May 22 pm

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5/22 Dinner tonight was a Haitian dish. There was a large platter of a mix of beans and large cut cornmeal cooked til almost solid. We put a large spoon on our plates and topped it with a mixture of beef and vegetables that had been cooked a long time. It was a little spicy but tasted good.

I have a roommate for a week or so. She is from Norway and her name is Herje. She is an older woman (it’s great to have another gray hair here). She lived here in Port au Prince for many years, a Salvation Army Major who worked with the SA children’s home. She is telling me wonderful stories. She was here through the revolutions and fighting and has seen much of what we only know from history. She told me of the time when she was in the compound with the children and fighting broke out in the street outside. Bullets were whizzing through the compound, but no one was hurt. As she says “God protected us!” She said that she and the children sang songs and she told stories to them, while all the fighting raged outside. Over the years she has managed to keep in touch with these children, ¸following their lives and careers. Another story she told that I find interesting - there were a group of ‘bandits’ or thugs that roamed the streets but she, apparently being fearless, went out on the streets and befriended them. When she was ready to retire, after 30 years of service with the children’s home, there were a number of celebrations in her honor. Somehow these ‘bandits’ discovered she was leaving and came to the compound demanding to see her. They told her they would do demonstrations in the streets and shoot their guns so the government would not make her leave. She asked them if their demonstration and shooting would remove the gray from her hair. Then they understood that she was leaving because she was old and she was going home to Norway. However, she did hug them all. She is an amazing wealth of information about Haiti and the S.A. here in PaP. She is schooling me in history, the people, the culture. Amazing how God works…to bring her to me.

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