The unthinkable happened today: We were able to set up a bank account in Haiti, get a certified check AND a letter from the bank, and even make copies … all BEFORE 2pm!
Let me explain:
Living in a country like Haiti often means succumbing to the fact that things simply will not be done in [what Americans may consider to be] a timely manner. We recognize that things like going to the grocery store 2 blocks away could take hours depending on the time of day. Going to a government office is nothing short of a day-long excursion, and usually requires multiple trips before something is actually accomplished. So, you can imagine how excited and shocked we are at this moment that we got things done in a few HOURS that normally take DAYS!
Not that you’re interested in all the details, but in case you are, we had to do all those things so that we could get our Permis de Sejour (Haitian residency). We need this because we’ll be in the country longer than the 90 days allotted. We can’t believe we’ve already been here over 2 months – it feels like it has only been a few weeks!
So, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we submit our paperwork to the immigration offices in the coming days. We hear that there are insane backups and that it is taking months to get a Permis. Since we’re approaching our 90 days and we’ll all be traveling to the US in late spring, we really need to get ours in days or weeks, not months! Having the Permis will make returning to Haiti much easier if we have it. Plus, we kind of prefer complying with the law.
We just had our first mission “team” here and it was awesome! We’ll be sure to do an update on that with some pics soon!
P.S. Gary will be in GA & SC in just a couple of weeks playing shows, so if you’re in those areas we hope you’ll go and say hello!
