Hi everyone,
It hasn’t made the news here much, but you may know Haiti is having problems again — this time because the government was trying to raise petroleum prices. Briefly, the price of gas went up by 38 percent, diesel 47 percent and kerosene 51 percent.
There are few things Haiti doesn’t need to import, which causes the price of those things to be much higher than we pay here. Major among those are petroleum products, from regular unleaded to diesel and kerosene. Many houses, especially in the villages, still use kerosene lamps. One of the largest local “industries” is tap-taps, Haiti’s form of public transportation. Raising gas prices causes one of two problems for everyone. One, the drivers can’t afford to buy it, or they pass that cost on to the riders. Two, no one can afford to pay for the ride, so generally everything just shuts down.
There are few peaceful demonstrations in Haiti and this wasn’t either. In fact, the country completely shut down for a couple of days. Obviously, that helps no one but it did get the government to remove the increases. But now, no one wants their kids going anywhere alone. So most of the schools in the villages haven’t been able to have their end of year classes, and our schools have not been able to give out their end of year report cards yet.
We had wanted to plan a trip down in August, but the State Department has a level 3 travel advisory, which means don’t go unless absolutely necessary – so we’ll wait!
Thank you for helping our friends in Haiti and keeping Terry’s health needs in your prayers.
