Chris Flomo in New York City

Chris was the very first person I met in the Budaburam camp about two and a half years ago. He won the US Diversity Visa Lottery and this email from him is the update. --Ted

From: christopher Flomo

To: Ted Ernst

Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005

DEAR TED,

I LEFT LIBERIA ON MARCH 20,2005 AND ARRIEVED IN THE US ON MARCH 21,2005.

EVERYTHINS WAS FINE . WE FLEW TO BELGIUM AND THEN TO JFK. I AM PRESENTLY STOPING WITH MY SISTER. I HAVE BEEN CALLING YOU BUT NO ANSWER. PLEASE USE MY SISTER'S NUMBER IF YOU WANT TO GET ME. I AND LOOKING FOR JOB AT PRESENT. I HAVE A PERMANT RESIDENCE VISA. I AM WAIT SSN . I WENT TO THEIR OFFICE AND THEY TOLD ME TO WAIT FOR TWO WEEKS. I AM LOOKIN FOR TO HEARING FROM YOU. THERE IS NO COMPUTER AT MY SISTER'S HOUSE. I AM WRITING YOU FROM THE PUBLIC LIBRAY.

PEACE FORCE AND JOY

CHRIS

Benjamine Witherspoon

From: Augustus McCritty
To: Ted Ernst
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005
Subject: Project Proposal (Benjamine's Team)

Greetings,

My team has fanily come to the decision after three different meetings that we will undertake this project of Sanatiation after considering the plight of us refugees. The physical out look of the camp is very deplorable and not very conducive for us human beings. It was because of this we came to the decission that we take up the project of trying to help clean the community

Seeing the need to work on the cleaning of our evornment,considering the need and the campaing which we as humanist are working on the camp,it is very important that we embark on the cleaning of the community.

In this light we would be very happy were you (Ted) to assist us to raise some funds for the project.

This project also carries with it education, Public awareness so as not to clean and the public is not aware of what dirt, garbage and an unhealthy evornment causes us.

Item	unit	value	Prise
1 Mica phone	1	600000	600000
2 Wheel barrel	2	550000	1100000
3 Shovels	4	40000	160000
4 Rakes	4	20000	80000
5 Brooms	10	5000	50000
6 Spray Can	1	600000	600000
7 Nose mask	2	35000	70000
8 Garbage bin	5	80000	400000

Hope our proposal meets you in the best of health
PEACE FORCE AND JOY
Regards,
Benjamine E. Witherspoon
Director

This totals 3,600,000 cedis which is about $400US. My response follows:

From: Ted Ernst
To: Augustus McCritty
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005
Subject: Re: Project Proposal (Benjamine's Team)

Benjamine,

I apologize for the delay in my reponse. I hope you and your family are well.

This is a very nice proposal. As you know, the Humanist Movement is not a humanitarian organization. We do not have funds with which to fund proposals for projects to be started after funds are received.

What has happened with Sampson's, Beatrice's and Chris's teams is that they started projects on their own, self-organized and self-financed. They reported to me about those projects, with the numbers of people invovled, what was happening on the ground, etc. Then they asked for support to expand those projects. I could then take their project reports and photos and use them for fundraising for project expansion.

I have not yet had any reports from you that your team is undertaking any project at present. Please go ahead and start your projects and let me know how it goes. You could even use this proposal to ask for funds from an NGO in the camp, if there is one that might be able to help.

I look forward to seeing you in April and communicating more by email until then.

peace, force and joy,
ted