Protests in Cap Haitian

The past three days there have been a lot of protests and riots in and around the Cap Haitien and Milot area.  It started off with people throwing rocks/bottles and burning tires, but has since escalated.  There is a rumor going around Northern Haiti right now that the Cholera bacteria (which has killed over 1000 Haitians and spread through out the entire country) was brought in by someone from the UN.  People have decided that they no longer want the UN present in this country and are now attacking all UN compounds in the area.

The UN personel who were here previously are not allowed to fight, but we have heard that they are, or possibly already have brought in the UN army who will help.

At first we assumed that this would all die down after a day or two, but it is still going on.  Haiti is no stranger to these activities.  When COTP was started 10 years ago these were every day activities.  On our recent trip to Minnesota the founder of COTP was telling me stories similar to these.  In recent years things have calmed down a lot and this doesn't happen nearly as often.

We have heard that things are getting better, but we have also heard that nothing is changing.  Due to these activities the Cap airport and the local Haiti/DR border are currently closed.  Nick flies into the DR tonight at midnight (assuming he makes it since his first flight was delayed) and was originally going to walk across the border.  We now are unsure of when he will be able to cross.  I made him promise me that he will not attempt it until we are 100% positive that he can do so safely.  This means that he may spend several days, or maybe even longer in the DR.  It's going to kill me knowing that my husband is only an hour away, but completely unreachable.  I just want him back home with us, spending time with our new son!

Children of the Promise is about 3 miles outside of Cap, in the middle of no where.  This may not seem far, but with these roads it's about 45 minutes, if your lucky enough to own a car or moto which most people dont.  There has been no violence here and we feel completely safe.  We have a decent supply of most things we need and have people who are getting the few things that we are low on.  None of us will go in town until everything is back to normal.

Please pray that things calm down soon and most importantly pray for the safety of our nannies and their families.  We are only having the nannies from Lagossette (where we live) and other local villages work for a while so that the Cap nannies don't have to worry about coming out in the middle of all the fighting.  Our nannies, and a lot of Haitians believe that the best way to bring about peace is prayers, therefore they had a worship session that lasted several hours last night after all the babies went to bed.  They sang and prayed and it was beautiful.  I could hear it as I laid in bed trying to fall asleep.  Please join our nannies in pray and help bring this to an end.