Dear Everybody:

Yesterday shortly before dawn I heard three shotgun blasts right outside my room and awoke sharply. It turned out our friend Tonie had been shot, so we raced to get him to the hospital. It was very frightening. There was a lot of blood, and he had two large holes in his neck. Tonie is very lucky to be alive. The first hospital sent us to a second hospital which sent us to another hospital in Port au Prince two hours away. 

First thing, the hospital sent us to the red cross to give blood. It turns out that in Haiti if you need a blood transfusion, you have to have several friend go to the red cross and give blood, and then you need to wait 4-10+ hours for the red cross to process the blood (?) and then bring it to the hospital for use. Miraculously the hole in Tonie's neck (about 1in diameter) pierced neither an artery nor Tonie's throat and by the time the bleeding slowed he still had enough blood to live. If Tonie needs an operation there will have to be blood on hand but a full 5 hours after arriving at the hospital we were informed that the operating room was not functional. Indeed, the hospital has no running water. 

Fortunately I know Haiti well enough now to expect to see insanity everywhere I look. No police have come to the scene of the crime because nobody saw the shooter (?). Each time the doctor needed medical supplies the doctor sent me across the street to buy them. At one point we had to put Tonie naked and bleeding with tubes hanging out into a wheelchair and take him across the street through garbage, standing water, a construction area and miscellaneous animals to get an x-ray at a private clinic. 

None of us are sure what happened. However, some people suspect Tonie of causing harm to people by using voodoo, and someone may have wanted to kill him for it. I think Tonie will live, especially since today he will be taken to a hospital with a functioning operating room (I hope). Unfortunately, the insanity could continue because when Tonie returns, the same situation will exist but the shooter may be more afraid than previously. Please pray for the situation. I don't want anybody to get shot anymore and I don't want the fear that Voodoo brings to harm this country any more. 

I still think it is relatively safe for me here. Everybody likes me so I have no enemies, and everybody likes the good that Clean Water for Haiti is doing. I did, however, move into the house for a little while. It has not only bars, but big, strong wooden shutters and firm doors (and mosquito screens) that the dorm doesn't have yet. Last night I thought my room resembled a shooting gallery. So don't worry about me. I thought I might have trouble sleeping last night but I actually slept very well. I dreamed that we all live underwater and congress had just passed an amendment giving octopuses the vote. 

I will write more about how things are going here and the work I'm doing after some time has passed from this tragedy, but I will say that I am happy to be back here in spite of the shooting and I feel good about how things will be. 

Peace be with you, Chris Rolling