The River Crossing

This week in Haiti had all the elements of a great story.  We had hope washed away by a great rain.  Then a renewed energy diverted to an angry mob, slashed tires and one in jail.  All were meek as lambs as their ring leader sat in the clink.  They worked like a well-oiled machine and beamed with pride as the last piece of concrete was cast 4 feet under the riverbed with no more than picks, shovels and a few rice bags doubling as sand bags.

Sunday night I packed a few belongings into a small backpack and hopped on the motorcycle with Raynold.  We headed to Saint Raphael where the water system we are building is nearly 40 percent complete.  Our task for the week was to bury a water pipe, cast in concrete, under a small stream.  We stayed the night at a simple missionary compound on the outskirts of town.  It was back to Peace Corps-like living conditions, a sweaty mattress, bucket showers and crackers for dinner.  I wondered how many more years my old bones will take dumping cold cups of water on my head while monster-size cockroaches crawl over my feet.

5 AM is the wake-up call.  On the road by 5:30, these guys are serious.  We had scouted the plan the night before and knew where to start.  Dig a new canal for the river to flow along one side.  Build a dam at the head of the crossing and another to hold the water out of our trench.  There were diggers everywhere, it was chaos.  Don't tell me Haitians are lazy when I see 30 of them  banging at rocks with picks and shovels at 6 AM.  But we only have room for 10 diggers at the crossing.  Raynold did his best to widdle the list to 11 men.  But there were arguements all morning from those who weren't chosen.

By mid-afternoon we had diverted the river, dug the trench and were ready to lay the pipe.  But our work was interrupted by a deluge of rain.  We had maybe 2 inches of rain in an hour.  All our meager efforts to dam and divert the water were nearly washed away.  We retreated to our homes for the night, cold, wet and discouraged.

The next morning the same scene, 30 guys fighting for now 8 positions.  Raynold again did his best to mitigate the situation.  But the arguing went on all morning, an hour of work, an hour of arguing until it finally came to a head.  A mob formed and the ring leader slashed the tires of our 4-wheeler.  I had a feeling the situation was going downhill so positioned myself well out of the rucus.  I was sitting on a hill overlooking the now vacant project site when Raynold approached rather distraught.  He said, "They cut the tires!"  What do you mean, they cut the tires?  "They cut the tires of the 4-wheeler because they are mad, but at least they didn't burn it to the ground."  I guess it could always be worse in Haiti. 

I said, first call Henry and tell them what they did to the 4-wheeler.  Then get a local mayor and a work supervisor out here to mitigate the argument.  And finally, put together a written contract that nobody can argue.  This is all our standard operating procedure but for some reason Raynold wasn't following it here.  He followed orders and soon the men were back working, the police arrived, arrested the criminal and put him in jail with orders to repay  the cost of 2 new tires.  By the end of the day we had laid pipe across half the river and cast it in concrete. 

The third day we diverted the river back over the pipe we had already laid, built our dams and dropped the new pipe into place.  It was soon cast in concrete and left to cure overnight.  The work was exhausting, always trying to stop leaky dams and digging hundred pound boulders out of our path.  By the end my clothes were torn, dirty and rancid.  My feet were wrinkled and sandals torn.  I can hardly lift my arms from all the heavy lifting.  But the challenge of laying a pipe 4 feet under a flowing river in Haiti and cast in concrete has been overcome.  We learned a lot about laying pipe through a river crossing but we also learned how important a clearly negotiated agreement is to preventing utter chaos among a Haitian work crew.    

One might think that was enough work for one week.  But Raynold scheduled 800 feet of pipe to be laid in the town distribution grid the next day.  And he did it, all 4 feet deep and pressure tested to 45 psi.  His reasoning? "I don't want to waste a good working day."  I don't know how he handles the constant barrage of complaints and requests for his time.  At 22 years old he is quite a young man, one I am very proud of and I hope learns from our lessons of the past week.

Back in Haiti for a week

To all who follow this blog, you may be wondering what has become of the red hat water guy and this Haiti experience!  Well, plenty has happened during the past year and I hope I can paint a quick picture for you here.  During past blog posts you heard about the Pignon water system and a new student, Raynold.  The Pignon water system received funding from the Haitian government and is being built by local labor and managed largely by Raynold and Haiti Outreach.  The success of this project led to another large water project in Saint Raphael, which is also being built under similar conditions.  Raynold now has an assistant and lays about 700 feet of water pipe a day.  The trenches are dug by hand to a depth of 3-4 feet, the pipe layed in a bed of sand and pressure tested to 50 psi to check for leaks.  The pressure tests led to an overhaul of the traditional methods Haitians use for glueing PVC pipe together.  Here are a few photos of Raynold and his crew in action!

I am now back in Haiti for the fourth time in the past year.  I've been trying to keep a regular schedule of visits to check up on the progress of the Pignon and Saint Raphael water projects.  Each time I am blown away at the progress that has been made and the maturity of Raynold in these few short months that he has been working on water systems.  But I continue to push him to either develop more skills or find people willing to do the work so that my services are no longer necessary.  This, I am learning is neither a short nor easy road.  But I am committed to the task and hopeful that we will be able to recruit and teach more students like Raynold. 

During the next week we will be laying a pipe under a small stream in Saint Raphael.  We have a plan and I hope all the tools necessary to make it happen.  I'll keep you posted...

Exhausted

These past couple of weeks have been really busy for me. My students, Raynold and Nathan have been right by my side almost every day wondering what they get to learn next. I'm so thankful to have students like them but it's been an exhausting schedule to try and keep. I guess that's the life of a teacher.

Today was my last day at the office in Pignon, I fly back to the States on Friday. We spent the morning learning about pumps and the afternoon in the laboratory. I've had a terrible head cold these past couple of days too which means I'm off to bed and will have to cut this post short. Here's a few photos of Raynold and I in the laboratory and my little buddy Lawrence.

A journey for water

This weekend I was in Port au Prince to do a bit of shopping. But Saturday turned out to be Labor Day in Haiti and all the stores were closed. So I took the opportunity to go exploring in the mountains above Port au Prince. I stopped at the Baptist Mission for my usual banana split, mmm, sooo goood. The veranda of the cafe looks across this spectacular deep gorge in the mountains. I've always wondered how people get over there, so I asked the security guard. He said to head up the mountain a bit more to Kenscoff and then hang a right. Within a few minutes I was hanging a right at Kenscoff and off on another rocky trail in Haiti. Every time I start off on one of these I say a little prayer that my motorbike won't fall apart on the way.

After about 30 minutes down this trail I stopped to enjoy the view.

I noticed a girl with an empty bucket about to descend the valley in search of water. I asked how far it was to the water source and she replied, "not far". So I left my motorbike and started hiking with her, down, down and down further. We finally arrived at the spring. It was only a trickle of water out of the mountain. The girl used a plate to scoop a bit of water, pour it into a bowl and then into her bucket. It took about 5 minutes to fill a 5-gallon bucket.

The ladies at the spring were having all kinds of fun with me. They kept trying to talk me out of my watch, my backpack and my money. I managed to keep them at bay for the most part. But here's Beatrice with my helmet on.

Then, after 30 minutes of filling buckets, our group was ready to start the journey home.

The trail goes up.

And up

What a journey...

He likes me!

This past Saturday Ronald and I headed out to the mountains to take a look at an irrigation project the local farmers would like to get going. We drove motorbikes about 4 miles up a rocky trail before walking another mile down to a small river. I wasn’t sure quite what we were getting into when I set out the day. But anytime the initiative for a project comes from a Haitian I feel like we’re half way to hitting a home run. It turns out this particular home run would have to clear the big green monster at Fenway Park to be successful.

The river has plenty of water, the fields down the way are dry and parched and the local economy could really use the project. But building an irrigation canal the 6 miles through the Haitian countryside I was now looking at would be a serious engineering victory if it ever happened. We started by measuring the flow of the river. Then I sent the boys surveying down the valley to get a feel for the lay of the land.

I fell back and started snapping photos. I went climbing up a bluff to get a better view when I saw these 3 naked little boys leave the river and follow me. The bluff was at least 200 feet above the river, accessed by a steep, slippery trail. The smallest boy could barely make it up the trail, lets call him Johnny. He looked to be about 3 years old but was probably 5 or 6 with malnutrition figured in. He finally made it up to the top of the bluff where I’d snapped a photo of his friends.

When I started back down the trail to the river, little Johnny followed too.

I was going a bit quicker than Johnny and he soon started to cry, and loud. I asked, why is he going back down, doesn’t he live up here? They said he only climbed the bluff to meet you. And he was now crying because I was going to fast for him. I was shocked. Usually the 3 year olds start crying and run away when they see a white guy. So I ran back up the trail and picked up little Johnny, who by the way is wearing nothing but a little necklace with a cross on it. The other kids erupted in laughter.

I took my little buddy to the bottom of the hill and put him on solid ground with not a peep from the little guy. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to solve the big engineering problems facing the irrigation project. But I feel like I won today in the eyes of little Johnny.

Craziness!

Today was so crazy I’ve just got to get it off my chest, so here goes. It actually started last night, I had worked until midnight to put together a proposal for a new project. A priest near Hinche contacted us and said he has funding to drill some wells. But he wants them to have our community management model to go along with the new wells. I have been writing proposals for larger donors these past few weeks and trying to teach our local staff how to do it as well. Well this was a good opportunity to do it with a small project. I got the proposal about 80 percent done last night.

This morning I walked into the kitchen and the cook reminded me that I promised to show her how I make French toast. So I spent the next 45 minutes making French toast, which was a hit. I made 15 slices, the 5 guests at the house ate 7 of them. But when I asked for 2 more for my friend Henry they said they were all gone. Apparently when you pay someone to cook for you in Haiti you also feed them, their family and the neighbors.

Then I walked to the office and started putting the finishing touches on the proposal. A guy came to me and asked for the results of some water testing that I had done for him. I went to the lab and was explaining to him the results when another guy showed up, lets call him Ronald. I’ve been advertising for a student engineer to work with me the last 2 months without any luck. So here was Ronald willing and able to do the job. I told him to come back at 1 PM for a test and interview. Then back to the proposal.


Results of bacteria testing of a water sample. Yellow means negative, black means positive.

About 10 minutes later another guy, Abdias came to me and said some white guy is working on our water project in Pignon. I called the guy, his name is Jim and asked what is up. He said he doesn’t want to follow the plan we had worked out with the community and has just decided to do it his way. Our staff was in a panic, Jim was undermining all the hard work they had done for the past year. So they drafted a letter and hand delivered it to the mayor. Then back to the proposal.

A few minutes later Arronce beckons. The office is so full of people he’s taken a desk and set himself up in the garage area. Arronce is the guy I went to Leogane with a week ago to teach how to disinfect wells. He had the lab results with him for tests taken after the wells were disinfected. We used a lab that a German NGO had been operating as part of disaster relief. And it was great news! All 5 wells we disinfected had bacteria too numerous to count before our work and were completely clean a week after we disinfected them. I was so happy that it actually worked, I was on cloud nine for about 10 minutes.

The guy I was writing the proposal for, Roger then plants himself and his laptop down right next to me. Roger is the head of our community development team. He’s a great guy and really smart. But he takes awhile to understand new concepts. I spent the next 2 hours explaining for the 5th time how to estimate the cost of his employees time for a proposal. I think he’s finally getting it.

Then about noon this other guy, Samuel who just got married on Saturday comes to me and says he would like to take my motorcycle into town to get some medicine. PS he used to come to work in jeans and a t-shirt but today he’s wearing all black polyester and a gold chain necklace, he looks like a pimp. Apparently he’s still on his honeymoon. Back to the events of the day, I don’t just lend my motorbike out to anyone so I said I would give him a ride. It turns out his new wife wants him to come home for lunch every day instead of eating at the restaurant right in front of our office. (The restaurant is cheaper than the taxi would cost to go home for lunch). But I sympathized for this newlywed and agreed to take him home anyway. I dropped Samuel off and went over to talk to Jim working on the water system.

Jim was friendly enough. I’ve been trying to win him over with kindness. I’m always an optimist and I hope we can work this out and just work together. We all want water in town, we just have to communicate or we’ll be defeating each others work. After I saw Jim, this guy Ati saw me on the street and asked if he could borrow my shovel. I said I’d bring it into town after work. Then I went and got Samuel and we went back to the office. Ten minutes on the proposal and it was 1 PM, Ronald was here for his interview. I took him over to the guest house and found him a quiet spot to take his test. I talked to him about the job and gave him a bit of direction what I was looking for on the test. I grabbed a quick bite to eat, then back to the proposal.

Oh yeah, the proposal needs to be done by the end of the day so Roger can meet with the client tomorrow. (Roger just told me about the project and requested the proposal last Friday afternoon.) So I sat down with our financial secretary and hashed out a new form that Roger can use to give clients to estimate the cost of his community development staff. The form required a phone call to the priest in Hinche, which I had to get Henry to do because I didn’t have the patience at the time to bother with my Kreyol over the phone with someone I’d never met.
Every half hour or so I headed over to check on Ronald. He seemed to be doing great. I gave him 90 minutes and he finished the test. I’ve given the test to 4 other people and nobody has finished it yet, so things are looking up. I organized three of our top Haitian staff to conduct the interview for me. We all sat down and 20 minutes later poor Ronald was about shaking in his boots. Our guys are pretty into the water business and were talking over his head quite a bit. I had to keep saying, don’t worry man, we’ll teach you what you need to know. But this guy was sharp.

Ronald got the best score on the test of anybody who has taken it and he has the least education. He’s fresh out of high school and the other guys all had engineering degrees from universities in Port au Prince. Ronald also speaks the best English of any Haitian I’ve met.

Back to the mad scramble to finish the proposal. We got enough put together for Roger to talk intelligently about. But we’ll have to do more work before we submit a final copy. Finally it was 5 pm and most everybody headed off for home. I cleaned up after some tests in the water lab and called it a day. But not before strapping my shovel to my motorbike and running it into town for Ati to use. He’s digging a hole for a latrine. I told him he can use it for a week and then I’ll be back for it. If you don’t give a Haitian a timeline like this you might not ever see your shovel again.

I’ve been working like this most of the past 2 months. The demands on my time have been increasing as the staff get to know me better. Some days the victories outweigh the defeats and others it’s the other way around.

Henry said he’s going to Cap Haitien tomorrow to pick up the mail. I’ve been promised the gaskets I need to fix the pumps on the Pignon Water system are on that shipment. I ordered them on March 2 and I’m still waiting. Every time I go to work on the water system it seems everybody thinks I’m the guy to get the water going. I sure hope those gaskets finally arrive and that they’re the answer. I’ll be waiting on the tarmac tomorrow for that plane.

I’ve got a million things I could work on tomorrow instead of going on a trip with Henry. But I need a break and there’s a rumor they have ice cream in Cap. I’ll let you know…

A Future for Haiti

Look at this picture.

What comes to your mind. Do you think, 1) what a cute smile, and go on about your day, 2) This boy looks sick, let’s put together a care package and send it to Haiti, or 3) how can I bring about change to prevent this from happening to the next generation?

All 3 reactions are ok in my book. I think the first reaction happens in people who can’t relate well enough to a picture. But if they met this boy in person I think they would join one of the next two groups. The second group has the needs of this boy in mind. He’s sick and they want to make him well. And that’s ok too because this boy deserves to live a long and healthy life.

The third reaction I can tell you is a long and difficult road. Many people can’t imagine where to start so they take to the second group. Others start out on this path and eventually encounter enough obstacles that they return to the second path. But a few, despite the obstacles, persevere on the third path. They are the dreamers, the optimists. They see a day when Haiti will stand on its own, even when the Haitian people don’t see it.

Haiti is flooded with aid in all forms. There are churches, hospitals, clinics, schools, orphanages, youth homes and feeding and reforestation programs. There’s the World Bank building roads all over Haiti right now. And it’s almost all a donation. Every one of these programs seems to have their own ideas on how to “fix” Haiti. Most are in it to meet immediate needs. But a few are trying to give the Haitian people a chance to change their future.

To date I’ve had a pretty skeptical opinion of orphanages in Haiti. To me they seem pointless other than as a ploy to get money from the States. It’s an integral part of Haitian culture to send children from families that don’t have enough to provide to those who do. And it’s worked for generations. Until white guys showed up and decided they could do it better. But the other day I decided to go and see for myself exactly what they do.

I went to the most reputalbe orphanage around, the Cambels, on the other side of Pignon. They started 7 years ago with only a handful of kids and are now housing 47 children. Most of the children they take on would have died from malnutrition were it not for their intervention. They run a feeding program for area families and are going to start a temporary housing program to teach mothers to care for their malnourished children.

One of my friends here in Haiti is very pro-orphanage and was excited to hear what I had to say after my visit. I said I was very impressed. If I were to run an orphanage, that’s how I’d do it. But where does it end? How did those children get so malnourished and what can we do to prevent it? For every child that showed up at the orphanage and was saved perhaps there is another who didn’t make it. What about those that didn’t make it, who’s working for them?

Here’s what we know. The leading cause of death in Haiti is intestinal disease caused by drinking dirty water or poor sanitation. Worms or germs from feces make into people by eating with dirty hands, flies landing on feces and then on uncovered food, or drinking contaminated water. The solution is to educate people to wash their hands, use a toilet, cook food well, cover food and protect or treat drinking water.

Sadly, here's what intestinal disease looks like.

We’ve all heard the saying, “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, but teach him to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” But how many really believe this and have the foresight to follow through. I’m not saying to ignore the immediate needs of the child who is malnourished. We need people to meet those needs. But we need an army of people to look beyond the immediate needs and work toward a Haiti that can stand on its own.

To do this involves not only education but changing behaviors. This is not an easy task and not something that happens overnight. I use the analogy of smoking in the United States. Look at the PR campaign and the amount of time that it has taken to change this one behavior in a country that has an educated government with the needs of the people in mind (usually). The government in Haiti has very few resources and is full of corruption. The road here is only that much longer and steeper.

The logo for Haiti Outreach states, “Working Together, Building Communities”. That’s what we do here every day. And it makes my head ache. I’m exhausted and despite a heart overflowing with pride at the few small victories I’ve had I’ll be happy to be back on American soil in one more month.
Those of us who have a special place in our hearts for Haiti are hoping that the earthquake will be an opportunity for a new beginning. I hope it changes the course for Haiti. I hope that the government decides to put the needs of the people before their own selfish needs. I hope those of us working in Haiti, before embarking on a project ask ourselves the question, “How does this end, how do we as aid workers work ourselves out of a job”. And most of all I hope the Haitian people never forget the earthquake. I hope they start thinking about their future, shoot for the stars and perhaps get the moon.