Last night I dreamed

Of Haiti, more to the point of when I was in Bercy and trying to fall asleep. I am not sure I can put into words what it was like at night in Bercy, but just for you I am willing to try.

It is very dark, people do not have electricity in their home and they do not waste there gas for the generator or their car battery and inverter to keeps lights on very late. They just go to bed because they wake at the crack of dawn to try and work while it is still cool. Anyway I lay in the foreign country in a strange bed surrounded by strange noises, all except one noise. The cock-a-doodle-do of roosters crowing. Now we raise chickens and have a couple roosters so this is not a new noise to me. Though I will say my rooster does not crow all night long, like the roosters in Haiti feel they must do. To the east of the house one hears a dozen or so roosters crowing at once, then to the North of the house another group of roosters and then to the west of the house more roosters and then to the south of the house even more crowing. All night long it seemed to be a gang war between rival gangs of roosters. Who had the most roosters in its gang, which gang could crow the loudest, and who could go on the longest seemed to be the questions that needed to be answered. Every now and then lone rooster would crow out of sink with any of the rooster gangs, maybe he hadn’t join one yet, or maybe he had to prove him self first, maybe he was just simply a rebel.

So the one sound that was not foreign to me was the one sound that kept me awake night after night. So last night when I dreamed of trying to fall asleep in Bercy, Haiti you can imagine I was not sleeping very well.

Rooster Tied up

Baby Jeffery

Hope to have an update on Jeffery soon! Can’t wait to talk to Edens.

My thoughts on rebuilding

So I am not a country rebuilding guru or anything related to that. And I do not know the political ins and outs of Haiti and all of the nuances that go with the Haitian culture. Of Haiti I know Bercy the best, and kind of understand its nuances. I have given some thought to Haiti for 2 years now, before the earth quake ever hit. Researching and talking with my guys about how to help them and Bercy. And using things that I already use on our homestead.

Last summer I worked with Edens and Herode on researching earth bag homes. They were not very keen on this idea at first then became more excited. Though both were worried about what their fellow villagers would think. I was planning on helping them build one when I visited Haiti winter of 2010, but plans changed.

When I was in Bercy I visited Herode’s garden, I learned how very different their gardens are from our. I carried 20 lbs of seeds into Haiti on that trip along with instruction on the planting and use of these seeds. The seeds provided were Heirloom variety and I thought the guys about seed saving. They have successfully done this. We talked a lot about how to better set up the garden to accommodate the banana and papaya trees as well as tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables.

This summer we (my family & the guys) are going to build a natural food dehydrator, a reflector over and an earth oven. We might even make a small earth bag storage shed. This is all so that they guys can go home and make these things for themselves and their neighbors, helping them all become more self sufficient.

I strongly feel that teaching people sustainability and self sufficiency is of vital importance. I do not think we should try and move them into the electronic age in the way that we are here in the USA currently, but rather teach them how to be like American in the early years were people could do for themselves.

Isn’t this the perfect time to introduce wind farms and solar power to Haiti? There is a company in Georgia that is making foam insulation. There is a forever product to consider for Haiti. How about Yurts, I think they might be a good building substitute for concrete block buildings. Earth bags are perfect for Haiti, let’s introduce them.

Water, I do not have an answer for this yet. Maybe helping with the cost of bringing in large well drillers for around the country.

How about introducing mini breeds of cattle, that eat less feed and take up less space. Certainly working on animal husbandry skills is important. When I was visiting Herode and I talked about the other food sources for his pig, such as weeds from the garden that he was throwing away. 

 I would love to purchase land in Bercy and set up a place to teach people about these things and how they can better improve their own lives. Call me nuts but I would love to try!

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Earth bag home in Haiti

http://durasip.com/index.html

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The Practical Yurt http://www.woodlandyurts.co.uk/Yurt_Facts/How_Yurt_Works.html
The yurt is probably the most practical temporary dwelling available, being:
Portable, a nine foot yurt will fit in the back of the smallest car, and can be carried in a wheelbarrow. A sixteen footer will fit in an average car with the uni on a roof-rack.
Secure, the yurt can be fitted with a lockable wooden door. Entry cannot be gained even if the canvas is cut.
Weather proof, the yurt has proven itself in the harsh climate of central Asia for centuries.
Warm in winter, being circular, with a relatively low roof it is easy to heat. Insulating layers can be sandwiched between the frame and the cover.
Cool in summer, the sides can be rolled up, or removed to admit a cooling breeze. Hot air rises out through the open tono, and cool air is drawn in.
Inconspicuous, despite having ample headroom, the overall height of the structure is low, allowing it to be easily screened from unwanted attention.
Easy to erect, with a little practice the yurt can be erected or taken down in less than thirty minutes, even by one person.
Easy to move, if you have pitched your ger in the wrong place, you can, with the help of a few friends, pick up the entire yurt and move it without any need to take it down and re-erect it.
Environmentally friendly, coppicing of hazel, ash and willow, to provide poles is good for the tree and woodland wildlife. All timber is from the local community forest. The yurt is a low impact dwelling, causing no permanent damage to the land on which it is pitched. It can even be moved every few days to prevent the grass from being killed.
Long lasting, the yurt can stand outside for several years without harm, if used occasionally it should last indefinitely. In Mongolia the frame is expected to last a lifetime.
Fun!, for children and adults alike yurt camping is a real break from the usual holiday accommodation.

Our History in Haiti a Snap Shot

In the 1700’s what is now Haiti was called the “Jewel of the Caribbean,” and supplied about 40% of the world’s sugar.
In 1791 the government of France passed legislation to phase out
slavery in its Caribbean colonies and grant the former Negro slaves citizenship. Rather than becoming citizens, Haiti’s Negro population mass murdered all whites and Mulattoes who could not flee the Island in time. In 1804 only full blooded Negros remained
and Haiti became the first Negro ruled nation. The Haitian revolution dominated America’s debate over slavery. While both the north and the south agreed that slavery should be ended, southerners and a large percentage of northerners universally
opposed having a large population of freed slaves living in their midst.. The Haitian “Revolution” was fresh in every one’s mind.
Flash forward to 1915. The “Jewel of the Caribbean” is now a desolate cesspool, that is exporting almost no sugar. The United States decides to “take up the white man’s burden” and send the US Marine Corps to rebuild Haiti’s infrastructure and feed it’s starving population.
The United States gave huge amounts of money to Haiti and over-saw the building of 1,000 miles of road, telephone lines, modernized its port, and helped Haiti to start exporting sugar once again. The US also put an end to the thousands of bandits along Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic. The US left in 1934 at the request of the then stabilized and very ungrateful Haitian government.
Haiti immediately sank straight back into total desolation strife. In 1973 the United State once again began playing a huge role in Haiti, giving the Island huge sums of money in handouts each year.
In 1994 the Clinton administration once again sent the US military to Haiti to rebuild the Island’s infrastructure.
In 1995 the Peace Corps went to Haiti in large numbers to train the Haitians in job skills. The US government spent almost one Billion dollars providing food and job training to the Haitians between 95 and 99.
So when Obama says that Haiti has our “full, unwavering, support,” they have already had our full support since 1915.
Haiti has been nothing more than a welfare state that the US has been taking care of for the last 100 years. I have read that there may have been a large pocket of Natural Gas found, on the island. If so, I think we should be paid back for all our support since the early 1900’s! We are all getting tired of any and all Bailouts. Especially if it is for non US citizens.

interesting reading

http://www.humanitarian.info/2010/01/24/reinventing-haiti/ – Paul Currion

humanitarian.infobecause information can save lives Reinventing Haiti with 11 comments Some people are attached to “Build Back Better”, and it bothers me. If we want to “build back” a country that was such a nightmare that most of the citizens basically wanted to get the hell out, build back better is the way to go; if we want to participate in a project that has clear ideological intent to sustain the status quo with marginal improvements in people’s lives, then build back better is the slogan to front it. I don’t want that; I want something new, something better than Build Back Better. Architecture for Humanity volubly disagreed with me on Twitter, which is ironic, because they’re exactly the sort of organisation that I’d like to see get more play in the great game of aid – see their plan for reconstruction if you don’t believe me. I don’t have a coherent over-arching plan to fix Haiti, because coherent over-arching plans to fix Haiti will fail – that’s kind of the point when it comes to dealing with complex systems like countries, right? So perhaps I should clarify what I meant when I said Just Say No by providing a few examples: •Reinvent Building. Shelter is critical to most service delivery in an emergency, but particularly after earthquakes when people have lost their housing. Now’s the time to introduce sustainable housing using techniques such as rammed earth construction, supported by a radical land rights regime based on the work of Hernando de Soto. •Reinvent Sanitation. The industrialised model of sanitation simply doesn’t scale in rapidly-growing cities in developing countries, sometimes creating more problems than they solve. There are alternatives to the flush-and-forget toilet, so why not roll out composting toilets that enable more effective management of human waste as well as supporting urban agriculture? •Reinvent Agriculture. It might seem strange to talk about farming in the middle of the city, but if it can work in Detroit, then why not Port-au-Prince? Permaculture projects hit several sweet spots all at once – not just food security but waste management, livelihoods and so on – and an alternative to the more destructive patterns that Haiti suffered before. •Reinvent Power. Solar solar solar isn’t the answer to every question, particularly at large scale, but it hits a lot of household usage in poor countries (including the ubiquitous mobile phone). There are smart ideas like the FLAP bag floating around, but basic solar – solar cookers, for example – have been around for a while. Anything to shift away from wood. •Reinvent Communications. Forget restoring any landlines that might have existed before the earthquake, because I bet that everybody was using mobile phones anyway. Roll out free wireless broadband across the city – maybe find a use for those OLPCs that are hanging around in warehouses (eventually), but more importantly create new business opportunities. •Reinvent Transport. Segways! Not really. Roads are for the rich; why not think about the needs of the poor and simply make sure there are pavements? A simple but profound idea if you want to go for a walk without falling into a hole filled with dirty water and metal poles. In an ideal world, there’d be some integrated transport plan that looked at how to convert tap-taps to LPG, but even I’m not that silly. •Reinvent Finance. Facilitate the free flow of remittances, even if they’re not the biggest link in the chain of solidarity… but it would be interesting to see what happened if, instead of channelling funding through big multilaterals and the Haitian “government”, cash grants were used to kickstart the economy through community finance mechanisms and plain old cash distributions. •Reinvent Governance. We all love democracy, the worst form of government. Unfortunately we tend to forget that democracy comes in different flavours; it’s frustrating when the cloning attempts repeatedly fail and everybody acts surprised. So let’s be more inventive – community-level direct democracy, emergent rather than directed policy, referenda rather than elections, issue-based not party-based, and so on. Am I naive to think that these things are possible? Well, no, because I don’t really believe these things are possible. To be clear – none of these things are part of the immediate humanitarian response, but we should be thinking about knitting together Haiti’s social fabric before it suffers permanent trauma through a range of small-scale exploratory projects, rather than calling for a Marshall Plan for Haiti. Unfortunately that’s the way that the international community responds – too much planning and not enough searching. The tool kit available to the aid bureaucracy is almost comically limited; there are numerous small projects going on around the world that can make a difference in people’s lives, but the challenge is placing them in a long-term view of reinvention. We’re not very good at thinking in realistic timeframes for country-level development, forgetting exactly how long it took rich countries to get rich and how recently that wealth arrived. There are two main obstacles: first, existing institutional structures will work very hard indeed to replicate themselves, and they have the leverage; second, scaling up is incredibly difficult to achieve past anything more than the level of an extended community. The institutional structures are the same ones that brought you – Afghanistan! Iraq! most of Africa! – i.e. structures that have repeatedly demonstrated that they’re most likely not fit for purpose. And scaling up? That’s where the real work is – trying to rebuild from the inside these systems that have grown up over the years, using the same tools that built those systems in the first place. I’ve been trying to work this out for most of my working life, and I still don’t have many good solutions. So if anybody has any other ideas for reinventing Haiti, plug them into the comments below – and don’t come screaming with approaches that are so radical that nobody outside the US will ever use them, please…. In the meantime, there are lives to save, and I have to write an evaluation report on NGO co-ordination in Southern Sudan.

humanitarian.info

because information can save lives

Haiti: Just Say No to Build Back Better

with 7 comments

Haiti is on my (thankfully) short list of “Countries for which I genuinely can’t see a solution”. It’s a possibility that we don’t like to think about – that perhaps there are certain situations which countries (loosely defined) cannot get out of. There’s no logical reason why this couldn’t happen – read Jared Diamond’s “Collapse” and Thomas Homer-Dixon’s “The Ingenuity Gap” back-to-back to get a loose idea of what I’m talking about – but our natural instincts are to deny the possibility.

The argument is simple, and it goes like this. Societies are complex systems that rely on a wide range of mutually-reinforcing factors in order to maintain themselves. We don’t actually understand all the factors that are in play, let alone how they interact with each other, but some of the more visible relationships make it possible to make reasonable estimates of the health of the system.  To anybody who’s investigated Haiti’s situation, it’s clear that it was a complex system that was failing, if it hadn’t failed already.

I refuse to use the term failed state, a political construction used to justify a particular ideological position; Tyler Cowen is closer to the mark when he talks about coming to terms “with the idea that the country of Haiti, as we knew it, probably does not exist any more.” It’s a little mysterious why he thinks that it’s President Obama that needs to comes to terms with it, rather than, say, the people who live in Haiti, particularly because it’s the latter who get to say if their country doesn’t exist any more.

Which brings me to the question: if I’m such a Gloomy Gus about Haiti’s prospects, do I have any positive thoughts about the situation? It’s going to take a long time to clear the rubble – both physical and emotional – but the opportunity before us collectively is huge. Let’s stop talking about reconstruction, when we’d be reconstructing a system that was a failure even before the quake; let’s stop talking about long-term development when long-term development had clearly failed to deliver significant poverty reduction.

Instead, let’s talk about reinventing Haiti. What sort of Haiti would its citizens like to see rise from the ashes of the old Haiti? The answer, unfortunately, will not be to the taste of those in power both inside Haiti and out. We don’t have the tools to respond to the wishes of people affected by the earthquake simply because it’s not within the parameters by which the system was designed. Alternative models of governance, of urban planning, of service delivery – they literally can’t be considered.

What might reinvention involve? I’ve got ideas (what else did you think?) but the whole point is that it’s not up to me. Our job is to look at the role that our decisions have played in building a structure that knew Haiti was an accident waiting to happen but prevented anybody from taking action to prevent it; even now we’re reaping the results of that in the logistics bottlenecks facing the relief effort, in a city built against resilience. Forget about reinventing the wheel; the real danger is reinventing Haiti as it was.

with 6 comments

The earthquake that struck Haiti is a terrible disaster that requires the international community to provide both immediate aid to save lives and longer-term support to rebuild infrastructure and livelihoods. Even as I write those words, I’m reading between the lines, and my sympathy for the Haitians affected by the quake is tempered outweighed by my anger at an international system that allows Haiti to languish at the bottom end of the Human Development league, but mobilises millions of dollars as soon as infrastructure collapses.

Nobody can deny that Haiti needs assistance right now to save lives, but it also needed assistance yesterday when the infant mortality rate was the 37th lowest in the world. When it comes to natural disasters, we – our governments, our media, ourselves – are victims of the same biases that cause impulse buying at the supermarket. Thousands of people dying from buildings falling on them instantly mobilises a huge amount of resources, but thousands of children dying from easily preventable diseases is just background noise. This is the uncomfortable reality of the aid world, but it’s not one that our media or governments really wants to hear.

I’m not looking to condemn any particular individual or organisation that wants to help in whatever way they can, but if we think there’s something wrong with that picture, perhaps we shouldn’t just be handing over money to our chosen charity, but lobby for the following:

1. Develop a more consistent and more coherent aid architecture that takes a long view of human capability instead of a short term view of human suffering.
2. Encourage more creative approaches to rebuilding Port-au-Prince for an urban plan that meets the needs of the poor, not just the rich, and builds more resilient communities.
3. Put an end to the portrayal of Haitians (and others) as victims and takes notice of the fact that they are the ones who responded first to this emergency.

My thoughts go out to the people of Haiti; first suffering the earthquake, and now the international community.

 

What is needed

So when i spoke with Edens and Herode a couple days ago I asked what they needed most. If we could send them stuff what would they want sent.

1) The items they had to leave behind last fall.

2) Food

3) Tents

4) Clothing

5) Shoes

And since we can’t send items they said… Money, in order for them to purchase the items there.

Last fall they were planning on being able to take 100 lbs of check on luggage home. 24 hours before there flight we realized that they were not booked on American Airlines, but rather with Spirit Air. Spirit Air only allows 1 50 lb bag for passangers going to Haiti and you can’t pay for more! This was very upsetting to all of us and the guys had to repack their bags.

Because of this many items were left behind: seeds, clothing, and food just to name a few things. I had plans of carrying the items down to Haiti for them, but then the earth quake hit and I was unable to go. As soon as we can get enough funders behind the plan I will go down with their things. I could go any time before the end of May. If your interested in helping get these items to Haiti please drop my an message. There items are being stored in my basement.

School

Today I was reading one of our local weekly newspapers. There was an article on how our Piermont school budget was passed at a higher than requested rate buy the tax payers. Also mentioned was the warrant article that some towns’ people were trying to put through that would not only raise the school budget but tax payers’ taxes as well. The warrant article was to have our high school students have the choice of any high school not just to choose from the 6 or so choices they have now. This warrant article was not passed. Looking back on it from now I have had time to reflect on these decisions made by myself and my fellow tax payers. Looking back with thoughts on my friends in Bercy. My friends in Haiti and their siblings and neighbors are not able to attend school right now. Not only were the schools badly damaged by the earth quake but even when schools were open the cost was prohibitive. In fact Haiti is the only country in western hemisphere where most children do not attend school. Edens told me that he thinks “school is very important because the education could allow them to get a good job and make money for his family”. Even with the ability to get an education both Edens and Herode feel as though they are looking at a dead end. School in Haiti is vastly different then here in the states. The children wear uniforms; each school has a different one. When I was first told about this I was upset, thinking that families that were already strapped not only having to pay for school but for uniforms as well. Edens explained to me what was really going on. “By wearing a uniform the parents do not have to worry about washing a lot of clothes (without power and running water this is a hard task), the children then do not ruin their school clothes by wearing them in the garden or to do other things. The uniforms also “make the children feel like they are doing something special and that they should work hard at it.” Edens never seemed to feel that uniforms were an issue in his family, though paying for school is tough. So here in the United States in the town of Piermont we have people fighting to have our high school choices unlimited. While my friends and our neighbors to the south east do not have a choice about attending school at all.

Update on Jeffery

Jeffery was taken to the doctor day before yesterday. Herode and Edens are both telling me that the doctor said that Jeffery has “hard stomach”. I do not understand what this means and they were not able to describe further. The doctor gave Jeffery medicine, but the baby has to go back tomorrow and they have to pick up more medicine.

Gail W. attended the presentation I gave last week about Bercy and heard about Jeffery’s plight. She gave me $50.00 to send for Jeffery’s medical care. $45.00 was sent for Jeffery on Friday morning and the $50.00 from Gail W. was sent today. Thank you very much Gail W. for helping this child. I will have more information about Jeffery by the end of the week.

As usual it is always interesting to talk on the phone with my guys. In the back ground I could hear Tap Taps honking, people talking, cars driving by. I could just see the busy market with the people negotiating over items. Ragged children looking for scraps of food, and a place to rest. Dogs so thin that they are merely skeletons with skin stretched over them wondering around looking lost and forlorn. Tap Taps drivers pushing each other’s Tap Taps out of the way in there haste to deliver their passengers. Old Florida school busses driving through the market as though on a wide open interstate. I can just see the farmer pushing his wheelbarrow of plantains, eggplants and tomatoes through the market streets, trying to sell his wares.

Tap Tap

Wheelbarrow of harvest bound for the market

Cost of Living

 Just want to give you an idea of the cost of living for people in Bercy. Right now the one American Dollar is worth seven Haitian dollars. Please keep inm ind most of these families have no income at all and aide has not reached these village at this time.

Rice 25 lbs $235.00 Haitian dollars

2 sweet potatoes $10.00 Haitian dollars

Cooking oil 1 gal. $55.00 Haitian dollars

Drinking water 5 gal. is $5.00 – $6.00 Haitian dollars  

A tent that 10-12 people could stant under costs around $150 us

Jeffery

Earlier Earlier this week I talked to Herode. His sister’s baby Jeffery, is very sick. Jeffery was 3 days old when I was in Haiti January of 2009. Herode told me they didn’t have any money to get the baby to take the baby to the hospital. As both as a human, a mother, and the babies God Mother I felt a strong need to see this baby cared for. Early the next day $45.00 US was sent to Haiti for Jeffery’s medical needs and for food for him. 45.00 US is about $315.00 Haitian dollars just enough to cover a trip to the Dr and some food. When I spoke with Edens last night he said that the money was delivered to Herode and Jeffery was taken to the Dr. I will find out on Monday how Jeffery is doing.this week I talked to Herode. His sister baby Jeffery, is very sick. Jeffery was 3 days old when I was in Haiti January of 2009. Herode told me they didn’t have any money to get the baby to take the baby to the hospital. As both as a human, a mother, and the babies God Mother I felt a strong need to see this baby cared for. Early the next day $45.00 US was sent to Haiti for Jeffery’s medical needs and for food for him. 45.00 US is about $315.00 Haitian dollars just enough to cover a trip to the Dr and some food. When I spoke with Edens last night he said that the money was delivered to Herode and Jeffery was taken to the Dr. I will find out on Monday how Jeffery is doing.

Jeffery, 3 days old and his Mama

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