A very short trip but full of good
things to report: beginning with the comment above and then the reaction of Andy Robinson, President of
RG Management Consulting who accompanied me and was coming to the Foyer for the
third time, but hadn’t been here in two years: “there is real progress,” also from Philippe Bruno, a recently retired French lawyer living in Washington, “it’s impressive how it works.”
The new building, constructed
thanks to Oulton College of Canada, houses the 7th grade class, the
library, and the new infirmary. The banana trees are bearing a large harvest of
nearly ripe bananas and the manioc plants have grown. A new septic tank,
the trenches marking the future bakery, small fruit trees, and a new order of
200 chicks; all of these are steps towards a stronger infrastructure.
Samuel
and Mirlaine began their university courses to become teachers! This is the second group of children to seek further education after finishing high school. Another good step!
And there is Maud’s new initiative: the
development of a multipurpose center on a field that she can use thanks to her
position on the management committee of C. O. H. A. N. A car wash just started up, managed by
Sébastien with the support of some of the older boys. Farah began a stand where
she sells some delicious Haitian “pâtés”. In the afternoon she makes pizzas thanks to the small propane oven
which we brought last March (an idea suggested by a Loyola University student
who, having done some in-depth research, found that the sale of pizzas in this
manner should be a lucrative micro-business). The project is launched and we
are at the observation stage.
This location will house in
addition to the car wash: the bar-restaurant, the pâté-pizza stand, a
barber/hair salon, and a spare parts shop. These last two projects are under
study.
More good news: the presence of
Sister Anna-Maria, an Ursuline nun who decided to devote her extensive
experience and her talents as a nurse practitioner to the children. She has a
project of building a clinic with a waiting room, a dental radiology room (she
already has the equipment for this), a treatment room, and pharmacy, with
housing upstairs for resident nurses or nurses in training. Her preceding two
clinics with a team of three salaried employees became self-sufficient in a year! It’s a large and magnificent
project whose funding rises to around $340,000. A little scary but Sister Anna
seems so determined and demonstrates such confidence in the good completion of
a project that has been maturing for a year, that she convinced our small team
to help her promote her proposition to various potential donors.
Much more modest but still positive, four of the teenagers
have given the summaries, for the second time, of 27 books that, all together,
they read since the month of July (Iphigénie, La dame aux camellias, among
others). They receive a reward for each book they read and summarize. And then
Venise, 14-years-old, took the initiative to sew pretty pencil cases (cut from
large table cloths) all by herself. It’s an original way to recycle fabric.
If the pictures are not here, it is because I lost the technology battle between my phone, my pc and a mysterious cloud!
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