Sacrifice in French or in English is the name of a beautiful piece of land that we were able to purchase with great financial help from our donors in The Netherlands. This is where we will rebuild our orphanage. The expectations are that it will take years before the clean up in Haiti is completed, and buildings will be rebuild. So it is really fantastic that we found this piece of land just outside the city of Jakmel to rebuild our orphanage.
Sacrifice was owned by a very good friend of mine, Reginald Turnier, who “sacrificed” it to us for a very reasonable price.
Very, very sad news……….last Sunday June 13th 2010 our little Idoris has passed away, at 10.20 AM.
Idoris was our little boy who, even though he just had turned 3 last May 17th 2010, looked like a 6 months old baby, because he was severely handicapped.
On May 17th 2007 Idoris was left at the doorsteps of the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in DesChapelles in the north of Haiti. According to the doctor who examined him at that time he was a day old, and at that time it was not apparent something was wrong with Idoris.
In 2 days, on Wednesday 19 and Thursday 20 May 2010 we build a temp house with the help of Dave Bird from Calvary Chapel and his group of 12 volunteers.
For weeks now the rainy season is in full gear. Lots of heavy rains, wind and too many problems for all of us who are living in tent camps. There is mud everywhere, the water with mud enters our Unicef tent every-time it rains.
The plastic roof that covers our daytime area does not hold up under the heavy rain etc etc.
This is a preview of
Kay Angel Orphanage’s New Temporary Home – Jacmel, Haiti
.
Read the full post (576 words, 36 images, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)
Since a few weeks some schools have re-opened.
The kindergarten Claire Fontaine, where 4 of our kids go to school, Yakime, Luckson, Kettia and Yakime’s younger brother Sylvaince was heavily damaged by the earthquake, unsafe and closed.
But since the end of March this school, which used to be walking distance from our orphanage has re-opened, mind you all the way at the other end of Jakmel on a rented piece of land, with make shift class rooms that are open to all the elements.
Thursday 29 April 2010:
I am madly in Love……………………….
with our new car: A great Toyota Granvia minivan, diesel, 4 cylinders, 3 liter engine, imported straight from Japan by a local car-dealer, year 1996, only 80,000 miles on it 
This car makes such a difference in our life, makes life so much less stressful, gives us freedom and a little more normalcy in life again, even-though the orphanage still lives in tents.
Toyota Granvia minivan
As some of you may already know Martin, his mother, three volunteers and myself recently went to Haiti. The plan was to come down so that we could build some emergency shelter for our kids that had been donated by Pacific Domes. Unfortunately due to shipping complications we have not received the domes yet and none of us were able to complete the job that had originally brought us down. For some of us this trip would be much more then helping out at the orphanage and one of our neighboring organizations, it would be a trip where we got experience Haiti and how amazing this country is.
Saturday 28 Maart 2010
The day before yesterday, thursdayevening the big sailboat from Holland “Tres Hombres” had finally arrived in PAP after sailing for about 6 weeks.
Arjan van der Veen, the captain called me to inform me that they were not able to dock in Jakmel, and so if I could come and meet them in the harbor of PaP. He also told me that customs had taken all the goods that my family had send for us, like clothes, shoes, lots and lots of diapers, and fun games, and that that would not be released until next week.
So I decided to take the triplets with me and just make this day into a fun outing for all of us, visiting this Dutch pirate-ship. None of our kids had been anywhere other than around our campsite, or the Jakmel beach a few times since the earthquake and on the way to PaP I left my camera in the hands of Youseline. Following some shots of what captured her photographic eye on the way.
Visiting Haiti has never been easy. After a few trips, though, I had gotten used to the nation’s peculiar blend of chaos and charm. Post-earthquake, the recipe has changed. “Now with Extra Chaos!” is the unfortunate, new reality in Haiti.
You would think that the flood of media images would have appropriately set my expectations, but they couldn’t suppress the visions of the suffering witnessed by buildings like these:
There are tents everywhere now. On fields, by the side of the road, and even on median strips of major city streets. Three feet and a thin sheet of Coleman Nylon is all that separates people’s “bedrooms” from honking, speeding, diesel-spewing, 24/7 traffic.
Tuesday 2 March 2010:
This morning the team from Unicef came at 7 AM to set up the 42 square meter tent they had given us last saturday. It is quite a big structure and it took a whole team to set it up. They anchored it in the ground at several places to make it a safe sturdy home.
We then created a ground cover with tarps and moved in our school, dining room, tv room and playroom / afternoon napping-time room. It feels so good to be “indoors” again.
Sunday 28 February 2010:
Last night my very good friend Andrew Bigosinski from Cine Institute called me to tell me that there is a whole crew made up of gaffers and grip that came in from New York with a container full of donated generators and other electrical equipment. They call themselves Friends of Cine Institute, and are donating and installing full electrical systems to those who are in need for that. Andou (his Haitian nickname) asked me if we could use one.
This is a preview of
Generator Donated by Friends of Cine Institute Jacmel Haiti
.
Read the full post (264 words, 14 images, estimated 1:03 mins reading time)
Tuesday 23 February 2010:
This morning 2 engineers from the town of Jakmel came to inspect our house. They checked all the cracks and support poles of the house, and declared the house officially uninhabitable.
Something we already knew of course since the evening of 12 January 2010. ;-(
They also officially forbid us to enter the house.
The red circle with dot means uninhabitable, the number 110 signifies how many houses have been declared uninhabitable by them in our neighborhood up till the inspection of our house.
Officially declared uninhabitable
Permanent link to this post (7 words, 11 images, estimated 2 secs reading time)
Officially declared uninhabitable
Jesula was born on April 11th, 2007. At about nine months old her mother passed away from AIDS and Jesula was left at an orphanage. The nuns prayed very hard for Jesula but against their prayers, she tested positive for HIV. 
Thursday, July 22, 2010
0 Comments