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In January and February and up until March, Haiti suffered a tsunami of kidnapping. Nobody in Port au Prince felt safe, and nobody was exempt as a target by the kidnappers. Kidnapping in Haiti is part of a worldwide and age old disgrace, the abomination of taking another human being into bondage. A good friend…

Although there is a return to normalcy in Haiti following last year’s protests and national lockdown, not much is resolved. While children are able to go to school again, and business and community life is back to its usual rhythm, there is a general sense of insecurity mostly the result from happenings in Port au…

  For the past 2 months Haiti has been wracked by massive protests and street unrest. Little by little I felt the noose around my neck get tighter and tighter. The space to move became smaller and smaller until I was mostly restricted to my house, and each step outside was an adventure of courage…

October 3, 2019 I have now spent one week in the countryside. And I am seeing another Haiti, a Haiti a lot poorer than what I have ever imagined. Here people really do not have anything, only what nature allows them to have, like avocados, guavas, bananas, plantains, etc. There is hardly any commerce here,…

October 1, 2019  I am writing today from Jean Bellune, a small rural community about a 2-hour drive from Jeremie. I felt I had to leave Jeremie with all the demonstrations happening, because they make life so much more difficult. At the moment of this writing every town is “blocked”; that means it is almost…

    After a 2 months stay in the US, it was time to return to Haiti. The situation in Haiti before I left for the US, had gotten to me, and I had become seriously depressed and discouraged. I have the chance and the luxury to recharge my batteries with family and friends ‘lot…

As I am preparing to return to Haiti after a summer break in Chicago, I reflected on why living in Haiti is not easy. The reason is that we in Haiti are constantly living in the gap between hope and despair. Just before I came to the US for a summer break, I had given…

The Living Jesus and the Monk’s Alphabet Jesus had a way of looking at things that was very far from the ordinary, even contradictory to common sense. All of his careful teachings and powerful examples served the purpose of helping us to see clearly, to understand, and to discern as if our lives depended on it,…

Insight from Haiti: Dear family and friends, When I returned to St Damien Hospital at about 5pm yesterday afternoon, after spending the day buying medicines for our hospitals, there was a woman in the hallway holding a small child, and I sensed something was very wrong. She was not crying, but her face revealed a…

Insight from Haiti: Social and political tensions in Haiti have reached their flash points over the past number of months, and we have been living, with more intensity these days, what seems like the dangerous and cynical unraveling of a nation. The spiral of violence and destruction is both tragic and maddening. The simply stated…