What I do every day...March 26, 2025

There was plenty of shooting at Tabarre Bridge last night. I did not hear of any deaths this morning, and we are grateful there was no terrorizing of the neighborhood, refugees running in every direction in the dark, bodies on the street from a massacre. Strange to be glad it was “just shooting.”

A kidnapped victim in our neighborhood this morning was not as lucky. Bullets hit a number of buildings and he was taken away in blood. He is a foreigner but I don’t know from where. I have intercede with gangs sympathetic to the humanitarian corridors we keep trying to carve out- like Moses opening the Red Sea- the corridors often close fast enough right after succeeding.

I even have pictures of his injuries from the gangs who are holding him. At least three bullet injuries. In then picture he looks dead, but they assure me he is not- but they won’t turn him over to me as I persistently have pleaded throughout the day. Even as late as tonight.

The listen to my arguments and tell me why they cannot give in.

As has been painfully shown many times over these years, and even again yesterday with the killed Kenyan soldier, the body is worth as much dead as alive, so why fight to save the person. The ransom stays the ransom.

It is agonizing, even though he is unknown to me. I am consumed with the desire to get him and bring him to the trauma specialists nearby: Doctors Without Borders. But I can’t break through because of the ransom they expect.

This morning we were able to get food and supplies to nuns in Carrefour, and get the three Sisters to Port au Prince who could not get through the gangs. They were joined by a priest who has a throat infection that makes him now unable to speak. Now that he is also here, thanks to our ambulance run today for him and the sister, he will see a doctor friday (the same doctor we evacuated from Port au Prince that I wrote about last week). So he was cut off from access to heathcare and now will see a doctor whose whole office is refugee.

Seven days ago we were asked by the Catholic pastor of a downtown Church to try to bring him to talk to the gangs attacking his area, which has been a war zone for weeks now. We were able to arrange the meeting, and brought him deep into Bel Air. These types of talks for humanitarian corridors are more and more dangerous as everyone gets radicalized with blood lust. All sides.

Even more, when we do these kinds of things now we dont know if we will be bombed while we are meeting- since bombs from drones is the new strategy as of some weeks ago.

The priest held his own in the dicussion seeking peace for his area, even though as he admitted later it is nerve racking to be in “enemy” territory, shelled out by war, with no way out, and surrounded by a gang armed to the teeth and not hiding the fact.

The central part of the discussion was the analysis from the point of view of the gang of why the area of that Church was under attack, with their suggestions as t how to solve it. The action steps are not easy at all but worth trying.

The whole dialogue spun large, covering many layers of what his happening in Haiti for these past years. It would make a fascinating short story to write it up.

The mountains of Kenscoff are no better off at all from gang presence. Many battles these past days, but none too close to our mission. The staff and children are still managing, but we remain vigilant.

We have spent a LOT of time the past week talking to immigration lawyers in the USA and Canada, and seeking out political contacts, because if the cancellelation yesterday of the Biden Parole, which we knew was coming. The families we have sponsored in that program are spared this Haitian nightmare, they entered the USA legally, have been working legally, have their children in schools supported by the taxes they pay, and need no help from welfare or government charity, They are suddenly illegal.

While we understand a parole is of limited duration, the conditions in Haiti are far, far worse than when they left and it would be disastrous for them to return here.

We are making some small headway with and for them.

And for all the above, we pray and pray and pray.

Moses wore his outstretched arms out praying. They needed to be held up by his brother Aaron and his nephew Hur. Maybe its time we start supporting each others tired and outstretched arms, as we pray together!

As long as Moses held up his hands, Israel prevailed; but when he lowered them, Amalek prevailed. 12When Moses’ hands grew heavy, they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. Then Aaron and Hur held his hands up, one on each side, so that his hands remained steady until the sun went down. (Exodus 17:11)

What I do every day...March 16, 2025

Dear friends

Our alert about moving the NPH project from the mountains of Kenscoff to the Tabarre area, has been cautiously on hold. The director has been able to visit in close proximity to the gangs in the mountain, and learn their plans and goals, from gardeners carrying goods from the mountains for sale in Petionville. I won’t say much about it except that our concerns continue and we will keep monitoring.

In the meantime Port au Prince is methodically surrounded by gangs and violent conflict. We have heard from two different groups of nuns who have to abandon their missions. One of the groups we were able to help last Monday, and their compound in Port au Prince is now empty in gang territory.

The bravery of a few members of my team is inspirational to me. Junior, Andre and Jocelynson never have the slightest hesitation to go with me into troubled areas, and on Monday into that dangerous neighborhood under sporadic gunfire to evacuate a Sister who needed to leave by ambulance, because she is a victim of stroke as of a few years.

When we delivered her to a different convent in an area that to a safer (for now), I offered a prayer of thanksgiving and asked her if she wanted to add to it. She said she is very much aware that she is one of the VERY VERY FEW refugees in Port au Prince, that has some place to run too.

She was deeply pained to know how many mothers with children under their arms, how many old people walking with sticks as canes, how many disabled pulled along through the streets are just running in panic across danger lines with no place to go. No protection from rain, from passersby, from harsh sleeping conditions, scant hope for food.

It is really the story of Les Miserables, in spades.

We have doctor friends now packing in panic, moving their offices out of the area near by the sisters, on Chemin des Dalles. It is a country of refugees, all classes.

Other members of my team spent the whole last week helping a friend, a merchant, right up the street, move his merchandise to a safer place. He is being robbed massively by the local area gangs, albeit it very low level members.

The bravery of our teams in Kenscoff, and Tabarre, the bravery of our workers, of nuns and doctors around the country, and of the ordinary person, is phenomenal.

Many years ago in Cite Soleil we use to show movies in neighborhoods to children and youth, to try to give them examples of heroes, of saints, of positive and successful ways of living. Even though it seems like a pipe dream dangling positive ideas before the eyes of people who are hungry and too used to bullets and cadavers, we are trying again in one area to see if we have any favorable results.

I copy here below todays security alert sent to subscribers, to give you a clear idea of what we are living.

Thanking God for the faith, courage and solidarity that are obvious all around us, I take the chance to wish all reading this a Happy St Patrick’s Day tomorrow.

Here is the security alert:

Security Advisory: Increased Gang Activity and Escalating Threats in Port-au-Prince

Date: March 16, 2025

The security situation in Port-au-Prince continues to deteriorate as gangs expand their territorial control and engage in ongoing clashes with the Haitian National Police (PNH) and local brigades. The majority of the downtown area is now classified as a red zone, with several key thoroughfares experiencing active hostilities.

Current Security Concerns:

• Downtown Areas: Streets such as Delmas 30, Delmas 32, and Avenue Christophe are contested, with ongoing armed confrontations. Movement through these areas is extremely high risk.

• Turgeau & Pacot: The area is under immediate threat, prompting strict enforcement of barricades and curfews by local brigades.

• Canapé Vert: The area is under immediate threat, prompting strict enforcement of barricades and curfews by local brigades.

• Airport Road: Gangs continue to target this route with shootings, kidnappings, and violent engagements. Extreme caution is advised for any travel in this vicinity.

• Kenscoff Region: Fighting persists in the mountain areas, exacerbating instability in surrounding zones.

Advisory for Movement & Safety:

• Avoid all non-essential travel, especially in downtown Port-au-Prince and surrounding high-risk areas.

• Expect heightened aggressiveness at static checkpoints manned by local brigades. Maintain a low profile, comply with security directives, and be prepared for thorough inspections.

• Monitor real-time security updates and maintain communication with trusted contacts.

• If travel is necessary, utilize secure transportation and have contingency plans in place.

The situation remains highly fluid, and further escalations are possible. All personnel are urged to exercise maximum vigilance and adhere to security protocols.

What i do everyday....March 9, 2025

After the massacre in Tabarre 25/27 about a week ago, the same two gangs promise on video messages to come and kill everyone in Tabarre.

While we know that is the “Tabarre” just across the National Road from us, we have been planning how to prevent the deaths of women, children and the elderly. The main idea we have is the use the NPH “St Anne Home” to welcome this population at night so they are in safety if there is an attack. The discussion gets hung up on “spies,” because if we are not careful and there is an informant, our very St Anne Home can be attacked, which would be dangerous for the 100 employees who already are refugees in that compound. We would endanger their lives.

We started accelerating the discussion and planning yesterday, because last Friday (two days ago) and last Wednesday (four days ago) the gangs were mobilized to attack, and both times it got thwarted when witnesses as the gang came together in Croix des Bouquets by the hundreds, made subvert phone calls to the police. We accelerate our planning because we can’t count on that to work every time.

With the reality of bombs used against the gangs (7 more dropped over the weekend), the reality of predicting the gangs also changes.

The word on the street is that the bombs are not from the police or army, but a hired mercenary group. The gangs, as we hear from workers who live in their proximity, think the elite class is ordering the bombings and are allegedly organizing major attacks against elites in Petionville and Kenscoff.

No matter what the cause, the Kenscoff gangs are more aggressive, and are now very close to our orphanage. The streets are abandoned of people, deliveries are not easily made to the area because of fear (for example, propane and water to the orphanage), and we are worried that we are not safe and that staff may also decide to leave the area.

So we are revisiting rather fast the issue I raised in these notes a few weeks ago: the time may be fast approaching when we have to move the children to safer areas, in the Province- a major and dangerous undertaking.

There is another religious Sister doing the same, moving two orphanages ( a total of 150 children) out of Port au Prince. And really not sure yet where she will find a place.

We have about 225 children to move, plus staff. And it may be likely to also move the 55 children and adults with special needs, with staff. The Lord really has to show us where and how.

Instead of the “Sound of Music”, this is “The Sound of Lamentations.”

With the closing of the USAID sponsorship of the 650 adults in our care, we have launched an appeal for $20/month/patient. We are glad to report we have achieved coverage for these friends in need, for three months of twelve so far. These people will certairly die without HIV and/or TB medicines. Their children will be orphans. Their illnesses are treatable, and so we fight to treat them. Thank God we have made this headway.

I went out on the streets today to pick up a donation for refugees. Gds 200,000 which is about US $1,500. I have received three other of these in recent days, a great help for the refugees all around us.

When I was out, we came across a baby goat hit by a car. The hind leg has a complete fracture below the hip. The mother tried to help the little one, but finally had to get away from the street dogs with her other little goats.

We couldn’t leave the little goat to be torn to shreds by the streets dogs- and as we left with it, people on the road were calling our “goat thieves! goat thieves!’

It was safer to get out of there there than to try to correct the narrative of a growing radicalized crowd.

See the pictures below. We brought the baby goat home, the gardeners used their country talents and made a splint out of a dried palm sheath. I bought powdered milk and we gave it by syringe. We also give childrens dose of liquid ibuprofen by syringe.

I asked the gardener to take the goat home. I said if the owner never shows up he can keep it! I gave him the rest of the powdered milk for the goat.

He said, ”For the goat? My own small children never taste milk!”

Thats an easy fix. I will send him a sack of milk.

We also successfully hand pollinated out 7th vanilla flower today. Seems rather banal when you read the human tragedies we are dealing with. But this kind of thing helps keep us sane.

May God’s blessing of peace soon be upon us, and all people suffering from violence around the world.

What I do everyday....March 3, 2025

From this morning’s gospel at Mass:

As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up,
knelt down before him, and asked him,
"Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Jesus answered him…..
You know the commandments…."
He replied and said to him,
"Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth."
Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him,
"You are lacking in one thing.
Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor
and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." (Mark 10:17-20)

To meet the astounding number of urgent humanitarian needs which are overwhelming our budget, including the cancellation of the USAID funds which supported our 600 HIV/TB patients, I am glad to sell what we have to give to the poor.

Just the new obligation we have inherited to keep the 600 people alive on medicines CRUCIAL to their survival, requires about $20 for each person per month, for an additional $12,000 per month, which is all beyond our stressed budget.

As I mentioned already, I sold our peanut butter making equipment. Today I sold my dumptruck. It is essential that we sell what we have unless we cannot possibly function without it. We can still make peanut butter by hand. It is possible to use wheelbarrows and my tractor for heavy work. It’s just harder and longer.

We will find away to keep our HIV/TB friends and colleagues alive.

We are in a new reality in Haiti, namely, the use of bombs from drones against the gangs. There have been three strikes these past few days. Everyone is becoming more radicalized in their hatred over these past six months. Understandably. But there are consequences.

The entire population, in particular, and also benevolent organizations, get doubted by both criminal rings and law enforcement, never sure whose side the “neutral” people are really on. The people’s revenge on the gangs if often enough toward the unknown innocent, and the police revenge on supposed spies for gangs in the markets and roadways, also results sometimes in the violent loss of innocent life.

On of the young men who grew up in our orphanage, Wilner Desir, was killed and burned nearby in Tabarre yesterday, in these dynamics. Wilner worked in the programs of Gena and Finesse for the disabled. We are shocked and saddened by his death. Wilner and Wilflo had also become close friends.

We tried to gather his remains today, but what was left of his earthly dwelling was already shoveled off the street by the Town Hall. Andre will try to recuperate his remains again tomorrow, for a proper burial.

We would never have imagined such difficult times when we started in Haiti in 1987. We also would never imagined such difficult times on the world scene as we are living now.

The reading from the book of Sirach this morning warned, the difference you can make after you die is the same as the difference you can make before you were born. ZERO.

The time to act is now, while we live and breathe. May our living and breathing dedicated to preserving our humanity and civilization.

Wilner Desir, rest in peace as we pray to God for you and so many others with deep grief and faith.

What I do everyday...February 25, 2025

Last night and today were full of heavy gunfire, all around the city. Delmas 30, and the area of the airport, and here in Tabarre among many other places. People were killed, houses were set on fire.

Here in Tabarre there was a massacre, and about 15 people were killed. Houses were burned. These events are just down the road- a short walk.

We honestly don’t see how this downward spiral will be stopped. Drone footage shows many emptied and destroyed areas of Port au Prince. It is troubling to think that 500,000 Haitians or more, working in the USA, might be returned to this death trap with their children. If they must be deported, another country is a better option than Haiti.

If you read this message I wrote yesterday morning, you will see how very often a pet dog fares much better in Haiti than the multitudes of poor human beings:

“When my dog Beau died during the night, I could not help but reflect on how his life over twelve years and death over three weeks was a much better life and death-one hundred times better- than the life and death of the poor people of Haiti.

Beau’s quality of life was blessed compared to Marie France and Madame Milord, two very poor and very sick women who also died last night at our St Luke hospital

In particular Marie France had bilateral breast cancer that spread to her brain.

In a country of closed hospitals and with her economic means bring zero she found no help, until her family found us at the very end of her life. Cancer is already a huge suffering for anyone in any country. Cancer with no treatment even for the final agonies of cancer pain is worse than a nightmare We did our best to manage her pain these days with round the clock fentanyl.

Her life was tougher than nails and we offered mass for her eternal peace.

I will miss Beau for sure. His life and death, companionship and witness to death, give me lessons for my life and death.

But the lessons of Mme Milord and Marie France give me lessons a hundred times more profound.

Let’s pray for peace, and the chance for the people of Haiti to live a normal and dignified life

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

All institutions here are struggling to survive. Many have failed already. Ours are greatly reduced because of the flight of professionals from our workforces, the enormous inflation, the dangers for the staff and the sick to reach our hospitals, and for students and teachers to reach a number of our schools in Port au Prince.

In order to survive I have been selling anything not totally essential, and using the money for food for refugees, surgeries for the destitute sick and victims of trauma, and to help relocate people to safer areas (more honest to say less dangerous areas).

It is sad to dismantle what was once successful and productive, but by same same token in a neighbor’s time of extreme need, its best to “sell what you possess and give to the poor.” (Matthew 19:21) I am selling the industrial seed and peanut grinder pictured below. Today I sold my small dump truck. I am sure God will keep score of our sacrifices and one day help us to build back even better than we were.

Port au Prince was just listed in a report as one of the most dangerous cities in the world to life. How did we ever slide to this level of destruction.

Please thank God with us that things are quieter in Kenscoff these days.

For the sake of our sanity, and being productive, you will see some pictures from our garden. Some of our vanilla vines are flowering, and since they need to be pollinated by hand we learned how to do it with a toothpick. See some pictures below. You will also see we have no need to curse our fig tree, as Jesus had to do with his, because it is giving us some welcome figs.

We appreciate your concern and friendship and prayers. We all strive to keep our hopes high and our good works strong. God is our helper and our strength. God is our Provident.

What I do everyday.....February 17, 2025

Dear friends,

This morning with the Sisters, we offered mass for the mother and child victims of the bandits in Kenscoff. It is a barbaric event involving the bandits forcing the mother to throw her baby into the fire or be killed. The young mother was forced to do so, and ran off and went crazy, and died of profound distress.

I hate to even repeat such a hateful and painful story, but it shows what terror is being inflicted on the population. Also, for those of us who are believers, our prayerful sharing in their suffering by lamenting their passion and death before God grounds us in compassion and trust in God’s final judgement and victory

There was also a massacre of 13 people, last night or this morning, in our area of Tabarre.

You can well imagine why, when we got near Kenscoff today, we had to pass through three different brigades of masked local people with machetes. They are so radicalized against the kinds of crimes I just mentioned, that they are vigilant against anyone approaching Kenscoff (and many other areas) that if they find an armed person or a person with no proof of identity, they are killed by the blade on the spot. This happens all around the country.

The roads were timid above Fort Jacques and beyond. Everyone knows the bandits are still present, in hiding. Kenson had mentioned that the police had returned in force last night, to prevent another attack. We saw them reenforcing their numbers again today about 4pm, by the time we were heading down the mountain.

We arrived at St Helen about 2pm with 20 sacks of rice, 10 sacks of beans, 4 cases of oil to help with the extras at meals (refugees). The best plan and the one being followed is when the day is free of shooting, the refugees return to the homes and gardens and come back to sleep in safety.

This works for refugees where we are (in Obleon) but not in Furcy, because many of those refugees had their simple, peasant houses burned.

We had the same quantities of food for the Furcy refugees, and they came to St Helene to get them.

We also had complete emergency kits for the refugee compounds, 10 each for St Helene and Furcy.

We also had three well prepared bullet injury kits for the police combat vehicles. They include tourniquets, injections to promote clotting where pressure banadages wont work (internal injuries), and thick compression gauze and pads, with elastic bandaging. We are also working on getting powder for blood clotting (BleedStop) and rapid Seal Wound Gel from USA.

This is especially a challenge with closed airports and borders.

We found Nirva, Kenson and all the team to be in good spirits in the face of their dangers and we are heartened by this.

There are two pictures of delivery below.

Also, as I was leaving for Kenscoff, Timario brought Jeannine and her mother to see me. Jeannine’s surgery for hydrocephalus went very well. Even though it is distressing to see such a huge head, anyone who saw the pre-surgery picture can see how relaxed and unstressed Jeannine looks now, in the third picture below, all thanks to God.

What I do every day...February 16, 2025

Dear friends,

If you reread what I wrote on Feb 7 about bandit attacks near our NPH Childrens home in Kenscoff (St Helene), today some of the concerns of that day came to pass.

At about 2am this morning, bandits started attacking the area around us, targeting some private houses, and the Teleco communication antennas vital in part to police communication.

Kenson called me early this morning as things were unfolding. He said the orphanage was flooded with some 250 refugees (neighbors running for shelter), that one was injured by a bullet, that shooting was intense all around.

He told me that he was able to send the injured down the mountain. I told him that as soon as I got Andre, Jocelynson and Fanfan we would be on our way there to help.

My goal was to be in shoulder to shoulder solidarity, help figure out how to manage the unfolding dangers, and when I returned to Tabarre to bring anyone with me who wanted to leave.

I only got as far as Petionville, because the police were forbidding any vehicles to enter the Kenscoff area except their own, and because we were warned that both vigilante groups and the bandits were radicalized on high adrenaline, and often attack approaching vehicles who the suspect are coming with bad intentions.

Even if I was in my ambulance, very often crimes are done in stolen vehicles like ambulances, and criminals often wear stolen uniforms of doctors or police to reinforce the criminal activity.

If anyone were injured on site, or if the bandits had stormed St Helene, of set fire to any part of it, I would have persisted against all danger to get there, but frequent updates from Kenson showed this was not the case. So we did not persist.

By the end of the day the police were reinforced and drove the gangs off. But the police left again, and the gangs will surely return.

Among the casualties of law enforcement officers was John Calo. John taught music in our St Helene home from 1998 to 2009. His wife, Immacula, is the cook for our guest house at St Helene. John was killed in the line of duty. We mourn his loss, we grieve with Immacula and her family, and we honor John for defending the people of the mountain.

We will find the best way to support Immacula, as well as the 250 refugees within the embrace of our walls.

Andre reminded me of the funeral at St Helene, in 1999, of the American nun. Sister Grace Jennings was from Vermont. She was a School Sister of Notre Dame, a missionary for most of her life in Puerto Rico. She came to us from there when she was very old, and was a wonderful caregiver to very sick and dying children at our original St Damien Hospital in Petionville.

Sister Grace was a poet, and I remember very well how when she was frustrated or angry about something, she turned it into a poem and promptly hung it on the main bulletin board. The poems were clever, biting, and very funny.

After some years, Sr Grace had a stroke and we burried her at St Helene. John, pictured below, as the music teacher, prepared the music for her funeral. He had taught a dozen children from St Helene to play a dirge on their flutes, and they followed me in a long procession as we led Sister Grace’s ashes from the gate to our own cemetery. The music was sweet when they played together, which is hard to do when walking and one cannot hear the other. At their off moments the music sounded like a bunch of cats trying to get out of a burlap bag.

I pictured the flutes as the musical version of one of Grace’s poems.

I tell this story because to say “there were deaths” is as cold as a number. But to say “who died” brings grateful memory and deep regret.

May John’s soul be sped to heaven by God’s mercy, and may God help each of us to light up the path to peace, from the very place each of us is standing, here and now.

What I do everyday, February 10, 2025

Lots of shooting nearby, at Tabarre bridge and Croix des Bouquets as police square off with bandits.

Also lot’s of shooting in Kenscoff mountains, especially Berlot.

Estimates of those killed in the Kenscoff mountains (Bonga, Carrefour Bet, Berlot, and many other places) is at least 150, and refugees there are estimated at 5,000. Today we will invest Gds 210,000 (US $1600) to buy bales of clothes and sheets to send to the mountain refugees.

A drop in the bucket, but at least there is still a bucket to drop into.

Part of the work with the street children yesterday was filmed by Stevenson on his phone (viedo below) . It’s not a professional clip but will show a few things: the enthusiasm of the street youth for help, how the distribution has to stop occasionally to get them respect order, and the plastic baskets the team bought for them because the distribution is of sweets and treats for them to resell on the street to make a little cash.

Also, a long awaited moment for our farm: some of our VANILLA vines have first buds. Vanilla require manual pollenation, so we are watching youtube videso to be ready. See the buds below.