Windows Down

Normally if we are in our car here in Haiti, our windows are up and our air conditioning is on as high as it can go. It is so hot most of the time, and since much of our driving time is spent sitting in traffic the exhaust from all of the other vehicles can be overwhelming.















Today, though, I was up in the cool mountains

near the place where Kyle and Megan are in day-camp. My window happened to be down as I started out, so I just left it….even opened the passenger window.

Driving with my windows down allowed me to experience a different dimension of life here.

The sights, smells and sounds that I normally pass without notice became so close when that single pane of glass was removed.

Timid smiles and waves, whiffs of pates frying in oil,

the rhythmic tap of the hammer as stones became gravel,

groups of children laughing as they walked home from school in their uniforms and ribbons (girls),

warm air and then cool air wafting in, two men involved in animated conversation, another man racing to keep up with his donkeys, the grass, the trees…… One old guy even stopped me to tell me how he had fixed a big pothole in the road that had been washed away in the rain. (I think) Anyway, the opportunities for interaction, even if just a quick smile, are limitless. Now as I sit here waiting for Kyle and Megan to finish for the day, I wish I had my camera. One man smoothes out fresh cement on a sidewalk with his trowel, another sits and watches while his friend clips grass with a hedge clipper (my attempt at a hidden camera), a guy who was previously mixing cement by hand now lounges against a wall....

I will probably continue to have my windows up when I drive in the city because of the reasons mentioned above plus the added security risks lowered windows can bring. But I think in the future I will look for more chances to enjoy life with the windows down!!

*Included are some pictures I took the next day.

Haiti Through the Eyes of a Local Doctor

Judith D'Amico is a medical doctor who has lived in Haiti for the past 15 years. Her field is public health and community development. The following is information she compiled for a letter she recently sent out.


Haïti continues pretty much as it has been the last few months. The camps are even fuller than before, as people are either returning to PAP or choosing the camps over their homes because of some perceived benefits they might receive. Here are a few details...

Tent camps
There are presently 1.6 million displaced persons scattered in 1,342 camp sites in the earthquake affected areas of Haïti. In Port-au-Prince, there are about 1,000 of the sites. Fifty-four of the 1,342 sites have more than 1,000 households and these account for 29% of the displaced people. Two of those are in Pétion Ville, the town nearest to me. The commune (like a county) of Delmas, which is very close to the heart of downtown, has the highest concentration of displaced persons. There are 200 camps, 11 of which accommodate more than 1,000 families; and with a total of 315,500 homeless persons (19% of all displaced persons) in the camps. The map below gives you an idea of the immensity of the problem. The darkest red is the commune of Delmas near the downtown:












Water and hygiene facilities
The WASH teams have been working overtime to help meet these needs; and despite less than required levels of water and hygiene facilities in the camps, no waterborne infections have been reported--truly God’s grace and a testimony to how carefully the Haitian people work at managing these scarce resources. But the teams believe that they should be able to add enough latrines to provide 1 for every 100 persons by October, a very decent figure. Nonetheless, the teams caution that although the WASH surveillance may be able to be suspended in a few months in the rural areas, It will need to continue for another year or two within PAP, because of the scarcity of resources.

Insecurity and personal safety
One of the most unpleasant parts of the camps has been the insecurity. A couple weeks ago, the National Police teamed up with the UN troops (called MINUSTAH here) in an early morning raid on one of the large camps in the commune of Delmas. About 30 persons believed to be thieves were apprehended, some were escaped prisoners from the national penitentiary whose walls were damaged in the earthquake.

Another part of the insecurity relates to teens and young women who are being forced into sexual relationships. With many family members either dead or dispersed, these young people are particularly vulnerable. Security has increased in the camps, but it is still a concern.

Pregnancy and STIs
Along with the concern about personal safety is a very sharp rise in the number of pregnancies. This has not yet been measured to my knowledge, but we have all noticed the large number of young women walking about in the earlier stages of pregnancy. Of course, if one is vulnerable to pregnancy, there is also a significant risk for sexually transmitted infection, like HIV. In fact, health providers in some of the camps have noted a higher than national average prevalence among the camp dwellers--though it is uncertain whether this is a cluster effect (a higher number of infected persons who just happen to be living in the same camp) or a real increase in prevalence.

Population growth
Along with these concerns, the US Census Bureau released its population projections for Haïti this week. It estimates that the Haitian population is currently 9.6 million (last census in 2003 showed 7.9 million)—and that’s taking into account the loss of about 230,000 persons to the earthquake. The Bureau predicts that the persons killed in the earthquake will be replaced within 2 years; and that the population will continue to grow at a rate of 1% per year, reaching 13.4 million by 2050. Yikes! It’s hard to feed everyone as it is!

Temporary homes
Some of the tents and tarps have been damaged by the large and frequent rains we’ve been having and will need to be replaced. As I mentioned in the last update, people are starting to add more permanent fixtures to their very temporary shelters, like tin doors, wood framing, and the like. Roughly about 2,500 temporary homes (more like a regular home and built to last at least 3 years) have been constructed; but these are mostly in the more rural areas. The picture below shows the situation at hand:


Debris

The Shelter Cluster estimates that all in all there are about 19 million m3 of debris to remove—a m3 is basically the size of a pallet--so that much debris would fill 19,000 warehouses like ours, and we have one of the largest in Haïti! All in all, about 125,000 temporary homes are expected to have been constructed by this time next year, the huge majority of them in the metropolitan PAP area.

Home Structural Assessments
Houses are still being evaluated in order to help persons resettle in their own homes. About 130,000 of the estimated 188,000 damaged homes have been assessed and a good portion are ‘green’, meaning that they can be lived in without first undergoing repairs. Roughly half of the homes that have been assessed as ‘green’ are being inhabited.

The engineers have been reminding families that the homes evaluated as yellow will need some relatively minor repairs to be able to be inhabited; AND that not all those that have been assessed as ‘red’ will have to be torn down! A good number may still be able to be salvaged with the right kind of earthquake resistant technology applied. Now that’s good news! As of right now, 46% have been assessed as ‘green’, another 30% as ‘yellow’, and the rest as ‘red’. The engineers estimate that about 500,000 persons will be able to return to properly repaired homes.

Food
Although food rations are no longer being distributed, there is good news on the horizon! The spring harvest looks like it will be rather productive, which will both increase the availability of food staples as well as decrease the price. The maps below give an idea of the projections concerning the availability of food for the next few months (yes, green is good!). This is very heartening because prices continue to be well above pre-earthquake level—roughly 25% more.















MAY 2010 AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2010

Jobs
Another brighter star on the horizon. The food for work programs are not only helping to clear the rubble, clean out canals to avoid lowland flooding, and repair rural roads; these 100,000+ people are receiving a reasonable wage with which to help support their families. The need for this kind of work will be there for quite some time in the future, along with labor for reconstruction; and this should significantly help to re-establish families.

But the financial losses have been great here. One thing that helps Haitian people to get by on such limited income is that they do not need to pay great sums for living quarters. But modest sized homes that used to cost perhaps $2,500 per year to rent are now going for $500/month; that is more than the average middle class Haitian person earns in a month! Housing relief, and not just the temporary shelters, must be made a major priority in order to be able to stabilize the country.

Non-profit organizations
Again a reminder: the Government of Haïti is asking all 1,000+ NGOs operating within the country to register. The registration must be renewed every 6 months. If you would like more information on any Government-related business in Haïti, I’d encourage you to either become a member of the NGO Coordination Support at www.oneresponse.info or contact them directly for at ngocoordinationsupport@gmail.com

Some more subjects of prayer:
For everyone’s personal safety, especially for the young and the vulnerable
That food and housing will indeed begin to be affordable, and at levels to meet everyone’s need
That reconstruction can proceed well:
Settling of the land ownership issues
No longer be hindered by such high prices—some materials are up about 50% over pre-earthquake prices, even though there is no shortage
Driving:
That the rains and floods will not do any more damage to roads
That the road damage will be promptly repaired so that it does not take forever, and at risk of life and limb, to travel to and from normal activities. Video games have nothing on the ‘real deal,’ take-your-life-in-your-hands events that regularly occur on the roads here!
That the Lord will give us grace to deal with those few but significant numbers of persons who do not believe that laws were meant for the well-being of everyone. It adds greatly to the stress to share narrow, broken down roads with others who ignore the danger they put themselves, as well as the rest of us, in.

Thanks…and blessings on you!

Judith d'Amico

May/June Family Update

Home Again!!!

Thursday morning (June 17) we hit the road at the crack of dawn. We drove from Orlando, FL where we had spent the past week with my brother and family down to Fort Lauderdale to catch our flight to Haiti. In spite of a delayed start and multiple things we needed to do along the way we arrived at the airport with an hour to spare. After a short hour-and-a-half flight we arrived in Port au Prince with all of our luggage….YAY!!!

The Same but Different

Dieseus, one of MAF’s newest employees, helped us get our luggage and brought a car for us to take home. Our eyes were glued to the windows as we drove toward home through the streets that we had not seen for five months. Memories came flooding back. Much has been cleared away and either repaired or rebuilt. A few tell-tale buildings still lean or lay in a heap, but a surprising amount of rubble is gone. What were once big open plazas and yards are now covered with tarp shanties and tents. We were so glad to get home and see our neighbors and find out about a few more people that we had not heard about. Natasha, my veggie lady, is alive and well, and the other day at the grocery store I met a guy who was one of the managers at our old grocery store….the one that collapsed.

It was kind of strange to come back and find our same car, our same house, our same neighbors…..so many things the same but with subtle changes. There are still ants and dust everywhere. Water, electricity, communications and fuel are still things that need to be carefully monitored and managed. Haiti mangoes are still amazing!!....and plentiful. Sugar is still sticky and cereal still soggy because of the humidity. Yet my plants are all healthy and big. The kids’ turtle has about doubled in size since we left in January and loves to swim. The MAF guys have found new routes to and from work. Our little church has gotten some new benches, and it is still one of my favorite places to go in this city. God is so faithful. He is constant but always relevant, even in the middle of big changes.

Then and Now

Besides the blessing of being back home, some of the highlights during the past couple months were the birth of my little nephew Paul David Kahle Jr., the kids finishing the school year with good grades, visiting Todd’s cousin and Yellowstone on the way out to ID with my parents, spending a week in Nampa, ID with friends and family, and then taking the kids to Disney before coming back here (got to see my sis Sarah and her daughter while in FL, too!!). We really appreciate all of the love and encouragement we felt when we were both in TN and ID (and from other friends around the country).

Now Todd is back to work at the hangar, and the kids and I are busy getting reacquainted with friends again before school begins in the fall. It has been encouraging to see T-shirts and billboards with optimistic statements about rebuilding. Please pray for continued motivation toward that end as time passes.

*Pictures--#1 our road

#2-4 buildings and stores around town

#5 fun at the ID cabin with both sets of grandparents (my parents' first visit to ID)

#6 Todd with his new nephew

#7 Lorelei, Megan, Audrey and Kyle at Epcot

#8 sister in law Rose and me at a soccer tournament :)

To Fetch a Pail of Water

In the US I am a "drink water from the tap" kind of a girl, but in other countries I have always used filtered water in order to avoid unnecessary sickness. When we were in Pignon (Piyon) doing language school it was complicated to buy water, so we began using a clay filter which has always done great. Here in Port, our house water comes from rain water which is collected on our house's flat concrete roof (picture of our neighbor's roof which collects water). While Todd was in the States this last time, the drain got plugged with leaves and debris, so water pooled on the roof and began growing organic things. It smelled funny when it came out of the faucet, so we added chlorine. The clay filter is ineffective if the water to filter is chlorinated, so we began using another ceramic filter (pictured). Todd is planning to clean out the cistern today, but since we have a guest staying with us and I did not entirely trust the integrity of the water I decided to buy a couple 5 gallon jugs of water from the grocery store last night.
The store is just a few blocks away, but I had forgotten the process of buying water and why I love our filter so much. First of all, you have to take your own jugs. Unfortunately, ours were still in the kitchen. I thought I would save time by going inside the store to buy the few groceries I needed and at the same time purchase 2 water tickets that you hand to the guy outside dispensing the water jugs. The cashier said that was not possible if I did not have my jugs. So I paid for my things, drove home, got my jugs, and went back. I handed my jugs to the water dispenser guy, but unfortunately I had the wrong kind of jug.....Culligan instead of five other kinds that they had. Never knew anyone cared about that.... Fortunately I asked him where they sell Culligan, and he directed me to a pharmacy right across the street. I got their last two bottles!! :) Ahhhhh!!!