Tropical Storm Emily

For the past couple of Days I kept getting email updates from Nick, who is in the States, with warnings of hurricane coming directly at Cap.  I asked our yard guys to prepare the compound and they all thought I was crazy saying it wouldn't be anything big, just rain and wind like normal when these come.  Nick was convinced of otherwise.

Each day Nick sent me a new update saying that it was less and less of a big deal.  Well the storm is past us and all we saw was a slight sprinkle and tiny bit of rain.

Although I myself was really hoping for a bit of a storm, I was thankful that we didn't actually get one.  Rain is kind of my guilty pleasure here.  When it rains, Haiti shuts down.  Haitians HATE rain.  It means our gate is quite.  If it rains hard enough, our internet goes out.  The nannies and all of our staff members stay in the baby house cause they refuse to come out in the rain.  All of these things mean that I get to spend extra time with my family, something that is difficult to ever get enough of here.

However when it rains, I think about all of our staff members, community member, and people from our various programs who have in adequate housing.  Whose roofs leak and they have water coming in.  Who sleep on the floor because they have no bed, which quickly turns to mud.

For their sake, and the sake of 600,000 people living in tents in Port au Prince, I'm really glad that the hurricane missed almost all of Haiti.

Please pray that we don't have any storms this year because for many Haitians there is no other options.  They have no where to turn to get away from the weather or to prepare for it.  It is what it is and their lives could potentially be turned upside down again.