Rain, roads, Noel

Weather in the North is harder to predict than it was on LaGoanve. Rains during the day were not as common as they are here. The need to get the kids to school on weekdays over dirt roads can make life get interesting.

As you can see in the picture the road is subject to mud slides. And on the river side there are no guard rails. You want to be able to see where you are driving. The flat part seen on the upper right hand side of the picture is the road curving around the hillside. The green covering the bottom of the picture is a field of peanuts planted near the river with a dotted line of vetiver grass. The vetiver is an attempt to keep the river from washing out the crop.

We have had about 14 inches of rain in October with little evaporation. Cory is not nearly as diligent with checking his rain gauge here. Monday morning early we had some wind and rain from Noel. Cory checked the reports on the Internet and decided it looked like we had the potential for heavy rains. They were saying 10-20 inches for parts of Haiti. So we decided not to send the kids to school. We had sun for several hours and only light sprinkles of rain. It did rain over an inch Monday night-slow and gentle. The kids didn't appreciate missing school but we did have more family time.

Thank you for your prayers. Haiti is prone to flash flooding and landslides due to the vast deforestation and mountains. We are thankful that Noel wasn't any worse. Some lives were lost in Port-au-Prince and in the South.