A 36-Hour Christmas Adventure, a Christmas Miracle?
The week started off gloomy and rainy. Tuesday, rain, Wednesday, rainnnnnnnnn, Thursday. More rain.
A look at the attendance at our Cap Haitien Maternity Center will give you an idea of just how troublesome this weather was for folks in Northern Haiti.
On Tuesday we saw just 11 prenatal clients when we typically see 60 to 75
Wednesday was an infant immunization day. Surprisingly 5 parents ventured outside. But a typical immunization day we see around 90 parents with their infants.
Thursday we see an average of 75 attendees for our two-hour prenatal education class. Zero people showed.
With all the rain, Jenn started to get nervous about how the week’s festivities would play out.
The week before Christmas is one of the busiest weeks of the year.
In addition to all the activities necessary for closing out a year, we also have our Staff Holiday Parties (one for each campus) and community food distribution to 1500 people.
Mainly, rain can be pretty disastrous for unpaved roads, especially the mountain roads that lead to our second campus, in Saint Raphaël, Haiti.
The staff party in Cap Haitien was scheduled for Friday and the staff party in Saint-Raphael was scheduled for Thursday. The community food distributions for each campus were scheduled for Friday morning.
The plan was that a few key members of our Cap Haitien team would drive the staff gifts for the Saint Raphael team up and over the mountain on Thursday. They would attend the party scheduled for 12 pm and return back home.
HR Manager and Lead Psychologist, Louino, Dacheline, also a psychologist, also a very fabulous photographer, and Herode, Operations Manager in the driver’s seat.
With each day of rain, this trip had more and more question marks.
Would there be enough time for the road to dry out?
Would parts of the road become impassable?
Would the team be able to make it?
Louino felt strongly that they had to at least try.
And so the three, brave adventurers arrived at the Cap Haitien Maternity Center at 7 AM on Thursday morning dressed head to toe in rain gear, ready to depart for Saint-Raphaël.
We packed the car with gifts and gift bags and the “Fearless Three” waited for the green light.
But there was a new problem.
Much earlier that morning, there had been a bit of an incident involving the main gate at the Maternity Center and the driver of a vehicle who had arrived at 2 AM to drop off a laboring client.
In the heat of the moment, he’d forgotten to put the car in park and it had rolled forward, denting and damaging the gate. The damage made the gate difficult to open and now, it would not open at all.
The driver had been distraught and promised to return first thing in the morning with “his people” to repair the damage.
Sure enough he and “his people” also appeared at the Maternity Center at 7 AM and ith enough people (8 to be exact), the gate was lifted and moved. The truck was able to pass.
Jenn and Amy planned to attend the party as well, but a last minute illness kept Jenn in bed. The fearless 3 were on their way!
In average conditions, this drive takes about 2 hours (18 miles from our Cap Haitien site)—but 2 hours and 20 minutes after their departure, 9:50 AM we got the first call.
Stuck, again.
But this time, they were really stuck—halfway up the mountain, behind a line of vehicles all sharing a common problem. At the front of the line, a sideways semi was motionless in the mud.
This was fairly inevitable considering the conditions, but the fact that the stuck vehicle blocked the entire road was particularly unfortunate. It was now a matter of how long they would all be stuck in this line up.
After an hour of waiting, it was time for a plan B. Priority 1: Safety! Priority 2: Getting those staff gifts to the Christmas Party!
Fortunately, there were vehicles lining up on the other side of the road. Ready to transport any passengers or cargo that happened to be stuck in the line-up.
While Herode stayed with the vehicle. Dacheline and Louino loaded up the gifts and boarded a Tap Tap on the other side of the roadblock.
It took them another 1.5 hours to make it to Saint Raphael city center where members of the Saint Raphael team were waiting with motorcycles to bring them the rest of the way.
The party was scheduled for 12 pm. Louino and Dacheline and the presents made it to the Center by 12:40.
There would be a Holiday Party after all!
Dacheline creating gift bags
It took Herode another 5 hours to make it past the road block and up the mountain in the Second Mile Haiti vehicle. But by 3 pm he arrived. Fun was had by all.
Now there was the question of getting back to Cap Haitien.
The fearless 3 set-off at 4 pm with bellies full of party food, a camera full of photos, and hearts full of warm feelings from the time spent with their more remote colleagues.
Herode and Louino, happy to have pulled off the party afterall
They were on the road for just 50 minutes before they were stuck again. It was dark now and the probability of the road clearing any time soon was unlikely.
Fortunately, they weren’t stuck-stuck.
Herode had just enough cash on hand to pay for accommodations for the three to spend the night in a nearby town.
In the morning they were back on the road, that is until they were stuck for the fourth time in less than 24 hours.
This time there was no time to waste.
It was a big day for the Cap Haitien team, starting with the community food distribution that morning and the staff party in the afternoon.
With so much on the line, Dacheline and Louino immediately jumped on alternate forms of transportation, north of the blockage.
On their trip down the mountain they saw wreckage from the day before: abandoned vehicles, mudslides, and more stuck and broken down vehicles blocking the road.
This led Louino to believe that Herode wouldn’t even make it back that same day.
But Jenn had more faith.
And sure enough Herode arrived an hour later, covered in mud from head to toe.
The three changed into fresh clothes and managed to fulfill their respective duties before celebrating with the Cap Haitien team.
sending off 20 families at the nutrition center,
distributing food to 750 people in the community of Jean Louis…
finishing off the last workday before the holiday break,
and setting up for the second Staff Party.
It’s days like this where it feels especially rewarding to be a part of such an adaptive and resilient team.
This was not our first rodeo. It wasn’t the first time we were hampered by fierce weather or rough roads.
It wasn’t our first time swerving around figurative (and literal) road blocks to make the impossible possible.
In fact, nothing feels impossible when you work together.
We are so grateful to all of you and so happy to share this snapshot of our December with you.
You are every bit a part of this team as these people right here.
We love and appreciate you and thank you for making it possible to serve and love our communities so well.
❤️ from Haiti and Merry Christmas to those who celebrate