Good day: Another day has come and nearly gone. It has been filled with a variety of activities and as usual the minutes race by. Jorel has everything in place for pouring the cement for the depot roof tomorrow...bright and early. They will start around 6 or shortly thereafter as they have to do the work before it gets too hot. We will have about 25 fellows coming and they will form the "chain gang" that will pass the buckets of cement up to the roof. I have seen this many times but it will be interesting to see it in my own backyard.

Robert Burns once wrot "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, Gang aft agley," ... This statement came to mind while I started re-organizing my plans for tomorrow and my planned visit to see Wilner. I just felt that I could not leave for the whole day when we were having so many folks around the yard and a big job going on. So plan B was to leave around 12 instead of 7 or 8.

On top of that we have been expecting a shipment of food from FFTP and wouldn't you know it came yesterday and I have to pick it up tomorrow....all 20 pallets of rice packets which means A LOT OF BOXES!!! We are to be at FFTP by 8 AM..and supposedly Junior has everything set up so we can start early.....we will see what happens when we get there. I have hired a larger vehicle to help and FFTP will also provide a truck to help get it all here. Marie is sending her big pick up as well. I am hoping between all of the vehicles that we can make it in one trip.

I will be praying that all goes well, that we don't have too many traffic jams and that I can still be out of here by 2. My next big challenge is figuring out where to store it all for the short term until the depot is done! For sure some of it will go out to the school next week so we can plan to distribute some of it to the school kids when they start back on the 5th.

Speaking of school started I heard on the radio today that the Ministry of Ed'n is still holding to the date of Apr 5 to restart school. Yahoo! Official exams for Grade 6 and I think Grade 9 are planned for the beginning of Aug. Haven't heard what will be done for the senior grades. Clovis told me that the Ministry was able to recover some of their computer docs related to the exam registration which is a big relief to all concerned.

Other news items...tomorrow there is a special ceremony and activity going on in Champ Mars.(down by the Palace) and in TiTayen (north of PAP). A memorial forest is to be planted in the TI Tayen area and tomorrow will be the kick off for the campaign...10,000 trees will be planted ..with a total of 250,000 to be planted by the end of a year..one for each of the victims of the earthquake. Double Harvest another NGO that has a large farm will be assisting with the project by providing the trees to plant. Several buses have been organized to take selected folks to the planting area and they will plant the trees representing everyone else. Fourty people have already been at work digging the holes and preparing the land for the planting. Seven large plots (carreau's) of land have been fenced in to keep out the goats. It seems too that some citizens with large tracts of land in other areas of the country are also offering to provide part of their land for this project. It sure will be something if these forests "take". There are a number of religious organizations involved and they are encouraging youth groups to be involved with the project to ensure that 5-10 years from now there will still be folks around to protect the forests.

The radio station I listen to (SIGNAL FM) is celebrating today as they are being present an award of excellance for their reporting before, during and after the earthquake from the International org'n for radio broadcasters...quite a feather in their cap. A representant of the station will travel to the US to accept the award.

So there you have it folks for this fine day of Thurs March 25.

Debbie