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.
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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.

Rain

I just got back from my morning walk. It was another gullywasher last night.  I keep thinking about the misery of the people in the tent camps. Those camps were poorly planned, impromptu affairs to start with, and after a year in the tropical sun, the tarps and tent materials have deteriorated, been patched and repatched. The inner city camps were built in parks, on soccer fields and the lawns of government buildings, wherever there was open space. The tents were placed right next to each other, and little consideration was given to water drainage, cooking space, toilet facilities. A recipe for misery.
In contrast, the tent cities in Pakistan were built substantially to withstand winter conditions, in rows, on plots with graded drainage. The critical difference was that the heavily affected areas were not crowded cities of millions, and open space was readily available.

Monday

We are just entering the rainy season, and it has rained each night since I got here. But last night was exceptional. A monsoonal rain came in torrents for several hours. It washed gullies in the already bad roads and flooded the ravines. In Gene and Jan's sturdy house, the furniture was almost afloat! We heard from neighbors this morning that several people died when their houses washed away.

I spent much of the day today at the IT office working on the web site. It was hot and humid there, but we got a lot done. Gene and Jan are having a dinner party for 11 tonight in their tiny two room apartment, two of whom are Haitian and speak no English. Jan has been studying Creole since she got here (and studied it when she was here 10 years ago), and is becoming quite fluent. We will depend on her to translate.

I walk on a 10 acre plot of church property each morning for about an hour. I start at 6:00 so as to finish when it is still quite cool. It is about a half mile to the gated yard; walking there is much better than walking the rough road. It is cleaner, quieter and much smoother.

The guest house in which I reside has 5 dormitory style rooms with 2 bathrooms shared between them. I have had the luxury so far of having a room to myself, but several teams of volunteers arrived today, and tonight I will have 3 or 4 roommates.

Sunday

A taptap, so-called because you tap on  the window when you want it to stop to let you off. It is commonly a half-ton pickup with bench seats. Fully loaded, with people standing on the back, it can accommodate a dozen people, and costs 7 to 10 Goudes (40 Goudes to the dollar) for a ride. They travel fixed routes and will not leave until it is full.

A cat sleeping on some dried fish at a road-side market. The fish is a staple which is ground up and put in stews and gravies.

Home made charcoal is a common product sold in the markets.

Day Four

 Approximately 70% of the work force in Port au Prince is technically unemployed. That figure, and those workers shape much of what Haiti looks like today. Those workers form a shadowy and chaotic informal economy that is difficult to assess and impossible for the central government to tax. That economy may in a small way distribute wealth, but it certainly does not create wealth. The streetside vendors sell anything imaginable, from computers to phones to water, to clothing, and in their hundreds of thousands belong to that economy. Because the disposable income of their patrons are so meager, the merchants are lucky to eke out a profit of a few dollars a day, and often it takes many members of a family improvising every day in order to survive.
Wherever I happen to be at the moment, from sunrise to sunset, I hear the melodic singsong calls or the bells of individual entrepeneurs incessantly walking the residential streets and vending their services, everything from knife sharpening to shoeshining, to repair of pots and pans.

Today was a full day. Gene has his car back from the repair shop, so we didn't have to walk. We drove to the IT office, where we took care of some business (including resolving a credit card issue for Gene) then drove to a cell phone provider to figure out why my cell phone didn't work. About an hour and $35 later, I walked out with a working cell phone. I am getting used to the pace of Haiti.

Day Three

We drove today about 20 miles through the best and worst parts of Port au Prince to get to the area where several of the recipients of MAF funding lived.  One never gets inured to the sight of such vast devastation. Over a year has passed, so considerable progress can be noted in removal of rubble and new construction. Nevertheless, it is clear that much suffering remains to be alleviated. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians still live in tents, some in small, private areas, but many in large cities wherever there was sufficient open space.  Looking out over the city from several vantage points, the ubiquitous blue tarps so prominent in the landscape were very reminiscent of Muzaffarabad and Balakot now five years ago.

Below are several pictures of the families we documented. They each had a moving story of the day of the earthquake, and their subsequent efforts to recover.  Below those are several other photos of scenes from the drive that appeared exotic to my midwestern eyes.