First days in Port au Prince

Well, a day into my stay in Haiti and the house was blocked off by barricades of burning tyres and boulders that have been rolled into the road.
I suppose that sounds pretty dramatic, and if you are the UN, or anyone stupid enough to try and remove those roadblocks without carefully confronting the men guarding them, you could definitely be in for a rough time. However, we are lucky enough to have flatbed trucks with large vinyl pictures of pumps on the side, and generally once we stop and explain who we are to the guys they let us through. At this point though we have not yet encountered very large crowds, everything could change once the mob mentality takes hold. A World Food Program warehouse was burnt down a little while ago during the riots, which demonstrates how things can easily get out of hand. Our general approach at the moment is to stick to back roads and search for other routes if we see a large group of people. Usually, once they realize who we are, they just tell us where they have broken pumps and ask us to fix them.
The reason for the current spate of riots and roadblocks is that, having held the elections, there apparently became two leaders who will then be voted for in February in a final decision. The problem is one of the apparent forerunners, Jude Celestin, just happens to be the current Presidents son. The President at the moment is required by Haitian law to leave his post, and very strangely, considering the apparent lack of voters for his offspring, his son has still managed to get into the final elections! The other contender is a lady politician, who is very popular, but of course many people are very angry that other much preferred candidates, such as “Sweet Mickey”, a Haitian pop-star-turned-politician, have been knocked out of the running.
I imagine February will bring a whole new level of violence and riots if Jude wins. There has been a recount ordered and I have no idea how the results from that could affect the country’s temperament.
On the 20th I have to fly to Michigan for two weeks of report training (whoopee, paperwork!), and will try to update you before that. For now please pray that there are less barricades, and that the people stay friendly towards aid groups, it will make our work a lot easier and allow us to get many more pumps fixed.