Two Weeks Later

I have already become accustomed again to all those things we take for granted here, like being able to drink safely from a tap.

Three days after I left Port au Prince, I came down with Dengue Fever, a mosquito-borne tropical disease. I have been sick for the last 10 days, just yesterday for the first time feeling as though I might be improving. The symptoms included fever, aching joints, headache, nausea and other digestive distress, and extreme lethargy.

Hotel Oloffson, Farewell

Hotel Oloffson is an old "gingerbread" mansion, built in the late 1800s by the then president of Haiti as a home. It has a long and rich history. It was converted into a military hospital by the U.S. Marines during the First World War. In 1935 it was converted into a Hotel and has been in operation since. It was bought by a man in 1995 who emphasized the theme of vodou in much of its decoration and embellishments.The hotel was the inspiration for the "Hotel Trianon", at the center of Graham Greene's novel "The Comedians" and the movie of the same name. Hundreds of famous people have stayed in the hotel, and many of them have written about it: Jackie O. and Ari, Mick Jagger, Liz Taylor, John Barrymore, Barry Goldwater, Lillian Hellman, Jimmy Buffett. It is set in the city on a steep hillside with a view of the ocean and port, surrounded by lush tropical gardens.

Gene and Jan took me here for lunch on my last day in Haiti. I leave for the airport in a few minutes for my flight home. 

Gene and Jan on the portico in front of a vodou icon representing King Christophe.

Christian religious iconography gets conflated with African animism in Vodou.

The spirit of the vodou dead

Haiti Projects, Farewell

Today is a project documentation day; we leave for the airport at seven. The first mile is over muddy, rutted, washed out roads before we reach some asphalt that is slightly better. We pass piles of garbage and refuse, and are never out of sight of mountains of earthquake rubble. The roads are congested with cars and trucks, taptaps large and small., and crowds of people going to work and school. Merchants are setting up their little stands and laying out their sheets upon which they place their wares: papayas, mangos, bananas, breadfruit, vegetables of every sort, live chickens, cut up chicken, hardware, shoes, shirts, almost anything you can buy in a store you can find here. Goats wander the streets, foraging for something to eat. Two men strain to move a two-wheeled cart piled high with bags of cement that they will deliver. Past tent cities large and small.

We reach the airport and must wait a bit. Dieucon, our driver is still making calls, arranging the day. It is no easy thing to find the projects we are to visit. Where we are going, streets are not named, and houses have no numbers. We will meet the first person at the water distribution station a kilometer above a ruined church they both know about  and she will lead us to her house. We drive. The roads get narrower and climbs. At the water distribution station we can go no further and spend minutes turning the car and finding a place to park it. Sixty seven year old Rose Marie greets us with a huge smile and leads us through passageways no wider than 3 feet that turn and turn again, open, then close, leading to an area with thousands of dwellings, one upon the other.

Her little house, newly rebuilt, has three unconnected concrete block support walls, with the rafters and interior walls made of wood. It is small, but seems sturdy and well built, with splashes of paint to brighten the scene. No one in this whole area has metered electricity, but she has a few light bulbs from a wire that goes off, who knows where and brings the intermittent electricity that this country knows. Like all of her neighbors, she has no running water, but needs to carry it from the distribution point which is often out of water. She lives with and supports her 97 year old mother, a daughter and several grandchildren. Her sister was killed in the quake.  This house is a vast improvement from the squalor and danger of the tent that she lived in for many months, and she is immensely grateful for the help she received in rebuilding.

We repeat this process three times today. Each story unique, heartrending, but in the end an uplifting story of human perseverance in the face of adversity

I leave Haiti tomorrow.

Travel Day

Today is another travel day to document recovery projects.

Jane just emailed to say the bin Laden was killed. Big news. I haven't sorted out yet how I feel about that. Not jubilant.

A Haitian bus. Very reminiscent of buses in Pakistan, but the orthography and symbolism are completely different. I suspect that the motivation is also different, but I can't know right now.

                                          

Similarly, a truck.

Fort Jacque

Haiti was first a Spanish colony, but in 1697 it was ceded to France. During the 18th Century, sugar plantations slowly began to spring up, and African slaves were brought to Haiti to do the backbreaking work of making sugar. Living conditions were so harsh that additional slaves were brought just to replace those who died. During the middle part of the 18th Century 10-15,000 slaves were brought each year as the plantations underwent a period of rapid expansion. By 1790, there were three quarters of a million slaves in Haiti. That year marked a turning point. Several incidents of extreme cruelty caused an uprising of slave anger, and the beginning of the French Revolution caused some slave leaders to believe that they were French citizens, and the black rebellion began. For 14 years the battles raged against the French armies, with the British sometimes with them and sometimes against them. In 1804, the first black republic in the world raised its flag.

To protect themselves from attack that year, 2 forts were built high in the mountains, one facing north to the Port au Prince basin, the other facing south to the ocean. The north-facing fort was named Fort Jacque, the other Fort Christophe. Yesterday Gene, Jan and I drove up the mountain through Petionville, past the Baptist Mission, to Fort Jacque. The mountain roads are narrow, congested and in spots very rough, but with breathtaking views around every corner. And Fort Jacque, an impregnable fortress with its own huge cistern, living quarters, armory, even an underground tunnel to the other fort a half mile away, was impressive in every way. It was manned for a number of years after it was built, but neither fort was ever needed to defend the country. After the visit to Fort Jacque, we went to the mountain village of Kenskoff, then to an overlook where we had a picnic. A lovely cool day after the heat and noise of the city.

Jan with a guide at a French cannon. There is a certain satisfying irony in the fact that there are cannon in the fort from all three colonial empires that were involved in Haiti: France, Spain and England.

The earthquake damaged some sections of the fort. It is not known when or if repairs will be made.

Terry at a British cannon.

Cool weather crops like cabbage do well at this elevation.

Our picnic far above Port au Prince.

Elsie

Gene and I worked in the pit all day yesterday; we made good progress.
     Last night we ate dinner at a small Creole restaurant on Rue Delmas. Gene and Jan invited a friend, Elsie, from their time in Haiti years ago, 1998-2002. The woman is a Haitian who moved to the U.S. as a 19 year old when her dad emigrated. She worked in the banking industry in Manhattan for over 20 years before moving back to Haiti to start a missionary school. Her nonprofit educates and feeds the poorest children, those whose families squat in the ravine, the least desirable place to live. Some of her students have gone on to attend Harvard and become surgeons.
      Creole food is usually simple to order because there often are not a lot of choices, and made even simpler because they are often out of popular items. You choose a meat: I had beef, Gene had goat, Jan chicken, Elsie fish. You can choose if you want it fried or broiled. You almost always get rice and beans with it, and fried plantain. My beef was very lean, spiced, cut in chunks and fried.
      Today we are taking a day off, driving up the mountain to visit Fort Jacque, well beyond the Baptist Mission.
     Just a reminder, older posts are available by clicking on them in the sidebar on the right. If you click on a photo, you will be presented with a larger version if you have your pop-up blocker turned off.

The NGO Problem

Fair Warning. I get a little tedious here. I have been reading and thinking a lot about Haiti since I got here, and I would like to express some of my thoughts.

     Bill Clinton said recently that Haiti has more NGOs per capita than any country in the world. It is easy to visualize this as a benign flow of aid uniformly and greatly benefitting the populace. To do so would be a naive misconception of the truth and a grave error. While individual NGOs have educated children, built clinics, drilled wells, performed countless livesaving surgeries and saved tens of thousands of lives through vaccination  programs, they have accomplished little detectable change in the country as a whole. Both poverty and malnutrition rates have remained stable over the last 30 years while the NGO build-out was occurring.  While only about 450 NGOs are registered with the Haitian government, there are in fact around 10,000 here. In spite of many efforts to assess the number and quality of NGOs in Haiti, no one knows for sure how many there are, where they all are, how honest they are or how duplicative they are. At best, NGOs are a bit self-serving; they do things to keep money rolling in and employees well-paid; at worst they are rife with corruption, stealing not only from well-meaning donors but also from the intended recipients.

Not unexpectedly, the Haiti government has a budget problem. Seventy percent of the workforce operates in the "shadow" economy and so is untaxable.  Collectively, the NGOs have a much larger budget than the federal government, and most of their activity is also untaxable. There is no solution: the government is desperate for funds for the earthquake cleanup and so turns to the few things it can tax. Ships loading and unloading, for instance. Haiti has the highest wharfage fees in the world, so high that companies that wish to start factories refuse or can't afford to bring in their machine parts and other supplies. President-elect Michel Martelly has a difficult task if he is going to bring Haiti into the 21st Century, and one of his tasks will be to bring order and focus to Haiti's collection of NGOs, evicting some and redeploying others to underserved areas.

Trouble in IT

Today was not a very productive day. We have had server problems, flakey LAN cables, and potentially a bad switch. In addition, HughesNet, our satellite ISP seems not to be delivering the bandwidth that MAF is paying for. And the mosquitos were very hungry today.
A selection of left-over photos today:

No one knows exactly what this is all about. It is on a side street about a block from the guest house

This is the painting you can sort of see through the gates.???

Port au Prince has a number of these buses which are called Obamas. They were to have been delivered four years ago, but for some bureaucratic reason were held up. After Obama was elected, they were delivered, thus the name.

A closeup of beads like those Miquette was wearing. The pinker beads are pieces of sea shells. The others are the beads that the children make. If you can imagine a slice of a cereal box, say Wheaties, being ten inches long, and one half inch on one end tapering to a point on the other. This is dipped into a type of glue then tightly rolled from the fat end to the point. It is covered with a clear shellac when it is dry. Voila! A bead!

Travel Day

We left at 7:00 this morning to get to the airport, where we met Dieucon, who was our driver for the day. Our objective was to go to the houses of 5 different individuals who had gotten earthquake relief grants from MAF. We traveled through a warren of narrow roads into densely populated neighborhoods of very small dwellings often housing a shocking number of individuals. One of the grant recipients has ten children under the age of 18, and he lost his job soon after the earthquake. They all live in a three room house. Four if you count a 4 X 8 kitchen. Traffic was expectedly chaotic, loud and dirty, and the roads very narrow and often all but impassable. All in all, a fascinating day. We ate a late lunch at a restored sugar plantation about 15 minutes from the airport, and are now back at the IT office writing up the stories and sorting photos.

The days continue to get warmer; daytime temps are in the high 90's and it rarely gets below 80 at night. No rain for the last 3 days. Dottie has lots of ceiling fans, but no air conditioning.

Jean Claude, his wife and 7 of their 10 children.

Their kitchen consists of a small charcoal brazier and some pots and pans. They have no refrigeration. Not one of the houses that I have visited has running water; they walk to a well or water distribution point and carry the water back.

A view of roofs near their house. There are dozens of dwellings in this photo.

One of the families lived in a tent after the earthquake, and felt fortunate when they were able to build this more secure dwelling.

Traffic that we encountered.

Rice

Haiti used to be a net exporter of rice. In a loan restructuring deal in 1995 Aristide was forced to accept the conditions of the IMF and open its markets to international trade. Subsequently, the U.S.  flooded the country with cheap state-subsidized rice and drove the agricultural workers off the farms and into the city. Seed stocks disappeared. When Haiti became food-dependent, the price of rice went up, and the peasants had no money to buy the rice. Some part of Haiti's intractable problems of poverty and malnutrition can be attributed to this. Incidentally, only 2% of international aid is invested in agriculture.

Hotel Montana

The Hotel Montana in the town of Petionville above Port au Prince was a popular hangout for diplomats, journalists, NGO workers and UN personnel. It had a terrace with a lovely view of the city and waterfront, a large swimming pool, a popular bar and a 5-star hotel. When it collapsed, over 200 guests and workers died under the debris. It received a lot of news coverage because of the number of dignitaries and organizational leaders who were trapped alive in the rubble. One man was rescued after four days, but rescue efforts continued for more than a week. Indeed, some criticism was leveled at the rescuers for expending so much effort and resources there when thousands of Haitians were trapped and dying in more modest circumstances.

Gene, Jan and I drove up to the Montana on Saturday. We viewed the horrible damage, but enjoyed the view from the original terrace and the cool mountain breezes, and had a beer at the rebuilt bar to celebrate a good week of work.

It was a long day of work today; 9 hours in the mosquito den. After some stressful network fireworks, we walked away pleased with our work.

Most of the hotel collapsed; this part slid.

This tanker is parked about in the middle of the hotel footprint.

Having a beer on the terrace.

Electricity

Electricity in Haiti is 110 volts, 60 cycle, similar to that in the U.S. To say that Port au Prince has rolling blackouts would be to put a very favorable face on the situation. The electricity may go out for a few hours, many hours, a day or more. It would be quite rare to have uninterrupted electricity for two days in a row. To cope with the situation, most houses have large generators, banks of lead acid batteries and an inverter. Here at Dottie's guest house, the generator happens to be right outside my window. When everything works as it should, the changeover from one to the other is seamless. The generators run only periodically as needed, so that often one does not know which power source is being used. At night however, there are no street lights when the power is out. 

Haitian chickens are ubiquitous; free range chickens live in the ravines, and it seems as though most houses keep a few. These are not well-behaved chickens; whereas roosters crow in the U.S. at daybreak, Haitian roosters crow all night long, loud raucous crowings that are answered by other roosters in a virtual crow slam. I at first attributed it to the intermittent street lights; when the lights would come at 2:00 a.m., the roosters would be confused and think it daybreak. But I have now come to believe that they are just genetic freaks that crow all night just to keep me awake.

Pastor Karl, his wife Ann, Gene and Jan, and I drove up the mountain to the Baptist Haiti Mission for Easter dinner. It was a potluck affair in a lovely setting on the high, cool side of the mountain.

A bank of batteries.

The rogue rooster who lives on the edge of the ravine next to the guest house.

Pastor Karl's Land Cruiser. This vehicle is identical to UN and many NGO vehicles. There are thousands of them in Haiti. The black assembly on the right front fender is an elevated air intake; the V-8 diesel can travel in water up to the windows. That intake is also useful in dusty environments to draw cleaner air into the engine.

Dessert today

The view from the Baptist Haiti Mission

Photos

Perhaps readers do not realize that if you click on a blog photo, you are presented with a larger version in a new window. Many bloggers post small pictures and keep their pages smaller so that readers are not frustrated by long load times, especially if they have dial-up email accounts.

Joseph, the caretaker at the church where I walk, has four cows that he keeps in the churchyard. They graze at night, and each morning he wheelbarrows corn husks and spoiled produce from the market near his home, 2 miles to feed them. They are his most valuable asset.

A lady doing my laundry this morning.

A mobile pharmacy. This guy is selling pills and potions of every sort. He moves  frequently, and balances the whole thing on his head when he goes.

Miquette

Yesterday after we finished working for the day, we visited a woman who teaches science at a private high school, but who also founded her own non-profit and created two private elementary schools, one here in Port-au-Prince, and one in the north near Cap Hatien. Miquette Denie grew up in poverty in Port-au-Prince. Her parents were not able to feed the entire family, and her two older siblings were given for adoption by a couple in Detroit Lakes, MN. This family remained involved with the Denie family and helped Miquette go to high school, then supported her through college in the U.S. When she finished school at Concordia College in Moorhead in 2006, she raised some money, and returned to Haiti convinced that the solutions to the problems of her country lay in education. Her non-profit, TeacHaiti, supports the two schools which have high standards, hire the best teachers available,  give scholarships to students who cannot afford to pay and feed those who cannot afford to eat.

Her organization is supported primarily through donations, but most of the students are also involved in fundraising. They, their parents, and sometimes their friends attend jewelry making workshops, and make jewelry during their spare time. Miquette has a network of people and organizations who sell their jewelry. If you are interested in learning more, visit her web site.

Miquette is a soft-spoken, articulate bundle of energy. Her eyes are fiery, her laugh infectious and her incandescent smile can light up a room. 

Miquette in front of her school.

Miquette with some of the students' jewelry

Jan, Gene and I with some jewelry

Water

We take clean water so much for granted in the U.S.  We turn a faucet, and clean, pure water flows. Here, not so much. According to the CIA Factbook, less than 20 percent of the population is connected to a central water supply. And not one of those can turn on the faucet and safely drink the water. Water distribution by truck is a huge industry. The water trucked around is surface water, meaning that it was pumped from a dirty river, with only the big stuff filtered out. Many, many people carry water from a distribution point that might be quite distant from their dwelling. All of the hotels and most better homes have water pumped from a truck to a 500 gallon (or so) tank on their roof. At Gene and Jan's house, the water is chlorinated immediately, so the water is quite safe. Here at the guest house, the water is not purified, so Dottie has 5 gallon water dispensers on each floor and a pitcher in the bathroom. This water is prepared by reverse osmosis.

The earthquake did not have much of an impact on the water infrastructure, because there wasn't much to start with.

One is rarely out of sight of an entrepreneur retailing water, usually in plastic bags that seem to hold about a pint.

The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in Central Port au Prince that was destroyed by the earthquake.

The Presidential Palace was also destroyed. Shown is the west tower.

Security

    Except for unruly traffic, Haiti has seemed so far to be a relatively safe place. I walk about day and and even a bit at night, and have never been threatened, but I do take what precautions I can. Security is an ever-present issue and everyone seems to devote a lot of time and resources to making sure they are safe. Every substantial house has a high wall around it with razor wire on top, a heavy steel gate with multiple padlocks, steel bars on windows and doors, and often a ferocious dog. The people in the tent camps have only makeshift security, and so are extremely vulnerable to violent elements of society.

    A neighborhood church was broken into several times in the past year, and the pastor, who lives across the street, was robbed and his dog poisoned.

    The UN deployed 9000 soldiers and almost 4000 policemen when violence erupted in the months after the earthquake. T he most recent UN report on security stated that violent crime incidents have dropped sharply. Precautionary steps were taken anticipating violent demonstrations after the presidential elections March 20, but because the outcome of the election was never in doubt, everything remained quiet.

    I spent most of the day working on IT stuff, but I took a couple of hours this afternoon to visit a nearby orphanage run by an NGO called Child Hope. They have taken on the additional mission of feeding three times a week boys and girls who live in a nearby ravine. 

Mr. Brown, the mastiff who guards Dottie's guest house. He is chained during the day and stalks the grounds at night.

Some boys from the ravine enjoying their food at the orphanage. The meal was rice and beans, a Creole staple, and a chicken leg. About 85 children were served.

A Good Day's Work

I haven't used this hosting site before, but I set the preferences to archive posts older than a week. If it works as I understand it, older posts will be available by clicking on a link on the right side of the blog.

Gene and I spent most of the day in the IT office. There are some decided inconveniences to working there: it is infested with mosquitos and no-see-ums, the office chairs are worn out and exceptionally uncomfortable, the internet is slow and unreliable (we worked on figuring out why), and the equipment old. Since the office is on the third floor of a residence, one of the upsides is the view from the balcony as seen in this photo. Another upside is neighbor Julie, wife of an MAF pilot, who gave us a cup of wonderful coffee when we most needed it.

Below are a few photos from the trip to and from the office.

A political street ad for Michael Martelly, a musician who won the recent election for president. He is inexperienced in politics and supported some dubious previous regimes, but won convincingly on the basis of his popular compas music and his promises of reform. Known as "Sweet Mickey."

A building which had been under construction at the time of the quake succumbed to the shaking.