Together Again

     Things have been so busy this past week that I have not even had time to write about the arrival of my son, Pierre, in Haiti. Pierre flew in last Sunday afternoon (January 19). He will spend three months with us here in Christianville working as the Assistant Project Coordinator for Meer. Pierre has a job description and specific assignments and will report to Meer, the Lab Director. It is a volunteer position for now. We will see how things work out. It is a great opportunity for Pierre to get some practical administrative and organizational experience working in a developing country. He will also certainly meet people from NGOs and the Haitian ministries and network, which is always useful for getting jobs later. Pierre set up a blog before he left Silver Spring. Here is the link: http://pierremaurellihaiti.blogspot.com/

     Pierre was arriving on an afternoon flight so that morning Meer and I rode into Port-au-Prince with John at the wheel of the Everest. We were invited to have lunch with his Bangladeshi friends in Belvil, a gated and guarded community in PauP. There are about 900 homes in the Belvil community and it is like you are not even in Haiti. It is almost like a suburban community in the U.S. The homes are beautiful. Faruque, our host, rents his house for $1300 a month. There is a separate gated entry for the three houses in his cluster. When we arrived, John parked the Everest next to the driveway gate. A guard with a shotgun opened the gate and ushered us in. Then he took his position in the driveway next to the UN Nissan that was parked there. In the front yard was a small (empty) swimming pool. Among the guests for this beautiful afternoon luncheon was a retired Bangladeshi Army colonel and a retired Major (both now working for the UN), two people who worked for NGOs, and two employees of Digicel. All Bangladeshi. The food was great but the conversation was mostly in Bangla. I did chat a little with the UN folks and learned about what they were doing – logistical support for the UN mission. The retired colonel wanted to know why the DoD was interested in my work here, why did they want to know about STIs in Haiti. It is all about tracking global diseases and emerging diseases, I told him. Knowledge means preparedness, trying to understand what diseases may be coming by understanding and tracking the diseases and agents of infection that are circulating now. I hope I convinced him. It was too bad that Pierre was not already here. This encounter is a good example of the kinds of people you can meet on the ground and the opportunities to network (and in my case, to educate, I hope).

     After lunch, John drove us to the airport where we waited for Pierre’s flight to arrive. It was Pierre’s first trip back to Haiti since 2009 when he was still in high school and pre-earthquake. I thought it might be a bit of confusing since the airport was now completely different. So I had Big, a big guy who sometimes meets people inside the airport for Christianville and UF, go inside to look for Pierre. Soon Pierre walked out, sporting wraparound sunglasses and his Penn State jacket tied around his waist, carrying his backpack while Big pulled his suitcase. We hugged. It was only two weeks ago when Pierre dropped me off at Reagan National for my return to Haiti. Now here I was meeting Pierre at the PAP airport on his arrival in Haiti. It is great to have Pierre with me in Haiti once again. Pierre will work for Meer and together we are going to do great things. We’ll get stuff done for Haiti. That’s the goal. That has always been the goal.

Me and Pierre in Haiti