Can I just say something?
Because Haiti is in the mess that it is, tonight Matt is up at the generator house with a truck-load of men with barrels of fuel from Port-au-Prince, trying to get us all more days.
Because of the ongoing, ongoing, ongoing fuel shortage, we cannot pull up to a gas station and get fuel for our car, much less fuel for the generator. Because of the fuel situation, six men and a truck bought some in Port au Prince, 100 miles away before dawn. Because of the road situation, it took them until tonight to get here. Because of the violence/insecurity situation, men with guns stopped and tried to rob them. Because of all that, Phil spent the last many days building and mounting a fuel pump so that when we can find fuel like this, we can pump it into the tank.
So Matt and a crew of men in the dark, trying to transfer 300 gallons.
That is all ridiculous and infuriating and frustrating.
I headed up to check on them and saw instead what CONTINUES to be beautiful about Haiti...her people.
These friends bought the fuel before sun-up in the most dangerous part of Haiti.
They drove over the most dangerous and terrible road to get from the South to the North...in the back of a dump truck in the Caribbean sun.
They looked into guns and carried on.
They finally got to the North and their work was just beginning.
They delivered fuel several places before they got to Emmaus.
They haven't eaten since morning.
They finally get here, it's pitch black...and our pump malfunctions.
And instead of arguing, instead of screaming, instead of losing their minds, instead of quitting, instead of dumping the barrels and leaving, instead of telling us it was our problem (which it was), instead of fighting or charging more money or losing it--when I came up to check on Matt--they were all working together, with patience and grace and flashlights and innovation, to fix it.
Men who don't know us were siphoning fuel with their mouths and spitting it out to get the tubes clear. Maxi, very off the clock, heard the commotion and jumped the wall, in moments sweaty and dirty and helping. Men in the back of the dump truck were helping men on the ground work through ideas on the problem and how to get it working again, our security guard was holding the flashlight, and when I came back from the office with Gatorades, everyone stopped to politely thank me.
Haiti is a MESS.
But men like these--I don't even know their names--they refuse to throw up their hands and be victims.
They refuse to stay home.
They refuse to lose it.
You want to know how people are feeding their families right now? Like this.
They are feeding their families and paying for the hope that their kids WILL go to school, someday--at no small sacrifice, buying and selling and delivering fuel honestly at honest prices in a dishonest day, they are working together, they are working all hours, they are taking great risks, they are working as hard as they can, doing all that they can, to overcome simply impossible circumstances.
I haven't been able to pull up to a gas station and get 10 gallons of gas in our car...for...months.
That doesn't mean Haiti is a bad place to be.
That doesn't mean I am not proud to be here.
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