Wild search for water

Today began day 4 in a row of hiking through the nastiest jungles and rivers of Haiti in search for more water.  My body was already burnt to a crisp and I was as tired when I woke up this morning as when I went to bed last night.  But I saddled up on the 4-wheeler with Gidel and a pile of survey equipment at 6 AM anyway.  The “road” from Pignon to Miasod could satisfy the hungriest of adventure seekers.  The sun was just rising and a fog hung in the central plateau of Haiti.  Although in a hurry I had to stop and take this picture…

A view across the central plateau at dawn.

We drove down a steep ravine to our first river crossing.  The water rose to just below the seat as we scratched the gravel riverbed to make it to the other side.  It was a hair-raising climb up a 100-yard long steep and rutted incline on the other side.  Thirty minutes later we arrived at our second river crossing.  Upon cresting the hill and seeing the river Gidel responded with an “uh oh”.  Not a good sign.  We both dismounted and surveyed the situation.  Before I knew it he had his pants off, (held over his head to keep them dry) and was floating the 4-wheeler across the river with a hired hand.  It was nearly 80 yards across and 3-4 feet deep.  The water seemed almost as thick as mud it was so full of sediment.  So I followed suit, packed my pants in my bag, held it over my head and walked across.  I was thinking the whole time… oh, the things I do for water in Haiti.

I arrived in Haiti last Tuesday and caught a MAF flight up to Pignon.  I gathered my equipment and caught a ride to Hinche.  Wednesday we walked for 11 hours in search of more water sources to supply the new water system we are building.  We found 6 springs, 2 wells and completed 2 surveys in a day that nearly killed me.  We must have walked close to 15 miles, much of it off trail and up rivers.  Every time I asked if there were any more springs they replied “no more”.  I would point to a river on my map and say there must be a source and we would follow it.  And what do you know but there was usually a spring at the end of it!  But the last river of the day took us into a canyon that narrowed to about 15 feet wide with rock walls rising hundreds of feet on either side.   Walking through the canyon it opened up to a virtual Garden of Eden on the other side.  Oh yeah, found another spring just as we were entering the narrowest part of the canyon… really cool stuff.

Waterfall below the spring at Saltade.

 

Thursday was spent close to Hinche in search of potential sites to place a river intake and water treatment plant.  I kept walking upstream shaking my head at all the laundry being washed in the river and trying to imagine what kind of treatment process we would need to get all that soap out enough to drink it.  This will certainly be a last resort.

Friday we were off to Dondon again… well almost.  Our 4-wheeler had a clanging sound coming from the under-carriage so Gidel decided not to risk it.  We left the 4-wheeler in Pignon and climbed on a moto-taxi.  The taxi on the way out was a relatively smooth ride with light jazz music playing as the sun rose on another beautiful day in Haiti.  The return taxi was exactly the opposite.  The guy was in a holy terror to break speed records.  He didn’t bother to go around the rocks or potholes.  He just floored it and ran over them.  Early in the ride I nearly bit the end of my tongue off as we hit a bump and my jaw slammed shut.  From then on I kept my tongue pulled back. 

Dondon was the same drill as Hinche, look for more water sources.  We found 2 springs, one too low to flow by gravity to town and the other with not enough water.  They have a great big spring that flows out of a river bank next to town.  As much as it scares me to build a spring cap next to a river it may end up being our only option.  So we located a site for a reservoir on the mountain above the spring and I’ll work on developing a pump and treat option. 

A view of Dondon from the reservoir location.

Gidel, surveying the reservoir location.

Still in Dondon I pointed to a likely location for a spring in a valley just out of town.  Our guide confirmed there is in fact a spring but it’s the Satan spring.  After some wrangling in Kreyol to decifer just what he was talking about I learned that the valley where the spring is located is big into voodoo.  Apparently they sacrifice animals and force them down into the spring as part of voodoo ceremonies.  Finding this story hard to believe I asked someone else not part of the first conversation and they confirmed the story.  Craziness… Haiti is complete craziness.  Sometimes I wonder if they just sit around and think of ways to shock and awe the white guy.

My body is completely spent and I am so happy tomorrow has no plans for crazy hiking in the mountains.  Neil and I will hopefully drive back out to Dondon and check out a spring nearby the road that he knows about.  It’s rainy season though and there is a major river at Saint Raphael we’ll have to cross so the trip may or may not happen depending on what the rains do.  Monday I’ll try to find a ride to Port au Prince and get a little work done there before I fly out on Tuesday.  It’s been another hugely successful trip and I’m starting to get used to the fact that this is my full time job.  It’s like a dream come true.  I see so much potential and need for water here and it feels great to be given the opportunity to do something about it.

So darn cute...

Dondon!!

Haiti has once again reminded me that this is a country of extremes.  I woke up this morning still exhausted from a long weekend of travel and surveying to find a view out my window so spectacular I almost think I’m anywhere but Haiti.  The morning sunrise was dashing across a far off mountain green with recent rains.    How can a country so deforested, so eroded and so dirty also give a scene so completely spectacular as this?

Thursday I hopped a plane in South Dakota bound for Fort Lauderdale.  Upon a midnight arrival in Fort Lauderdale I had exactly 90 minutes of sleep before I was once again off to the airport to catch a 6 AM flight Haiti bound.  I caught another puddle jumper plane from Port au Prince to Pignon and was greeted by Raynold and the most beautiful smile of my adopted son Kiki.  His dad also greeted me and said he had a report card to show me!

Over lunch with Neil we called ahead to where we would be surveying the next day and found out the guys from the government water ministry, DINEPA were there now!  So we bumped up the plans and were strapped to a 4-wheeler careening around busted dirt road corners at a breathtaking pace with about 300 lbs of luggage, weirs and surveying equipment strapped on. 

Raynold was at an engineering seminar in Cap Haitien so his assistant, Gidel was my student for the weekend.  But as it turned out I added 2 to my classroom as the DINEPA guys joined us for the survey!   They seemed intrigued when we showed them the plans from our previous water system on Friday.  They elected to make the 2 hour drive on a Saturday to meet us by 7 AM in Dondon.  We trekked up to the spring and surveyed the 2 miles or so back to town.  I had them running bacteria tests at the spring, measuring the flow, and running both abney and dumpy level surveys.  We usually survey in a rotation so everybody gets a turn at each of the jobs.  But I was soon out of the rotation because they wanted every minute of experience they could get.   It was a great feeling to just walk down the mountain and watch an all-Haitian crew at work.

Surveying with the DINEPA guys

Measuring the spring flow

Gidel ran us ragged from 5:30 AM until 8 PM.  We carried a survey line in from 3 different springs and cris-crossed the town too!  The plan was to survey Saturday and Sunday but I think he had pressure from home to be back for church Sunday morning and I wasn’t going to stand in his way as long as the survey was as complete and accurate as it could be.   The poor guys that were helping us with the survey were sleep walking with survey poles the last 4 hours.  But we bought them lunch and paid them wages for 2 days work. As we left they were begging us to call them up when we return.

Last night in Dondon we slept in the upstairs of an old abandoned house.  We arrived to find 2 beds and only 1 old dirty sheet.  I told Gidel to take the bed with the sheet but he insisted I take it.  So to protect myself from malaria ridden mosquitos I wrapped myself in it and fell asleep.  As I fell asleep I made a list to bring a towel, clean sheets and a mosquito net next time. 

There was a well nearby where we carried our water up to the bathroom with a bucket.  The bathroom was disgusting as usual and it was bucket showers standing on a slimy, stinky slab of concrete again.  It may be just these moments where I am subjected to the disgusting reality of sanitation in Haiti that motivate me to keep coming back and building for the future of Haiti.  These poor children deserve better than this.

My reward for finishing early was a night in the Haiti Outreach guest house.  It was clean, had lights and a shower with water from above!  Anne Marie even made us pumpkin soup for breakfast, what a treat!  I’ll spend today teaching Raynold AutoCAD and tomorrow morning I’ll be off to Fort Jacques to prepare for a survey with my business partners James and Stuart.  We will be working near where I lived while in the Peace Corps.  I’m hoping to stay with my host family for a night.  If that happens I’m sure there will be more stories to come so stay tuned!

All is set for a great new project.

Tuesday morning Raynold and I finished our survey from the spring into town by 9 AM!  I guess you get to be ahead of schedule when you start 3 straight days of 4:30 AM.  It's still dark then but much cooler.  We paid our survey helpers, each for $US 10 a day and headed into town.  We went street by street and took notes about the conditions where we would have to dig to install the water pipes.  Our biggest obstacle is the canals built for rainwater drainage, each is about 3 feet wide and 4 to 8 feet deep.  The idea is to avoid crossing them as much as possible but eventually we'll have to navigate them one way or another.  It sounds like Raynold is going to have the guys tunnel under them by hand.  He'll likely have to make 20-30 crossings.

Then on Wednesday morning we headed out to measure the flow of water into the water tank above Hinche.  There is an old water system built in the early 80's.  It provides maybe 5 gallons per person every other day.  The way we measure the flow is to close the valve leaving the tank and measure the rise of water in the tank per minute.  We measured 200 gallons per minute, less than half what the new system will need.  But our contract does not address the water supply component of the system.

With all of our survey results collected it was time to meet with the government water authority and present our results.  There also happens to be a project funded by the national government to create a master plan for this very water system.  There has been a European company in town for the past 3-4 months doing the study.  But because their results won't be ready or approved for at least a few months we were called in to create a plan that could be built at least where the new roads are going.  It was a great meeting and all appear to be on board with the ideas we presented.  I had an AutoCAD plan of  the water pipe layout for the entire system for all to see.  We received some great feedback from the local water guys to tweak the design.  We are also hoping to incorporate as many of the ideas from the other engineer's plan as possible.

The day ended at the SECOSA office in Port au Prince.  They are the road contractor and the source of funds for our water project.  They checked out our plan and approved an initial payment to get the project moving along.  The road builders in Hinche were ready for pipe to be laid months ago so the sooner we can get materials ordered and on site the better.  If it takes more than a couple weeks I'm afraid they will start paving streets.  That would make our job nearly impossible.  Oh, Haiti; why do you have to work backwards like this... humph. 

While we were waiting in the SECOSA office I dropped in and had a chat with their AutoCAD technician.  I had spent almost 2 days cleaning up his drawing before I could use it for each of the past 3 water projects.  So I figured a bit of instruction could go a long way in making my job easier.  He was more than happy to take the instruction and it turned into an hour-long training session.  I'm sure he came right out of school and was asked to create drawings without any kind of mentor or established system for working. I also had a couple hour session teaching my student, Raynold how to use AutoCAD the other night.  He's attempting to run it on a Mac which is a nightmare but we'll find a way somehow to get him creating his own plans.

So far our partnership with the SECOSA road contractor has been very productive.  So much of the money spent in Haiti goes for reports and studies.  Very little ever actually gets built.  In this arrangement SECOSA gets a contract to build the roads and tacks a water system onto the contract.  We share the same survey and AutoCAD drawing which saves time and money.  It also guarantees that work actually gets done.  And I'm proud to say that almost every penny we spend on labor goes into the pocket of a Haitian, killing 2 birds with one stone.  They get jobs and a water system all in the same project. 

This trip has nearly come to an end.  I'll be on a plane back to the States within a few hours.  But it was more productive than I could have imagined.  We also started some great relationships that I think will go a long way towards moving Haiti forward.  So until next time na'we pita from the Red Hat Water Guy...

Dave

Voodoo falls.

The old man leading the group hunches low and whispers, "that waterfall has voodoo magic."  The voodoo faithful from far and wide come to visit. Even wealthy Haitians dedicated to the craft have been known to land a helicopter in the area for a day trip to partake in the magical powers.  I just grin and keep walking but the old man isn't smiling.

Yesterday morning we hiked out 4 miles to the spring for the Hinche water supply and surveyed most of the way back.  It was a scorching hot day.  I forgot to wear my sandals so the guys started carrying me across the rivers.  But after the first fall I gave up and just plodded through.  So on top of crazy sun burn and a need to ration my meager supply of water among 6 guys I was also walking in soggy shoes all day.  We worked 5 AM until 5 PM in the field and arrived home just in time to miss a downpour.  After all it is the middle of rainy season.

This morning we completed our survey by 9 AM, a total of 5 miles in less than a day and a half.  I am finally confident Raynold has mastered the skills to survey by himself with either the abney or dumpy levels.  I've worked hard for the past 2 years to teach him this skill.  With it he can do the field survey, send me the data and I can send him the design of the water system.  That is until he learns to design them himself. 

Today we toured our construction site, about 10 kilometers of streets within the city of Hinche.  The road contractor has already built most of the drainage canals beneath the roads.  We spent much of the day figuring how we plan to navigate them with the fewest number of crossings.  At one point Raynold asked, don't they have some kind of tool that we can just push the pipe under the canal?  I said yes, it's called a directional boring machine and likely costs at least $30-50,000.  To which he replied, "No, we are in Haiti, we cannot do that."  I hope someday they can.  But for now I think we'll solve the challenge with a chunk of iron, a big hammer and some poor Haitian smashing it under the canal for 10 bucks a day.

The engineer for the road construction project is a very intelligent Haitian with 15 years of experience.  He has had the courage and foresight to delay paving the roads for months now to help us out with laying our pipes.  We spent much of the day with him today coordinating our construction efforts.  At one point it was Salomon, the road engineer and Raynold, the water engineer-in-training walking down the street talking solutions.  A wave of emotion came over me at the instant when I realized that here are two intelligent Haitians with incredible initiative building their own dang country.  It feels great to be a part of this.  I'm sure there will be many frustrations along the way but today was one of those days I try not to forget.  Days like today are the reason I am where I am today.

One great leap in life...

Ok. Quick update from the events of the past 4 months.  I quit my job in Minnesota, moved to South Dakota to follow a pretty girl and started a new position with a small company called Northwater.  We are only 3, Jeff in Springfield, IL; James in Chicago, IL and me in Rapid City, SD.  This has been my dream since I left East Timor 6 years ago.  I am once again full time in the business of international water and sanitation, wohoo!  I've set up a small office for myself in Rapid City and outfitted it with all the tools I need to design and manage water projects from the States with occasional trips to the field.

So last Friday I received notice to design a water system for Hinche, Haiti and book a plane ticket ASAP.  I spent 4 of the next 5 days with my head buried in my computer and emerged on Wednesday with a pretty cool plan for the entire city of Hinche, population 35,000.  It felt great to have whole days to work on a dream project.  I put together an AutoCAD map of the water system.  I modeled the flows and pressures within the system with EPANET and also put together a project manual that spells out the type of pipe and construction techniques.

We've learned a lot about construction in Haiti with our past projects in Pignon and Saint Raphael.  I also pulled in a few tricks I picked up along the way working on a project in Honduras.  All this experience has culminated in this Hinche project.  I was able to create an image of my AutoCAD drawing, import it into EPANET and draw the system to the proper size and scale.  This little trick saves me about 2 days of manual data entry and results in a much cleaner product.  We've also learned to bury water pipes at least 4 feet deep to prevent sabotage by unruly residents and damage by road construction. 

We were, I believe one of the first to introduce pressure testing to check for leaks in newly constructed pipes in Haiti.  We have been doing it with an air compressor but we are going to try and make the leap to pressure testing with water and up the pressure to 100 psi.  I just mentioned this to my student, Raynold and he's not too sure about 100 psi pressure.  He has seen the effects of pipe blowing apart at 50 psi but I've assured him that concrete thrust blocking will do the trick at these higher pressures.  He will also need to be very selective about who he allows to glue the pipe if the pressure test is going to meet this new standard.

I spent the day teaching Gidel how to survey with a dumpy level.  The Pignon water system, my first big project in Haiti, is nearly completed.  They only have to lay pipe in 2 streets and then the distribution grid will be complete.  The next challenge in Pignon will be to develop the water supply.  Our survey today will provide me what I need to put together a few options.  I'm going to propose developing both a spring and another well to supply the system.  We'll see if we can get a pressure sand filter to work in the supply line from the springs as we know that water is contaminated by nearby latrines.

Then just before dark tonight Raynold came flying through town on a 4-wheeler fresh off exams at his weekend engineering college courses in Cap Haitian, picked me up and drove to Hinche.  It was a whirlwind 45 minutes on one of the worst roads in Haiti.  We crossed 3 rivers on the way and got lucky they were much lower than a few days ago.  Tomorrow morning we'll head out the door at 5 AM to survey from the spring down to the reservoir above town.  Monday is another day of surveying and Tuesday we'll have a meeting with government and city officials and the road contractor to discuss the project.

My two students, Raynold and Gidel are hot on the  trail of starting families of their own.  Here's Raynold with his girl, Lovelie. 

Then another with Gidel with his wife Wodeline and their 4 month old son, look at all that hair!!

Cheers for now.  I'll try to write more in a day or two.
Dave

One great mad dash

Late to the airport I missed my flight!  Back to the office to finish a report and back to the airport on 4 hours of sleep.  Now a direct flight to Miami, left the airport during my layover to pick up a power chord I'd mailed to a Miami hotel and back just in time to catch my flight to Haiti.  Out the airport in Port au Prince where Anthony was waiting for me.  To save time we each hopped a motorcycle taxi to the bus station.  I nearly lost it bouncing through an especially large pothole but made it in one piece with all my bags.  Then smashed in a taptap with 12 other Haitians we zipped up to Hinche on the newly paved road!  One more moto taxi and we were just in time for a killer dinner of Louisiana fried okra, rice and pork chops at a missionary compound.

This morning to the chagrin of all at the compound I just walked out the gate with no plan to get to Pignon.  I had just enough time to grab a bite to eat before I was again back on a moto taxi.  I arrived in Pignon just in time to meet the missionary flight which I could have been on had I recieved an email in time, oh well.  Kiki, my pseudo-adopted 8-year old son was all smiles when we met.  We walked hand in hand out to the airplane to drop the power chord with the pilot who would see it to it's rightful owner.

Within the hour I was in a pickup with Sarah and Raynold out to Saint Raphael to plan work for the upcoming week.  We hiked up the mountain to the site of our planned retaining wall, the break pressure tank and springs.  The wall will hold a steep hillside in place and prevent erosion above our pipe.  We'll be tapping the existing tanks to install new and larger pipes.  Then a quick downpour to drench us while we planned piping around the two spring sources.  Finally we stopped by the reservoir near town to plan the new pipe connections to that tank.  Raynold was soaking up engineering sketching skills like a pro and soon we were back in the pickup to Pignon.  One last stop in Pignon to review Gidel's plans to install a temporary water tap while the system is under construction.  All in the span of 2 days, it has been one great mad dash.

I'm back in Haiti for a week to check up on the Pignon and Saint Raphael water projects.  It was amazing to see the progress they have made in just the past 4 months since my last visit.  Sarah is doing a wonderful job of mentoring Raynold and Gidel.  The two of them, being Haitian, are drastically more efficient than either Sarah or I at working out the details of construction.  That was my dream and so far they are living it out.

The plan for my week is jam packed.  Tomorrow starts with a trip to Ronkit with Cory to conceptialize the layout and site conditions of a planned school.  Then I'll be off to Saint Raphael for 3 days to work with Raynold on the construction of that water system.  I'm not looking forward to the scant rations, bucket showers and steemy nights but there is nothing like watching the harmony of Raynold and his crew digging and setting life-giving water pipe.

I'll be out in the sticks for a few days but hang tight and I'll be back with an update as soon as I can.

Chow for now... Dave

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.