18763: From Kathy Grey, racine125@aol.com - Here I Am in Jacmel... (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Racine125@aol.com

Here I am in Jacmel, Corbetteers.  I send you all greetings!

 I went to Port-au-Prince yesterday, that was Tuesday, to bring my newest
 international initiate to town.  He hopes to get a flight tomorrow
 (Wednesday) and the airport is supposed to be open as I am writing this,
 perhaps that will change.  It was quite a calm trip to Port-au-Prince and
 back to Jacmel.  Port-au-Prince looks like it is in dire need of an army
 of street-sweeping machines, garbage is just piled up in waves and waves
 at intersections.

 Here in Jacmel, though, life goes on much as usual.  The town is still
 clean and reasonably active, although the banks and Western Union are as
 yet not in function.  There has been little or no destruction here to my
 knowledge - some pot-shots taken at one local business, but no injuries,
 no loss of life, again to my knowledge.  The Commissariat was not burned,
 though I think Teleco was a bit deplumed, you know?  In fact, the day
 after Aristide departed, the right-wing folks here were saying that they
 had sent Aristide away but they didn't send the police away, and would
 all the police please come out, come out, wherever you are!  LOL  And
 please come back to work!

 The surrounding countryside is quiet, people are a bit fearful but there
 is no terror like in 1993.  For a while a group of young men with a
 shotgun were joyriding up and down in a camionette, but they have
 stopped, probably because like everyone else they have run out of gas.

 That's our problem here now - gasoline.  We need more fuel to run
 Jacmel's electric generator. (That's why you haven't heard from me in a
 while, no electricity means no internet.  Plus I just finished my second
 kanzo in two months.)

 And hyperinflation!  Food is just out of the realm of reality now, pretty
 soon we are all going to be eating boiled dirt.  Gas prices have gone up
 too, and everything else is following suit behind that.

 This brings me, dear Corbetteers, to a stark evaluation of reality.  The
 average rural Haitian here in the Jacmel area didn't want Aristide to go,
 they wanted him to finish his term, but they don't really care that he is
 gone, either.  What they care about is getting enough to eat!  People are
 hungry, hungry every day, hungry all the time.  No one is going to be
 bothered to vote in any damnfool election again, when the people's
 landslide choice has now been exiled twice in a row!  All anyone here
 cares about now is eating.

 People want to work!  They don't want to steal, they want to work and
 earn enough money to buy enough food to eat decently, and go to the
 doctor if they need to.  So whoever the rulers bring in here now to run
 the show, that person had better know that they didn't come in by
 election and they are not going to stay by any fake "election" either,
 they are going to stay if people start to eat.  If hunger gets worse, or
 if there is no improvement, they will be out before long too.

Peace and love,

Kathy S. Grey