Post impressions of a short time in Haiti

And so, here I am, back home sweet home. I had a most wonderful welcome from friends in Wakefield before heading home here to Warsaw. I found my big truck truck in a parking lot in Ottawa, and filled it up with $60 of readily available gas...then stopped and bought $63 worth of alcohol (hmmm, what does this say about me?!). After having lived for 3 weeks on relatively little money, it was weird to go through over $100 just like that!

I lucked into a rather mild spell here at home, with temperatures of more like minus 1ºC, rather than the anticipated -10º. I'll take it! Apparently it is supposed to go up to 9ºC on Saturday, but then -10 on Sunday. In any care, re-entry wasn't as painful as anticipated.


There was a rehearsal scheduled with my band last night, and they came out to my place, which was awesome- it meant I didn't have to drive anywhere, but rather, could just relax here at my house once again. I have had such amazing hugs from all of my friends upon my return- I think maybe they thought I might not come back in one piece or something. In any case, it was great fun to play music by the woodstove. I'm really looking forward to our gig today.

                                            Rehearsing tunes by the woodstove chez moi

                     

As I was sitting here in my rocker by the woodstove, grinding coffee beans the old fashioned way, I thought I saw a mouse scurry out from under the other rocking chair...??!!! I really hate mice, but got to thinking about them- I haven't had mice here in a couple of years, as I think I've done a pretty decent job of sealing up the foundation and any other cracks...and mice here are nocturnal, so what was it doing at 8:30am running around...the mice in Haiti were active all day long, so of course, my next thought was that I have brough a mouse back from Haiti in my backpack. I purposefully left my big packs out in the back of the truck in case there are cockroaches or mice in them (paranoid?). I set a trap immediately, because if it IS an imported mouse, I sure don't want to be responsible for any mutant strains that result from it mating with other mice. And even if it's not imported, I really don't want to share my kitchen with it!

A few people have asked me if I'm suffering from 'culture shock' upon my return home. While it might be too early to tell, I really don't think I was immersed in Haitian culture long enough to experience culture shock. Of course, I am well aware of how much easier (almost guiltily) it is to get almost anything here- stores with shelves fully stocked with products from all over the world, gas stations that never run dry, hot water at the turn of the tap (at least I have a solar hot water heater to make me feel a bit better about using hot water!). 

                          Emma cubed, Sam, Blake & Ton hanging out around the back porch.        

While I was in Haiti, there was  gas shortage in the week leading up to Christmas. The stories varied as to why, such as there was a ship that was coming into port with gas, but it turned away at the last minute. Who knows the real reason, but in any case, it resulted in gas stations having neither gas nor oil, but what it did mean was the black market fuel sales were doing well. On the day we went on an outing with Alex, at several spots along the road and in villages, there were street vendors with containers of gasoline for sale. Alex had bought enough to do our journey, and while I can't remember the exact price, his friend called him about an hour or two later, and the price had already doubled! Yikes! If you're unemployed, or making $1/day, I'm not sure how you do it!

Discrepancies between the rich and poor are accentuated in countries such as Haiti, Colombia, and many other parts of the 'developing' world. Lack of clean safe drinking water and containers, the absence of adequate free education for children, unemployment, and  political disorganisation are prevalent. There are a lot of NGOs who are doing really terrific work out there, despite what the media would have you believe. If you are interested in helping people in Haiti, and you have some financial contributions you can make, I would highly recommend donating funds to a grounded organisation such as Grassroots United, who are truly sending funds and supplies directly to the people who need them. http://www.grassrootsunited.org/contribute.html. (Thanks to Karen & Elizabeth for donating money to go towards Christmas presents for Haitian kids via Grassroots- that was really touching for me to learn!). 

A peek inside the 'brain', or the dome, at GRU, where much of the behind the scenes meetings, telephone calls, e-mails an networking occur. 

I will post more about other sound funding possibilities for real projects occuring in Haiti over the next couple of days; one in particular, in the Deslandes region involves the training of community members in 

sustainable agricultural farming (based on knowledge from elders in the community), construction of schools and education, and training of community members in sustainable construction. I'll post more about this quite interesting model very soon, which seems to have a lot of promise and drive, compared with other models I heard about while in Haiti. 

I won't flog the fundraising thing too much, but I know that a lot of people are wondering how they can help. As we approach the one year anniversary of the earthquake (January 12), there is still so much to be done. Many Haitians didn't feel like celebrating Christmas this year, given that there were probably few people who didn't lose loved ones almost a year ago. Yet, the people I met are strong, resilient, beautiful, and are making the most of their situation in moving forward. I saw this posting on someone else's blog; a youtube news clip of Haiti at Christmas this year: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8rH4nc9crI&feature=player_embedded

                                          So much rubble still, and so many temporary abodes. 

    The Grinch in me is never sure how to feel about Santa, but on this Christmas day, seeing how these kids were excitedly running into the tent for the arrival of Santa, I think I might have been swayed back to believing in Pere Noel. 

There is a real possibility that I will return to Haiti, in some capacity or other. Three weeks was but a taste of the country, and most of that time was spent behind the compound walls for me, although I did have an awesome outing to the countryside to Father Benite's, and then got to go out to a tent community with Emma. I would like to be more immersed next time, learn more creole, and make more long term connections with Haitians. 

En route pour le Canada…hard to believe that time has passed so quickly…yet in other ways, it seems as though I’ve been away forever.

How to summarise three weeks of Haiti…the roosters (@#$%@!!), the colourful clothing, people carrying heavy loads in wheelbarrows and on heads, maneouvering your way around traffic, the potholes, the garbage, the resourcefulness of people, the heat, the smells. I quickly became attached to the core group at GRU- meals and nights on the back porch were a lot of fun!

Yesterday, rather last minute, and rather unexpected for Haiti time, Ton found out that Blake, a volunteer, could operate a backhoe, so they went across the street to Jedco to ask if they could borrow a backhoe- the owners wanted to ensure that Blake could operate it, so he hopped in, passed the ‘test’ and they let them bring it over to the compound- no rent, just had to pay gas. I say it seems like a non-Haiti story, because there always seems to be a wait for everything here, or a long complicated discussion, but in this case, can we borrow it, yes, and twenty minutes later, Blake was digging out a trench for a drainage system.

We stayed up later than I’m accustomed to last night (all of 10:30 or so), visiting the Hole in the Wall. My head told me this morning that I should have drunk some water in between sips of rum! I don’t particularly even like rum, but drank it freely while I was there.

My hair seems to have drawn a lot of attention. Today, the little girl from the Hole in the Wall reached out through the window to touch my hair , and a couple of Haitian women from Grassroots did it too…a couple of times people told me they like the colour of my hair, and they said ‘You must hear that all the time!’, to which I said- no, never. Tell me again?!

Jesse & Chrissy, the two folks who took water filtration systems on a donkey trek to a remote ‘village’ went back to another village yesterday, which had been hard hit by cholera. While they were there, they experienced a bit of political games, as one fellow who is vying to become the leader of the village after the elections directed them to go one way, and then the actual leader caught up with them later and almost booted them out of the village because they had listened to someone else. Strange. You get used to the peculiarities of how things operate after awhile, such as not being able to get hydro to the building site until the security guards feel like it. Jesse was saying that delivering water filtration systems is one thing, but we have all seen first hand that people are doing dishes, laundry, bathing, etc. from water they will drink. He said that clean water containers is an issue- you can filter the water all you want, but if there isn’t a dedicated sterilized container to house the liquid, you have defeated the purpose.

One thing that was interesting about their trip (and I’ve read about this a bit since I’ve been here) is that in some of the communities afflicted by cholera, people don’t know why deaths are occurring. Once upon a time, I suppose (um, quite a long time ago!) it would have been common to have people dying, and not know why, but in this day and age, it’s hard to imagine that this can still happen. In a country that has a strong voodoo culture, with lots of superstition, it’s not surprising. That, paired with the fact that remote villagers may not have any form of electricity, and even if they do, I don’t know how prevalent education about cholera is on the radio. Some people showing up at the cholera clinics are insisting that the water is poisoned, or that the government is trying to kill them, or that foreigners are the cause of it.

A bit earlier, I remember getting a bit frustrated, maybe even ticked off, that Jean Louis & Annio weren’t cleaning up the jobsite. I would buy them a pop at the Hole in the Wall, and come back later and the empty bottles would be on the ground…yet the recycling for plastic was just behind them! I put my foot down and brought out a garbage bag, and told them to straighten up the wood pile, etc. However, after thinking about it for awhile, it is a cultural difference. There is garbage everywhere in Haiti. I don’t know what it was like pre-earthquake, but there are dumpsters at street corners that are overflowing, nevermind the garbage that is just everywhere. When I went to the airport in Port au Prince today (which is an adventure in and of itself!), when I was checking in my bags, I noticed all kinds of garbage on the ground. The attendant who took my bags took an old tag off my bag, crumpled it in his hands, and threw it down at his feet, where there were many more of them.

I’ve talked about the roads a bit, and unfortunately, I didn’t get photos of this, but the potholes are enormous! Driving is quite an art of dodging big holes, which often means swerving into the lane of oncoming traffic, or squeezing really close to a parked or stopped vehicle. The car horn is a driver’s most important tool, apart from good reflexes. When you’re driving along, and a car doesn’t move over for you to pass, or someone tries to run in front of you, or a taptap stops plum in the middle of the road, you lay onto your horn as you speed up past them, and it’s several seconds long (seems like minutes, actually!). Today when Alex came to drive me to the airport, we had to turn left onto the airport road from our laneway onto a very busy road. How did he do it? Why, he just merged forward, despite the fact that traffic was moving, and somehow, the sea of traffic parted and we made our left turn. I remain most impressed with his driving. I’m not sure I would want to drive in Haiti. I’m way too Canadian in my polite driving style, and not nearly aggressive enough.

The other night, when we went out to the club, our taptap driver proceeded (for several kilometers, I might add!) to drive on the wrong side of the road- in those instances, you just have to trust that somehow you’ll get out of it alive. And we did.

The skyline above the clouds from the plane is a beautiful red that seems to go on forever. So pretty.

So, the airport story. Last night Andy gave me a primer on how to navigate the airport in Port au Prince.  He told me of his departure earlier in the month, where the lineup started outside of the airport, and how if you wanted to get to the front of the line, you could pay one of the guys in white shirts $20. It sounded complicated ande unnecessarily disorganized (like many things in Haiti!), so it was a relief when they dropped me off to see that the lineup didn’t extend to outside. However, once I got in (after fighting off the Haitians who want to help you carry your bags inside, for money of course!), there were some really crazy lineups happening. The lineup snaked around a very small room- literally snaked. People coming in with luggage kept bumping into us as we stood in line, and the line really wasn’t moving. I think I got off lucky, as we were only in line about an hour. At some point one of the guards told us to leave our luggage there on the side, and not take it through the snake line- which seemed like a weird thing to me, given how tight security is in other airports around the world, and the number one rule is to never leave your luggage unattended). However, when in Haiti…

I had to show my passport way more times than I’m accustomed to: to check in your bags, and then at the customs window, once again when you go through the x-ray station (there was one that you had to go through right at the entrance, and then one right before going to board), again when they gave you a boarding pass, again to go into the waiting room, once more when you left the waiting room to walk through to the plane, and a final time at the base of the stairs before boarding the plane. Whew, that was tiring just writing about it, nevermind doing it! I went to upstairs at the airport to have one last beer before flying home- it was a Presidente, and not the Prestige I have been accustomed to drinking from the Hole. I think Presidente is from the Dominican Republic (or the DR, as everyone here seems to call it).

I’m so appreciative of this trip, of the time I got to spend at Grassroots, of being able to participate in the first straw bale project in the country, of the time I spent meeting local villagers and talking about their homes and plasters. I can see why many volunteers who are currently in Haiti go home for short stints to make some money, and then return- there is so much work that can be done there. There is so much unemployment, and such a discrepancy between the rich and the poor (our driver charges $10 USD an hour; our labourers on the straw house make $1 USD an hour). Hard to fathom.

And so ends this journey to a country with beautiful people. I was quite struck by how beautiful people are, and how well dressed. Cleanliness in such a poor country is high on the priority list- Jean Louis & Annio get cleaned up after work, and even change their clothes sometimes before venturing out onto the street. My favourite experience is still my Christmas Day trip to the tent community with all of the kids. I will continue to write  bit more as I decompress here at home, reflect on what I have experienced and learned. 

I'm already missing my new friends at Grassroots, the smells, the sights, the sounds. Funny, life is!

 Emma is so beautiful, so animated. She is the one who has spearheaded working with orphanages, and she is so great with kids! Like so many of the other women who come to Grassroots, she is incredibly beautiful, energetic, and talented. Every day at Grassroots starts with a meeting that Emma leads, and her enthusiasm is infectious!

One thing is for certain, and that is a desire to return to Haiti, to do more work with Grassroots, to be involved in more building projects, and also, to work with kids.

Home?

I can't believe my time here is already over. This has so quickly become my home away from home, and it's been a blast. I didn't get malaria or cholera, nor did I get caught up in the middle of any riots, as people would have had me believe would happen before coming.

We did sit up late (like until 10:30?) last night drinking Prestige beer, and maybe just a bit too much rum mixed in there. It's kind of fitting to have a slight hangover on my last day here, I think.

Annio & Jean Louis have been great the last couple of days- I'll definitely miss them!

Andy rolled in yesterday afternoon, and it was really great to connect with him again. But, as timing would go, once again, we only get a partial day together, and I'll be scooting away. He'll be able to run at this little house with the boys and get a lot done. Just wish I could stay! However, the New Year's gig beckons, and it will be great to see people again. It WON'T, by any stretch of the imagination, be fun to run home to snow.

Fitting, that from the office here, I can hear Henk Hank bleating away, as Ton sits outside on his computer; the !!#$%$%mouse has just snuck by me, and since I slept indoors, the roosters didn't wake me up! It was cool enough to sleep indoors in the office last night on the cot, since I gave Andy his tent back.

I did get to play with plaster samples, and we did do a bit of parging, but there is still a lot to be done on the wee building. I hate leaving unfinished work, but no choice. The lime plaster still didn't arrive, of course!

It's downright cool here this morning- rather refreshing. Probably helpful to get me ready for the deep freeze I'll be going home to! I've heard that it's quite an adventure leaving the Haiti airport, so hopefully that goes well...

Early morning on the base

I woke up quite early this morning- around 4am. Of course, the roosters were already at it, but I could also hear people shouting in the background, and music blaring out of somewhere. I would guess that as with  any city, it is much noisier here in Port-au-Prince than it would be in the countryside, but who knows?!

On Christmas Day when we went to the tent community, I remarked on how much traffic there was given it was Christmas and all, and Pascal & Cynthia laughed at me, saying that wasn’t much traffic at all. Oh! There were street vendors everywhere, and traffic doing its regular willy nilly thing of flowing everywhere and anywhere; stopping in the middle of the road, should you feel like it; pulling a 3 point turn on a busy road (they’re all busy!)…you know, a regular flow.

Henk Hank is bleating away outside; that must mean Ton is awake. The goat would follow him around like a dog, I swear!

I finally got to play with some plaster samples both yesterday and the day before; I haven’t yet put in any wheat paste, but I see one sample so far that has promise. There isn’t a very high clay content in this soil, so it’s not ideal, but I think it will work.

The open air shower is really a treat. A bucket of water, concrete block walls, and the moon. What more do you need?! I have always appreciated well built outdoor showers. In this case, they haven’t bothered with solar collection systems to heat water, as it’s really not necessary.

I went outside to ask one of the guards if they had a match so I can reheat yesterday’s coffee (because we’re out of coffee) and there were three guards, each holding a machete. I haven’t ever seen them carrying a weapon before, but I guess the night guards are really…on guard. I acted as though it was perfectly normal to walk up to guys holding machetes, and had to trust that they were really our guards, and not people who had hopped the (razor wire) fence and were imposters. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a light, so no coffee. Will have to wait until one of the many smokers gets up. (Mission accompli; just found Ton).

I have let go of any pressure I was holding about how seemingly behind our project is; it has mostly been out of my hands, the timing of things. There is an expression here, TIH (This is Haiti) that people use whenever something really wacky happens, or how long it takes for materials to arrive, or how complicated negotiations with someone are. Actually, a perfect example: the power is turned off at around 10pm every night, and then one of the security guards flips the switch in the morning. I asked Gerry if the power is on yet, and he said no, but it will be on in a little while. There’s no real reason not to flip the switch right now, but there you go. The other day, I needed power from the generator to feed the jobsite so I could use the grinder, and Gerry said I’d have to wait. I waited all day…and when I asked if I could take the extension cord feeding the corded radio at the gate entrance, he said we weren’t allowed to touch it. (I have since found out that yes, I can, as long as I replace the corded radio with a cordless one for the guards). But this is really good for me, having to wait, and learning to wait patiently. 

I’ll feel good if I can at least get the fiddly bale details out of the way for Andy, who is arriving tomorrow afternoon. Originally, he was to come back early January, but decided to come earlier, which means the project will just keep on going. That’s good, and once again, we’ll have an ever so short overlap of time to talk about details. It’s a pity we weren’t able to work together more, as I sense that we would have made a really efficient (and fun!) team. Jean-Louis really admires Andy, and quite likes him, so he’ll be tickled today when he finds out he’s coming tomorrow.

Yesterday was Sunday Fun-day, as they call it here, so everyone chills out. A few groups went to the beach for the afternoon. I spent a somewhat lazy morning doing office work and other non-building things, but then I did go to the building for a part of the afternoon. There is just so much to do- while a trip to the beach would have been fun, I was also antsing to play with plaster, so I tweaked window openings, put on some mesh, stuffed some holes, and then made some plaster. It was super hot, so after a few hours, I went outside to a shady spot with my thermarest to try to have a nap- I almost succeeded, but for a %@$%$%!! rooster. Emma made a big spaghetti dinner, and I went out to get bread to make garlic bread. Steve even had parmesan cheese hidden in his tent, so all in all, it was a great feast!

I will definitely miss this place- it has allowed me to be transported far far away from my life and responsibilities. I’ll know I’ll suffer snow shock when I get back home, no question about it! Am going to sort through my clothes and add some to the Free Box here. Even if they only get used as rags, there is a good use for items I don’t need. Cleaning rags are a scarcity here!

It’s amazing how quickly you adapt to not having indoor plumbing, and how much less water is used in general. A quarter to half a 5 gallon bucket is plenty for a ‘shower’, and washing clothes can be done in so little water in the end. It will be strange to put clothes into a washer, but I shan’t kid myself into thinking I’ll continue to wash clothes in a bucket when I get home. Instead, I’ll still hang them outdoors in sub zero weather, hoping for the best!

The base is slowly waking up; Joanne, our cook, should be along shortly. Think I’ll go outside and sit for a few (sort of) quiet minutes before getting full-on into my day.

Post Christmas Report

Mmmmm, what a wonderful Christmas I've had. After a mere 3 hours sleep, I did manage to work on the building for a wee while, but my crew didn't show up, and it was quite hot, so I didn't slog at it for long.

Late afternoon, I did get a chance to accompany Emma Simpson, one of GRU's awesome volunteers, to a tent community for a Christmas visit. Since we were going anyway, we also took deworming medicine & Vitamin A with us to give to each child. Cynthia (I think that's her name) is a Haitian doctor, and she came along with us. Both she & Emma are really dynamic, beautiful women. Before we handed out the medication, Cynthia did a really energetic lesson on why it is important to take the medicine, and she had the kids do a call/response to make sure they understood. So, 150 kids lined up, and Emma & I plopped a couple of pills into each little mouth and had to get them to chew the pills well before washing them down with water.

                                            These kids are paying close attention to what Cynthia is saying.

There are fair rides set up at the tent community, beyond the line of tents. It was an odd thing to see when arriving!

One of the guys there told me that they are still functional, but I'm not so sure I'd trust them, myself. New plywood homes being constructed amongst the tents- very simple block foundation, and 2x4 framing. As one of the men there said, the houses are small, but it's better than living in a tent.

After the deworming ceremony, there were some group songs, and one boy did a rap in creole, followed by a solo song by a young girl with an incredible voice. Then it was time to sing in Santa- they sang a creole version of Jingle Bells, and in walked Santa. The cheering, the yelling, the excitment were priceless. They had to line up, and then in groups of 10, they went and sat with Santa, received a present, and had a group photo taken. After the photo was taken, they were ushered up onto the rides, where they sat in the little cars admiring their new toys. I went up to see them in the cars, and they wanted me to touch their toy, to hold it, to share their excitement. They were just beaming!

 This boy in particular, couldn't stop smiling after receiving his stuffed animal. They are all so beautiful!

Adorable! 

When I went back to the Santa lineup, a few wee kids couldn't stop touching my white skin, and they all wanted to hold my hands. One of them in particular (quite young!) was incredibly strong- she was pulling my recently healed fractured finger, and I had to jerk my hand away so as not to injure the finger!

                                                               Posing with Santa!

I can't imagine what daily life is like for these kids- living in tents, in close proximity, being displaced from their home, and I don't know how many of them lost family members in the earthquake, or if they have school in their tented community...but I do know that the excitement and joy they experienced yesterday was probably more real than anything I've ever seen in my life. I'm thankful that Emma has taken on this really important role in the area, of distributing medical supplies & care to orphanages and tent communities, and that she brings love and attention to these wee ones.

Our cholera team returned from their excursion yesterday, having successfully delivered the water purification systems. I look forward to seeing photos today. We had our BBQ party down the road, ending the night with a trip to the Hole in the Wall for a last round of beer & rum out on the back porch. All in all, quite a special Christmas.

Joyeux joyeux!

I just spent my first waking hour of Christmas Day with a goat…and his owner, who is probably one of the wackiest human beings alive (and I mean that in a good way, bien sur!). Ton bought Henk Hank Bolgrun, the goat, for $30 US and brought him back to the compound, to ‘fatten him up’ for eventual consumption. He is dearly loved, and will likely have a happier life than many other animals in the world.

Last night we went out to a Haitian club- but first, since it was Christmas Eve, and that is the big celebratory night in Haiti, the public tap-taps (remember them from the photos?) weren’t running, so we had to phone around to find a private one. One price we got was $100 US to take us downtown, wait for the night, and bring us back, and the next price was $50, which we went for, as when it was split 10 ways, it worked out not too badly.

 Here is Ton, at his finest, starting X-mas morning off with coffee with a shot of rum in it (a liberal shot, let's say!), a beer, and some cigarettes. Henk Hank is lurking in the background.

The club was packed, and I mean PACKED with people (um, almost exclusively Haitian, except for us blancs!). We smuggled in several pints of cheap rum, and danced our faces off. People were dressed for the nines, somewhat like people might do for New Years at home (but I’m thinking that Haitians probably dress up to go clubbing more than my circle of friends does- no offense, y’all!). A few different Haitian men asked me to dance, and the looks I got on the dance floor were priceless. I laughed and made gestures, and moved the way I move, and it all worked out fine. (I think I had too many moves; the Haitians are much more subtle with their groovy moves!).

One move that wasn’t particularly groovy, but that actually made my jaw drop, was during my second trip to the washroom in the club. The first time, there wasn’t a line up, and there was still toilet paper. The second time, there was definitely a line up, and lo & behold, when I got in the door, there were 4 or 5 women squatting on the ground in the sink area, peeing on the floor. I kid you not! I was really glad I had opted to wear my workboots & not my sandals in the end. Another woman in the bar saw my shocked expression and patted me on the arm with a shared giggle. Now I feel like I’ve just about seen everything, but that image will stay with me for a loooooooooonnnnnnng time!

So, late night followed by a tap-tap ride back to another NGO down the road, where we were able to purchase one last beer and walk the last leg of the trip home. Now, I have to remind myself why I didn’t tell my Haitian crew that today was a day off…they opted to take yesterday off, but apparently are coming today! Oh well, I am here to work afterall!

Later today, we’re going back to the other NGO (EDV: European Disaster Volunteers) for a celebratory meal, which I look forward to. Those folks came out dancing with us last night, and they’re a lot of fun. They live in a real house with plumbing and everything!

Yesterday, Joanne, our cook, had her eyebrows trimmed in the courtyard, by one of the security guards, using a razer blade. Holy hannah- not for me!

Ooops, sorry Henk Hank, that's Bulgren
There was just a sound check outside for a sermon down the road- funny! And music is, as always, blaring from several radios outside, both here and down the road.
A rooster hopped over the fence this morning, as he has for the past several days, to wake me up before 6 am. Darn- going to bed at 3am wasn’t such a good plan, perhaps, if I’m working with my boys today!

The sermon has started next door, complete with singing- The sermon part has finished, and now she is singing her face off. Good morning. Joyeux joyeux!

Sounds & smells of Haiti

I’ve spoken how alive the city becomes, so quickly, with shouting, blaring radios, honking, and the constant din of traffic. What I neglected to mention was how my first couple of nights here, I heard loud music from down the laneway that sounded kind of like Cuban music, and I wondered if there was a club where we could go to see live music. Ha! I’ve since been told that the music is coming from a brothel! I’m glad I didn’t take a stroll down there to investigate, hehe.

I’m learning that Grassroots has become a bit of a stopping ground for other volunteers in Haiti; some come here to give a bit of time, and others have come here when they just need a mental break from the work they are doing. We’ve seen many folks from ‘All Hands Volunteers' and a number of other volunteer organisations. There are two different teams of people based here who are installing and delivering water purification and filtration systems. Grassroots is a terrific networking hub for people who want to come and  participate in a worthy endeavour here in Haiti. 

The smells...hmmm, well, they're not really the sweetest. Haiti is filled with smells...of decay, of garbage burning, of vehicles that are pumping out black smoke, of urine, of feces, of overflowing garbage...I would have to say I haven't smelled (m)any good smells, apart from cooking smells. Oh, and then there's my smell- I'm sweating up a storm here in this hot clime, indeed. Of course, I have yet to stick my nose in the lush hibiscus plant in the backyard, or any other flowers.

Some of the guys at the site, rocking out the rubble crusher! 

Look how beautiful they are- these three were kind enough to invite me in to see their homesteads yesterday.

A contrast to the traditional homes in Haiti, this plywood house is one of the styles of new homes 

that is being employed by foreign contractors in Haiti. 'They' say they're not temporary, but I've seen how poorly plywood stands up to water, so I wouldn't consider them permanent by any means.

A few random photos from a day outside of Port-au-Prince

A lovely home made door, at the complex next to Father Benite's church.

A pretty cool looking round building in the village near Father Benite's church.

These bricks are so beautiful. Unfortunately, they're mortared with cement, which didn't fare very well in the earthquake.

Here's one of our new acquaintances who had built his own house. He built his roof of sugar cane- and is soooooo proud of it. He swears this roof keeps his house cooler than his neighbours.

I'll have to ask Alex once again the name of this tree- it is so gorgeous!

I love the colours of this house. The window openings are cement, with a pattern pressed out of them.

This family was so beautiful. The house in the background belongs to their grand-grandmother (as they say here). Their three daughters were hams for the camera!

And a contrast- one of the gingerbread houses!

Day out of Port-au-Prince

My day started off with a walk in the neighbourhood to get breakfast. A group of us whities were accompanied by one of the Haitian guards, and we strolled the streets looking for something appealing. We finally landed on a street vendor making omelette sandwiches. I had a great chat there with someone who was just hanging around the stall, and he told me what a great problem Haiti has with unemployment. It seems crazy, that so much work needs to occur in Haiti (reconstruction, still lots of rubble clearing), but people don’t seem to be being hired for those jobs. Lots of reconstruction is going to foreign bidders, and I read somewhere recently that once some big American companies are ‘in’, certain jobs aren’t even open for bid. So, the stroll was great (although it was sweltering outside!). I bumped into Annio while we were there, and with a big beaming grin, we embraced our hello in the middle of the street.

Regine, a Haitian architect, came to Grassroots to meet with us, see the building, and give some input on details. She spent 10 years in the U.S., and her English is excellent- she’e really cool, thoughtful, and I’m guessing quite good at her job.

Soon after that meeting, Alex met us to take us to Arkéide, where we were to meet with Father Benite Jeune to discuss some possible future straw bale projects. It was great to get out of the city, and head northwest towards the mountains. As we approached one mountain range, Alex told us that they had buried many corpses just at the base of the mountain in a mass grave after the earthquake. Nameless, in body bags, and tossed into big holes. That mountain is now dotted with hundreds of tents of people who have been displaced after the earthquake. Actually, there are tented ‘cities’ and areas almost everywhere- in the city proper, in towns, in between towns. It has almost been a year, and conditions haven’t changed for so many people!

It was interesting to see different types of homes in the countryside. There is the traditional Haitian ‘Ti Kay’ (small house), but there were also a few 3 storey mansions. It really does seem like there are mostly quite poor people in Haiti, and then a few really wealthy people.

We made it out to Arkéide just as the church service was ending. People were dressed in their finery, and the kids were particularly cute. Martin took photos inside during and after the service, but somehow I resisted; it didn’t feel ‘right’. The kids came swarming up to us, and really wanted to touch my pale skin. It might be that some of them have never seen a white person before, I’m not sure, but they really wanted to be close. It was so touching.

Our meeting with Benite wasn’t all that fruitful, as the school they are building has been donated to them- a steel pre-fab building with rolled insulation that goes in the panels. I think Martin had hoped it could be straw bale. In any case, he does have other buildings he’d like to build, but no funding. I can’t even imagine what it would have cost to ship this building over, but the building itself apparently something like $270 million USD.

When we finished walking around the future building sites with Benite, we asked if we could go walking in the village and talk to people about how their houses were constructed and plastered, and got permission. Alex came with us to translate creole, which was awesome. Alex is really a gem to have with us- he is really friendly, and has a way of easing into conversations with people that is admirable. He also has a lot of knowledge about Haiti, and shares lots of tidbits with us.

At the first building we visited, there was an older woman (a character, not unlike what my own ‘Eddie’ might aspire to be like in later years!) who said she had built the wattle & daub building herself and plastered it. (Wattle & daub is an old style of building, where branches are woven together to form the structure, and then the walls are plastered). Martin wanted Alex to ask about additives and special secret ingredients they used, and she pointed to the ground- la boue! (just mud!). There was a bit of cotton stuffed in between some of the woven branches, so I asked about that. She came up to me, and took the cotton out, put her hand on her hip and got up to the building and peeked in. In quite a boisterous voice and demonstration of a peeping tom, she repeatedly showed me why the cotton was in there- to prevent peeping toms from looking in. We laughed our heads off, and I hit her (lovingly!) on the back in a big guffaw.

From there we went to visit several other families who were living in small houses, of either wattle & daub buildings, brick, or simply, homes with plant screens for walls. The wattle and daub buildings had experienced some damage from the earthquake in some of them are no longer standing straight, but are slanted…but none of them fell down. Brick & masonry homes did have destroyed wall sections. One fellow in particular was tickled that I asked to photograph his house that he had built. He had built the roof out of sugar cane (similar to thatching), and as you can see in the photo, the underside is neatly lashed to the roof framing. He said because of the roof, the house stays a lot cooler than his neighbours who have steel roofs (makes sense).

From there, one of the villagers told us that there were cock fights going on down the pathway (no roads, as there are no cars in this part of their ‘village’). When in Rome…??? So of course we headed off down the path to the cock fights, where the villagers were sitting around the cordoned off fighting square, and two cocks were already hard at it. It was, of course, hard to watch, but it was fascinating to watch men, women and children alike cheering on their favourite rooster. Martin was preparing to take photos, and a fellow there told him if he took photos, he’d have to pay him (which I thought was well said!). (I think he still managed to take some). At the end, when one rooster lay down, the crowd cheered, and money was exchanged.

 I was trying to be careful about taking photos, always asking first, so as not to offend anyone. I really wanted to take a photo of almost everyone I met, as there was such beauty in them. I’m SO thankful for my French, as it makes me feel slightly less like a foreigner (but of course, I’m entirely a foreigner with my white skin, funny clothes, and camera).

We spent over an hour wandering around talking with people, and it was so wonderful. The kids were (mostly) really enthused with us, following us around, but there was one little tyke who was afraid to say hi to me (can’t say that I blame him, actually!). We passed a couple of 100++ year old trees along the way, whose root systems were really incredible!

En route back to Port-au-Prince, once again driving on the pot-hole ridden streets, I am just amazed at the number of people who ride on the top of school buses, dump trucks, and other vehicles. And the way traffic works- people passing others any old way, relying heavily on their horn to let people know when they are in the way.

We topped off the night by a trip to downtown Port-au-Prince to see the gingerbread houses. We stopped on one street, and I was out taking photos, when Martin bumped into someone he knew, Paul, who lives in one of the gingerbread houses. He invited us inside to see the house, where we met his lovely wife as well. The ceilings are 12 or 14 feet high- I couldn't tell which, with extremely wide fancy mouldings. I tried to take a photo of the trim work, but it was too blurry. Their house didn't really get very damaged in the earthquake, which is good. Afterwards, we went to dinner at another gingerbread house, the Oloffson House,  where I was regaled by the outdoor Christmas medley graduation ceremony that was going on. Apart from the music, the hotel is quite an amazing building, with really good food (maybe about $10 US a plate, which is expensive for Haiti standards). The setting at the hotel was quite a contrast from all of the homes, tent cities, and villages we had seen earlier in the day. It's hard sometimes not to feel guilty for being so privileged. 

Lots of unfinished buildings in Haiti with rebar poking up out of the rooftops.

On our breakfast walk, I spotted these three sleeping dogs-  dog days of winter!

A tap-tap (street taxi)- as in Colombia, with the Chiva bus, they are all decorative, and each tap-tap seems to have a name painted on it. 

Here's the tiny inside of the bus. They squish in 10 or 12 people, easy! 

Can you imagine riding on top of those tires?!!

Here's the lovely women we met who built her own house (behind her), who told me the animated story about keeping peeping toms out of her house. Note the slant of the building...post earthquake. She was so gosh darned adorable!

Lazy Sunday morning

The base wakes up pretty early…by 6am, most folks are either up or at least awake. Music generally starts playing loudly on radios in the neighbourhood be 6:30, and then it’s kind of a noisy environment for the rest of the day, in between the various building projects, the generator, etc. You hear the same songs over and over again on the radio, and many of the guys here listen to English music rather than French or Creole, as in many parts of  the world.

Yesterday some of the folks came home with a goat they had bought (a wee kid, actually- very cute!). Apparently if there are goats or pigs roaming around the neighbourhoods (which there always are), they go ‘home’ at night to their household, and everyone respects that they can’t just take a stray goat home, even if they’re really hungry.

Yesterday morning I awoke to the site of a teeny tiny gecko on the upper screen of the tent (outside, of course). It was soooooo cute, I just had to take a photo.

We continued to have slow progress on the build yesterday; we didn’t get the missing strapping until late in the day (half an hour before dark, to be precise), but we got it on all the same. The rest of the day was spent installing blocking, straps, hurricane ties, etc. Oh, actually, fabricating the hurricane ties & straps first, of course. We take it for granted that if we  need building materials, we can just buy them, but here, building is all about improvising, making do with the materials at hand, , and being responsibly creative. Every dropped nail, screw, but of twine…all of these things that North Americans might overlook, are precious here.

It was payday for our two Haitian workers yesterday (they are the only paid members of our crew), and oh boy, I knew they weren’t being paid much, but I didn’t realize just how little it was. Yikes!

I worked the rubble crusher beside Jean-Louis yesterday, and got to chat with him a bit more. He said he doesn’t mind the work, he has to work, because he has a family. His wife is 4 months pregnant, he told me with a great big beaming grin. He only wants one child. He comes away from home and stays in the neighbourhood for the 6 days of work, and then goes home for one day off. I asked if he would choose to work, and he said if he didn’t have a family to support, he definitely wouldn’t work. I asked what he would do instead, and he said, nothing, I'd just get up, eat, hang around. 

There is a group of kids singing down the laneway- they’re singing Jingle Bells in Creole- oh no! I just can’t get away from it, might as well accept it! Wait- now it sounds like there's an outdoor sermon going on. 

Today, Alex is coming to pick up Martin & I to drive us out to the countryside to visit a priest who wants a school built in his community. I’m looking forward to what will only be my second official outing in a week (yes, I’ve been here a week already!). Then, we’ll go to the gingerbread house district (hopefully late afternoon so I can get some nice photos). Apparently there’s a good restaurant there in one of the houses, so we’ll likely eat there.

Saturday night is definitely party night here. I was feeling quite under the weather (almost flu like, but not quite), so went to bed pretty early, Am in tip top form today, thankfully.

Coffeed up, so now time to forage for food- we're on our own on Sundays, as the cook isn't in today.

Another rubble delivery. You can see the rubble crusher in front; it's relatively easy to operate, but labour  intensive to actually make plastering sand!!

The Ti Kay Pay (little straw house)

Look how awesome the gecko is!

Purlins & Grassroots United

Well, purlins are up...after a slow start to the day with many, many interruptions, we did finally get all of the purlins on (well, with all of the material that we had), so hopefully we'll get some steel on tomorrow. That definitely feels good!

I thought I'd take a few minutes to talk about what is going on here at Grassroots United. I think i've mentioned before that there is an awesome core group of volunteers here, who are involved in so many different meaningful activities in the city and in the countryside, including, but not limited to, working in orphanages, doing cholera training, medical supply & water purification system delivery, and a plethora of other really valuable community services. There are volunteers here from all over the world, including Australia, Scotland, the U.S., and even Canada!

Many Haitians from the neighbourhood come here as well, some as volunteers, others as paid staff. I'm really enjoying talking with them, and limping along with my sparse Creole. I know that Annio really appreciates my efforts, as he doesn't really understand French, and has little or no English.

On site they have work bees on Saturdays, and tomorrow's list of chores include building a chicken coop (so hopefully those darned things won't be scratching around my tent in the early morning hours!), working on a treehouse, continuing with the plastic bottle interior bottle wall, and I'm sure many other projects. If I could, I'd love to help out, but our project is behind, and will take every hour we can throw at it. So, we'll likely work through the weekend, but maybe we can scoot into town Sunday afternoon to go see the gingerbread houses. I'll take photos, promise!

At the Hole in the Wall, in addition to the cheap beer, & juice, they sell a mini-mickey of rum for $1.25 US- Martin just bought me one. Several nights of sipping for me!

I can see now why Andy asked me to bring him fresh fruit- it's really a novelty here. We've had two bananas served to date...the food reminds me of Louisiana- lots of breaded, fried things, beans & rice, polenta, and pasta (for breakfast!).

I guess you could say I'm settling into this community more quickly than I anticipated. I'm not really digging sleeping in a tent every night, but nonetheless, am quite comfortable (it's cooler in a tent than it would be indoors, that's for sure!).

I keep getting reports of how cold it is back home- kind of hard to imagine. The last couple of nights have been delightfully cool here, though, which makes sleeping quite comfortable. It's funny- I was telling Jean-Louis how cold it is back home with the snow & all, and he told me he couldn't sleep last night because it was so cold. We laughed our heads off as we realised how different our versions of cold were!

Annio & Jean-Louis are both really observant, and I know they are quite taken with me (it's mutual). We have a lot of laughs together, and slowly, they are intuiting what needs to happen next, which is impressive. They have a great attitude, with abundant smiles. I make sure to offer them lots of teaching opportunities, but at the end of the day, I'm quite tired, from a combination of the heat, working outdoors for the day, and trying to be understood in both French & Creole.

I had a shower tonight by moonlight, in one of the stalls up against the exterior concrete block wall, and when I looked up, I could see both the moon and the barbed wire that was lit by the moon. It was quite lovely, actually. I went back to try to take a photo, but no luck.

It actually gets dark here much earlier than I thought- by 5:30, it's pretty dark already. I thought I'd be coming to the land of the long days, but no. Well, I suppose it is kind of true, in that it gets light quite early- by 5am it's starting to get light.

In the end I do have some x-mas plans- apparently Christmas eve is more important than Christmas day here in Haiti, so I'm going to go with some of the volunteers from Grassroots to visit a couple of orphanages on the 24th & 25th. They go play with the kids for a bit, and love them...seems like a perfect fit for me. When I realised that they go visit orphanages on a regular basis, I thought that would be perfect, if I could do something like that this year. I'm looking forward to it!

It's a pretty quiet night here on the base for a Friday night. A bunch of base camp folks went out to a club last night to celebrate Jojo's birthday- they went in the Grassroots bus. I probably should have gone, but found out about it kind of late, and we are working long days, so tend to go to bed on the early side.

On Monday there are more election results that will be announced (to definitively announce who will go on to the final round in January). The recent riots, etc. occurred after preliminary election results were announced, so there is the possibility that there could be more of the same kind of behaviour on Monday. Just a reminder, that if that is the case, I am in a safe place (I've only left the compound to go into the city once on a hardware shopping trip, and apart from that, have gone to a restaurant in the neighbourhood, and to the store down the laneway to exchange money a couple of times). If there is serious trouble again, we will be on lockdown, and the staff here will strongly discourage anyone from leaving. (They can't force us to stay here, but of course I will, if that's their recommendation!). There are guards here all day and all night, both at the front gate, and strolling the property, so really...it's as secure as it can get in Haiti. Keep in mind that the media of course focuses on the violence, but it is a real minority of people who are expressing themselves with violence, with the majority of Haitians just carrying on every day living. I'm writing about this to assure anyone who is worried, that if we are on lockdown, I will be staying put.

Hmmm, I've got my really cheap rum, and now I've had a free beer delivered to me from a fellow who's leaving tomorrow, so perhaps I'll go on out to the front porch and join the gang. Cheers!

Wake up calls

I awoke to the sounds of loud chanting, shouting, and a lot of honking, somewhere around 5 or 5:30am…all of a sudden the city just came alive. I wasn’t sure if something was going on, but when I got up 15 minutes later, it was…traffic sounds as usual. I guess this city just wakes up all of a sudden, with a big bang!

I started my day by exploring the back yard. I had been told about the shower stalls, but hadn’t ventured back there yet (I know, 4 days later and no shower? facecloth washing has been fine!). I also noticed that it seems to be the clothes washing station, so I gathered a few dirty items and washed my articles by hand…using a bamboo washboard. Tooooooo cool. I wonder how it sounds for percussion?!

My friend, Ospri, told us about a really cool roofing system (at least for porch awnings) that he saw recently (I think from some Thai builders). You split bamboo in half, and then overlap the sections, alternating where the rounded part is, to end up with something resembling a tile roof. He said it works really well to shed water- I love it!

We got trusses up yesterday in a fairly slow process- the actual truss erection was relatively fast, but preparation of blocking, tweaking the top plate, etc. took time.

Today we’ll hopefully get the purlins up, but there are a few rafters to put up first,  I think. The trusses are full dimension 2x4”, really beefy, on 4 foot centres! Apparently the purlin stock is beefy too, so hopefully that’s enough support for the rather thin gauge roofing.

I’m really enjoying working with Jean-Louis & Annio, and am seeking out their strengths, and having a lot of fun with them. My creole is inching along, bit by bit.

Oh yeah, as I went to go to bed last night, as I was walking close to the school bus, I saw a glow, and heard a funny noise- there were some people fire dancing to music- it was so beautiful to watch!

         Showering & clothes washing area; no running water; you fill a bucket with water, and voila!

                                                          Many hands on the first truss!

More pics from my outing in Port-au-Prince

Many of these photos were taken from the car window...just kept my camera at the ready. 

Our tent city (Mike's tent is in the background, but I've moved into Andy's larger yellow one while he's

 gone.

My new little friend, in behind my tent.


                                                     
These fellows were out with sledge hammers breaking through the rubble, perhaps salvaging materials?
I couldn't help but wonder what it must have been like to dig through rubble right after the earthquake...

                                     

Lumber in Haiti- much is imported from the U.S.A. Funny, since it was likely during the American occupation that all of the forests in Haiti were cut down! Hmmmmm..

Um, I'm hoping I don't have any first hand experience with one of these.

Former supermarket

Two lovely girls, whose parents said I could photograph them. They were quite giggly, and I think they thought old pale face (moi!) was pretty funny looking!

Driving along the street, I noticed the dead chickens on the ground at this vendor's stall.

A 'tap-tap'  taxi in front of us

  

Um, a waterway beside an industrial park

  

Gigantic chunks of concrete rubble, and a lazy lout hanging out amongst it all!

 

Look how cute he is!

Colourful street scene: note the pile of bent rebar that someone is dragging onto the sidewalk while all these folks are strolling by!

 The ubiquitous cell phone!

Welding at the side of the street