Development

With the second anniversary of the Earth Quake earlier this week, every news article, blog, etc is talking about the lack of development that is happening in Haiti. Nick and I get asked all the time, where is the Billions of dollars that was donated after the Earth Quake going. Not that we are experts on the Haitian Government AT ALL, but we have definitely seen some major development here in Northern Haiti! Several of our main roads have turned from awful dirt roads, to quality paved ones. They weren't just done half assed, but were built really well and should hopefully last a long time! The Dominican Government also fully funded building a beautiful, giant University on the outskirts of Cap Haitien. They should be opening it soon, and in my opinion, it should definitely help bring much needed jobs and business to our area as there currently is none! The UN recently put a ton of solar panel street lights up all over the city, I believe 54 in total! And then there is the development that Nick and I have a love hate relationship with! Our airport is being completely redone at the moment. The runway has always been really long, but in the middle, there is about a foot difference in heights between the two. Once it's finished, Jets, AKA American Airlines will be able to fly there rather than just small planes. This should allow us to be able to fly directly to Cap for a lot cheaper than we pay now and not have to go through Port. This is the part we love. But the part we hate is that all the rock from this project is being hauled out of a query about 2 miles from us. This means that all day long we hear dump trucks going by right outside our window. We live in the middle of no where, but for the past year, we have had a lot of traffic noise. They often start at 3 am and go until 11 at night. The drivers are paid by the load and therefore they haul butt clinking and clanging on our very bumpy roads. And for some reason, it's almost always necessary to honk as they are going by our compound at 3 in the morning! I digress, back to development! My point is that there is change occurring. There is infrastructure being built. I'm sure it's different for us here in Northern Haiti because we don't have to drive around the piles of rubble that still block half of streets two years later. We don't see half collapsed houses and wonder where the family is that used to live there. We don't drive past tent city after tent city with people suffering. We don't see the collapsed palace every day. For us, any progress seems amazing. I'm sure our perspective would be different if we lived on the other side of the country, but for us, we couldn't be happier with the way things are going (except those dang dump trucks)! Progress is slow, but it's happening!