Rioting didn't stop Leisa Faulkner from her mission of delivering antibiotics to a Port-au-Prince orphanage Wednesday.
It simply took longer and required detours around angry mobs and burning barricades of tires and rubble – and the help of a card emblazoned with a red cross.
"We never fail, like the Pony Express," said an exhausted Faulkner by phone from Port-au-Prince.
Faulkner, 56, of Cameron Park arrived in Haiti Monday to spend the week delivering medical supplies and cholera-fighting medications to free clinics and children's homes.
She was planning to leave Saturday until the country erupted in violence over its turbulent presidential elections. "Is the airport open? I don't know when I'll be able to leave," she said.
Faulkner made her first trip to Haiti in 2004 to serve as a human shield for supporters of then-overthrown President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
This is her 16th trip to the country, now working with Children's Hope – an organization she founded to lead teams of volunteers to Haiti with medical supplies.
Note: Leisa is a co-Chair of the Sacramento Progressive Alliance. See her reports on Haiti at the Haiti link on the left.
"What's left from the earthquake and cholera is burning," she said. "What's left of Haiti is burning."
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