the crack of the window. Then we were "outta there".

It has been a long day for the group who have been up since 2:00 AM. We enjoyed a quick dinner and now everyone is relaxing and heading to the shower or their bed. Unfortunately one of their members took ill at the Ft Lauderdale airport and had to be taken to the hospital there. He was doing fine but everyone felt it was best that he get attended to there instead of coming on to Haiti....a wise decision for sure!

On the news today:
. Haiti doesn't get a break...Les Cayes a large town on the south coast wasn't affacted by the earthquake but now is floating in water after two days of rain. The main part of town is inundated which included the local is ...where I had a broken wrist set several years ago. In PAP it has been cloudy and overcast.....our area didn't get rain but I know it did in othe sections of town.
. The International Organisation for Migration is in the process of a pilot program doing census intake at the camps. They did two days worth of work at the camp in the Center of Town by the palace. Thus far they have regisered 4,700 FAMILIES......so if each family has an average of 5 people that means 20,000 people + are camped out in that parc area......talk about a press of humanity.

We have a full day planned for tomorrow so I wil say tira for this evening and go to attend to a few items to get ready for the day.....one of them being putting together a nice fresh fruit salad.......mangoes, papaya, pineapple. bananas, mandarins etc.......are your mouths watering yet?

Have a good rest of the day
Debbie