Flamand School
Upon arriving at Flamand school we found many students absent,
but teachers hard at work with their classes, two of which are held in the
chapel. Rumors that the President had
announced holidays for both Thursday and Friday following closings the first
three days of the week had resulted in poor attendance at all schools.
Antonine Jinius, director of Flamand, was not at our meeting
Wednesday, nor at the school on Friday, but she showed up at the rectory upon
our return. Myriame also came by and the
two sat down to discuss the possibility of local parents running the nutrition
program in Flamand. I have since heard
that Myriame visited Flamand a couple of days later.
Flamand Clinic
The two government-paid nurses arrived at the clinic during our
visit. They complained that the lack of
funding meant that the refrigerator had no gas.
There is no electricity in Flamand.
The nurses arrived on their motorbike (from Les Cayes) and they had brought vaccines for babies in a
cooler. We saw the inoculation records
they have maintained over the years on the children of the community. As we drove away, women with babies in their
arms were arriving. This is a close-knit
community, but a poor one; largely due to poor soil and the decline in fish
stock due to over-fishing. We were told
that the fishermen were using nets with smaller openings in order to return
home with something at the end of the day.
The result is depletion of the fish stock. The dugout canoes and hand-made larger boats
of Flamand cannot go far enough off-shore to sustain the fishing industry.
Immaculate Conception School
Before leaving for Port-au-Prince, we climbed up the hill to see
the IC School that Fr. Lampy built after two floods of the town center prompted
him to seek higher ground. We had seen
the new classrooms in the old IC compound earlier in the week when we visited
the mill that is housed in the same courtyard.
We assumed that they were one part of the IC school with the rest on top
of the hill beside the secondary school.
When we got to the secondary school the only new construction
was a cell phone tower...that we hope is providing income to the parish! Father Lampy then told us that the
replacement for IC was in fact the new classrooms in the old compound in the
center of town.
In June of 2010 we sent $31,500 to Fr. Lampy, of which $10,000
was for the rebuilding of IC up on the hill, $10,000 for KAMAK’s move to
Berrette, $5,000 for solar panels on all the schools, $5,500 to replace the
motor at the mill, and $1,000 for a micro-credit project for teenage
mothers. Fr. Lampy wrote us on Feb. 9,
2011 that he had used all the money for the rebuilding of the school, except
for the $1,000 for the micro-credit project.
He asked for our understanding and continued support of his priorities.
No comments:
Post a Comment