To Apostle John

Dear Apostle John,

"Are things safe right now in Haiti?"
I'm never too sure how to even begin to give an answer to that question. Have I ever been a victim of any form of violence? No. Thank God. But I know many, too many people who have.

Right now everyone here is focused on one single thing: 'Elections'. The UN officials, the head of the Police Forces, officials of the government, journalists and other ordinary people seem to be speaking in one voice saying basically that the violence is less now than it used to be.

I'm probably the only one in Port-au-Prince, who does not agree with that since I don't feel an increase sense of security when I'm out on the streets. People are still being kidnapped, others are being killed -a Canadian citizen was killed recently-, there are still areas deserted by the residents that are ruled by gangs aka 'rats'. I know people who, in the past months, have sent most of their family in other areas and closed their small business because their neighborhood is being taken over by outlaws -the same 'rats'- .

Businesses located downtown Port-au-Prince are either moving or simply closing. There are areas that people avoid at all cost and others that you only go to with extreme caution, and because you have no other choice. There have also been cases of presumed criminals being killed (lynching) by the population. Despite what the official voices had to say about those lynchings it seems the families of those 'criminals' -if they had any- may be the only ones deploring their deaths. On the contrary, you will hear people say how the population is too scared and too passive and how fear and passivity used to help the assassins/kidnappers a lot, now that the population is 'reacting' many believe that the 'rats' may be more hesitant to act openly now.

I know I like to make things look bad when I talk about the situation here but I can't help it because they are bad. Were they worse? Probably, there are fewer shootings on the streets actually they haven't report any recently.

On the other hand I have to say that many Christians have been relentlessly praying for the country; they spent weeks, days, nights, praying again and again and again, all across the country and even from abroad. In fact, many are still praying waiting for the blessing... This reminds me of the fact that in the areas ruled by the 'rats' the churches had to close. There are a few (not many) who seemed to have resumed their activities. At the same time, others are under constant threats by 'rats' asking them for money or saying they will set the church on fire or kidnap the members or the pastor. I know a case of a person who was kidnapped and a 'rat' went to the church where that person is affiliated to ask for money so they could free him....

I live in Port-au-Prince therefore, what I say about the situation concerns only Port-au-Prince, as for the rest of the country, things are different as always.

About my personal safety, well, as I said before, as long as the Lord is my Shepherd... His rod and His staff they comfort me…

Realizing this post had nothing to do with my blog's topic, I've chosen to address it to you in particular.

I appreciate your concern about my country and I also enjoy stoping by at your blog once in a while.

M.J.

Archive search please

There is one other feature I would like Yahoo! messenger to have. I would like to be able to perform a search on my Message Archive. I've been asked why I go through the archives of my past conversations. What do you think? A message archive is a very useful thing, it helps you frame liars, retrieve interesting links that you were sent but forgot to bookmark or find something to talk about with someone who is sooo glad to see you come back online after a long time but whom you have completely forgotten.

I go through first conversations to "remember" people's asl, and if I'm writing a post one a single person I go through all the conversations I've had with him/her to be sure I have not left any interesting detail out. Many times I "discover" things that were said to me, I was supposed to be having a conversation but I was not paying enough attention to read all the IMs sent to me by one person.

This being said, why would I need the search feature for? Well, there was this time when I wanted to "retrieve" all the different spellings my country's name was giving by my chat friends; mission: nearly impossible. On another day I wanted to "remember" which Moroccan told me he had a friend here in Haiti, unsuccesfully; I remembered the conversation but not who it was I had it with... And finally I wanted to see how many people on my list lived in Mumbai, besides those I remembered of course, that wasn't too hard but I'm not 100% sure I found all of them. I think msn messenger has that feature more or less.

While making sure that there is no way for me to search through the chat archive I "discovered" archives of the conferences I participated in, I had no idea they were kept there.

Maybe I should write Yahoo! and tell them about all the features I would like their messenger to have, who knows, they might find my ideas interesting...

My Yahoo! Messenger has been acting a little strange lately.
I was trying to sign in, it told me it's connecting as usual, and then after a long while it sent me an error message saying that I've been signed out because I've signed in on another computer or device.

The first time it happened I thought someone had hacked my account, probably a stalker -yah right-... But I thought more likely it was just a problem with Yahoo! Then it happened again a few days later.

Now, now, I wouldn't want some guy to use my ID to Chat with my friends and having them asking me later on why I said this or that etc... Or worse, he would go and remove everyone from my address book and my Y! messenger contact list or worse he would change my password and I would no longer be able to use my Yahoo! account!!!
In fact I still think Yahoo! is to blame for this and not some hacker trying to take over my account.

It seems it's not only the Yahoo! Messenger but all Yahoo! that's having an odd behaviour. I am prompt for my password every once in a while when I'm using Yahoo mail. Today when I signed in I was asked to provide additional information on myself like my occupation etc. Later on when I clicked to open an email with an hi5 request from a friend, Yahoo! sent me on a Yahoo! 360°,I had to hit the back button of my browser to go back to the inbox and click on the message again, hopefully, this time it worked.