Haitian Children

Our dear friend has had to go to Haiti, to bring his wife's six-year-old daughter to their home here. INS weirdness has prevented her from being here, but with the earthquake, and her mom having been provided citizenship, and married to many-generational U.S. citizen, supposedly the little girl could now be brought in, and united with her mother and stepfather.


However, the freakin' crazy xtians determined to steal Haitian children have made this now nearly impossible. MZ had to fly to Santo Domingo and then take a bus to Port-au-Prince, and hope to find the child. She's been cared for by relatives, who had started using her as a cash cow last year -- remittances sent to them for the girl's clothes and school and food, were starting to go 'missing.' Thus the relatives don't want to give her up, to have the child go the the U.S., and lose that regular cash flow.

But, the child's mom believed, that since MZ's a houngan, and part of the Haitian houngan network, the relatives would let the child go, for fear of bad spiritual effects coming to them if they denied MZ custody.

Thus there were serious problems already in place before the baptists kidnapped those children to the DR -- where, they claimed, they were going to fulfill their 'dream' of starting an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. (Why, if they wanted an orphanage in the DR, were they not taking in the orphaned children of the Dominican Republic, of which there are many? These people have zilch experience with orphans and orphanages, btw ....)

MZ traveled with reams of paperwork, including copies of the child's mom's citizenship papers, passport, marriage certificates, etc.

But because of what those baptists (and many others -- but only they got arrested!) did, now no child can be taken out of Haiti without the signed permission of Haiti's prime minister -- who is not living in the area where MZ's stepdaughter is located. He's been trying to deal with this all week, in a nation that is wrecked, where you can't travel, where everything is so expensive, and he's laid out all his funds already. MOMA had bought some of his art last fall, and a collector more -- so at the New Year, he'd quit his job, in order to paint again. The job ate his life. He hasn't been able to create for over a year. Then the earthquake. All that money he'd put away to live on for a year has gone to Haiti and the relatives.

So, please, join with Vaquero and me, lighting our candles, wishing good wishes, making prayers, for the success of MZ and his mission saving M's little girl, that they all can be safely together very soon.