Hi everyone,
I guess we have come full circle in Haiti – things get bad, the U.N. comes in, things settle down – the U.N. leaves, things get bad again. All because of politics. This has been a continuing cycle for the nearly 25 years we have been working there.
Haiti has almost always had to borrow money from other countries or the World Monetary Fund to function. Almost everything they have needs to be imported: rice, gas, diesel, cars, food, lumber … everything you can think of. As a result, the cost is much higher than we pay
here.
Their government has always needed to subsidize those things to make them affordable, or more affordable. The new government wants to drop those subsidies; as a result, things like cooking oil went up to $11 a gallon, not to mention $6 a gallon gas. In doing that, the government saves the money spent on the subsidies and can use it on other projects the country needs.
But the people aren’t having it, and if you make just $3 a day – on average – I guess we can understand why there are protests in the streets. You can see both sides of the argument, but it seems there could be a different way to go about it … by both sides.
Every day the Embassy sends out security alerts about where its safe to go or not safe to go. Most of the unsafe areas are strategic spots, so any roadblock will shut everything down. If you are going out of town, you may get out, but then may not be able to get back home and vice-versa.
Unfortunately, this also affects things like the schools and nutrition programs of every ministry in Haiti. The schools close to keep the school kids off the streets, and the rising cost affects the programs. The budgets prepared a year ago do not reflect today’s higher prices.
Normally school would end the second week of June, but who knows this year? They may not get much of a summer vacation. Since only one of our schools is in town, those in villages north of Port Au Prince are not often affected by protests. But the price increases are country-wide and affect everyone.
With June comes the start of hurricane season so let’s pray at least this is a quiet season. Thank you for helping our friends there and keeping them in your prayers.
