Today while the laundry was in the washer at Hands and Feet, Nick and Danny hiked up the landslide trail. Nick said it was pretty much the coolest thing he'd ever done-- they found several new waterfalls and pools of clean, clear water-- but they also found things like this:
That was someone's house. Later, we had heard that the road going towards Seguin was no good, so we took a drive to check it out. Danny and Leann lived in Seguin their first year in Haiti, and that was where I met them 2 and a half years ago. Well, they won't be getting to Seguin any time soon-- because the concrete pad over the river is out... and it's probably a 3-4 foot drop from the road to the water. It was dark when we saw it, but this is a photo:
On our drive there (30 mins?) we saw 4 separate landslides. The devastation is unthinkable. My heart is so tired. The news justs keeps getting worse and worse. It rained all day long today-- really hard rain in the morning. Looking at the radar, it looks like it's going to pick up again tonight. In fact, it may not stop raining for any length of time before we leave on Monday. The good new is that apparently the road to Port Au Prince is good. We know of at least 2 people who have arrived from there in the last day who didn't have any trouble... so we feel very comfortable leaving Monday.The thing that's been the hardest to take in has just been the injustice of all of this. There were so many lives lost during this storm-- so many homes destroyed. And yet, there is NO help for the people here. They just need to pick themselves up and start over. No National Guard rescuing people, no Red Cross responding to the Emergency, you don't see any FEMA trailers... nothing. In fact, they were reporting today on the Haitian radio that several UN helicopters were supposed to come into Jacmel to assess damage, and they were grounded in Port Au Prince because of the heavy rains. Who will help these people? It's just heart-breaking...
We are all getting a little stir crazy. The 28 kids here now (the HCH kids, the Pye kids and our kids) really haven't been out since this all started. We're so tired of the rain. Everything is damp. It's so hard not to get overwhelmed.
One thing I wanted to address... I am not sorry we came. I am not sorry we brought our kids. Yeah, they've been a handful at times (especially today!), but I would have been much more uncomfortable if they WEREN'T here with us, than having them here. Please pray for them to continue to be troopers. Please pray for US to continue to be troopers. Please pray that we could have clear direction to know how to help...
