We’ve been asking that question for over 5 years. And the answer is, “Yes. Things can get worse because they have gotten worse - over and over, year by year, and there’s no end in sight.”

So many things transpired over the weekend while I was in Haiti - things that now seem normal, things that are anything but normal.

I think about one of the boys telling me on Sunday night that the gang that controls the area near us is at the bottom of the hill, and I answered him, “Yes, that’s true.”

That was just a normal conversation. But how can that be normal?

I think about the empty street in front of the US Embassy, how eerie that was as we drove past, how vulnerable we all were in that moment.

I think about how PNH stopped our vehicle to see if I was okay. On the one hand I wish they would do that more often. On the other hand, I hate that it is suspicious that I am riding in a vehicle with friends.

I think about the empty shelves and coolers at Belmart, and my conversation with a manager who told me fuel is an incredibly difficult issue for them again. Can what is left of the economy in Haiti survive another fuel crisis?

I think about how the parking lot of Belmart was empty, and though we had told Fanor we would buy him pizza for his birthday, we didn’t feel safe being at the store. So, we left with a promise to get pizza one day in the future. I can’t tell you how much I hated that, even though I knew it was the right thing to do.

I think about the automatic gunfire we heard near our house the morning I left for the airport and the people we later learned had died in that exchange.

I think about all of these things.

I also think of the beauty of moments like these, and I know there has to be a hope and a future. We just can’t quite see it yet.