Some Call It Lazy, I Call It Resourceful

I am sitting at the UN base in Gonaives after a long couple of days. Next to me is Owen, typing away at his blog, updating everyone about what is going on. This made me feel bad about not wanting to write an update. So, instead of actually writing one that sounds exactly the same, I figured I would give a few highlights and then pass you on to Owen's post.

• Before going all the way to Milot, we decided to visit some friends in Gonaives for a couple days and see the work they're doing. Our friends are from and organization called AMURT.
• Left Pierre Payen and spent 2.5 hours driving to Gonaives.
• Took a tour of the Gonaives area and saw the AMURT's facilities.
• Drove another 2.5 hours to Sou Chod where the AMURT headquarters are.
• Sou Chod is known for its mineral hot springs.
• We did get to enjoy the hot water....first hot bath I've had in about 5 months.
• Got to see the salt farming project that AMURT is helping the locals tackle.
• Witnessed the Haitian town meeting...complete with yelling, fist throwing, machete threatening, shovel destroying, discussions.
• Drove 2.25 hours back to Gonaives...that's a 15 minute faster return trip and half of it was in the dark.

Ok, I'll let Owen fill in the gaps: http://owenfitz.blogspot.com/2008/10/wild-wild-west.html

Motorcycle Diaries?

Well, Owen and I are leaving early tomorrow morning to head north and we'll be coming back next Saturday.   A lot has happened this past week so I'll try and do a quick recap since this will be my last chance for at least a week.

This past weekend was the long weekend due to a Haitian holiday.  Owen and I made tried to make  the most of it and have as many adventures as we could....I think we did pretty well.  On Friday, we went drove about 20 minutes south to a spot just of highway one near a mining site.  We grabbed our snorkeling gear and headed out into the water for a couple of hours.  Chris said the spot was pretty good since the coral reefs were close to the shore and people tended not to bother you there.  Well, not too long into our adventure, a guy named John swam out to us and introduced himself.  He asked our names and even made sure he could spell them correctly.  After he left I remember hearing about a guy that runs a scam in the area that starts out a lot like our interaction did with John.  I told Owen that he may be coming back soon with some bracelets that had our names on them.  Sure enough, 15 minutes later he swam back out to us and wanted to show what he had made for us.   I told him we didn't ask for him to make anything for us and that we were not there to shop but to swim.   He kept trying to put the bracelets on us and I told him that if he wanted to talk we would talk to him when we were finished snorkeling.  After we finished he showed up at the truck as we were putting our things away.  Long story short, he became upset that we didn't want his bracelets and that we wouldn't give him money.  I can't express how many times things like this have happened before.  Maybe not the same exact situation, but the premise is the same...try to manipulate a person into buying something or giving out money...when they don't do it, make them feel bad....if that doesn't work, start to get angry.  Word travels surprisingly fast in Haiti considering the nonexistent mailing system and no electricity. If you give into one of these situations, everyone hears about it and next time you will have more than one person trying to work their plan on you.

Anyway, after all that was over we came back home and headed out with the entire Clean Water for Haiti crew to go to the Hopps.  We ended up going swimming for another couple of hours.  After dinner, Owen and I were completely wiped out, but we decided to watch Ghosts of Cité Soleil because it had been mentioned during the day.  It was interesting because it dealt with what was going on in Haiti just a few years ago.

On Saturday we decided to take out the mopeds and go to Canaan.  This was the first time wither of us had ridden mopeds here in Haiti, so it took us a little while to find everything we needed and get out on the road.  Once we finally did get on the road, we found out that one of the bike didn't like to run for very long.  Whoever was riding it could get about 50 to 100 yards and then the bike would stall.  We made it about half way and decided we should get it fixed so we headed back home.  Along the way it became very comical because every so often I would get the bike running and fly by Owen telling him to catch up.  After 100 yards, I would stall out and Owen would ride up next to me as I was trying to kick start the bike.  Imagine this scenario repeating about 20 times during our journey.  Oh, and did I mention all the locals love to looks at the two white kids riding the scooters that don't work, and seeing us pass by multiple times.

This is one of the many instances where I was trying to get the bike restarted as all the locals were wondering what the two white people were up to.

Once we got back, Chris adjusted the air-fuel mix on the carburetor and we were off again.  We made it to Canaan and ended up getting a tour of the grounds.  This was nice because although I have been there multiple time I have never seen everything that is there.  Later in the day we came back to Canaan in the new van and watched Alvin and the Chipmunks with the kids in the cafeteria.  After that, Mark, Bobi, Owen and I played cards until it was well past our bedtime and then we headed back home.

We had so much fun riding the mopeds we decided that we needed to take them out again on Sunday.  The church service at Canaan starts at 10am and we decided this gave us enough time to hike up to Kapiat (The Source) and go for a swim before it.  We took the mopeds as far as we could up the hill and then chained them to a tree and walked the rest of the way.  It was pretty early in the morning and overcast, so it was a perfect time to hike.

Owen and I stopping to get a photo on our journey.

After the excursion we rode back down the hill, changed clothes in the restroom at Canaan and went to church.  We had heard rumors before, but they were confirmed when we arrived that we would be joining the other missionaries there in singing a song for the congregation and then leading the service.   We sang part of the song in Creole and part in English.  I think we did pretty well for only having a couple minutes to practice with the group.  Later in the day I ended up filling about eight, 50 gallon drums of water from our well and delivering them to Canaan so they could have water to drink.  

The rest of this week has been filled with the training class we were putting on.  We had eight people from three different organizations in Haiti that came to out Biosand filter training.  

The newest graduates from Clean Water for Haiti's training class.

On Wednesday I headed to Port with Israel to get the steal that we had cut for our molds.  This was very exciting since it meant that we wouldn't have to plasma cut or grind any of the pieces.  It was supposed to be a quick trip to Port and back, but as we all know by now, that is just wishful thinking.  As I got closer to the road that goes to the new bridge in Montroius, I noticed that there were vehicles line up on the side of the road.  It wasn't as bad as when the new bridge had yet to be opened, but it was reminiscent of that time.  Once we could see the road that led to the new bridge we noticed a lowboy trailer, the ones that transport large construction equipment, was stuck across the road.  The trailer had gotten high-sided and the from and rear wheels were a little off the ground and the truck couldn't move.  There is another way to get to the bridge, so we turned around and headed for that route.  This alternate road however, is very narrow and at one point I was pinned against a gate as four buses, two dump truck, and other small vehicles maneuvered past us with Israel directing them.  I had to pull in the side view mirrors, and I am not joking when I say that the buses were coming within a centimeter of the truck.  As I was sitting in the cab, I kept thinking about how the conversation would go when I had to tell Chris that the truck had been smashed into by a bus.  We ended up making it out without any damage and the rest of the drive seemed to be a piece of cake after that.  

At night as I was heading to bed, I noticed the yellow light was lit in the work yard.  It took a few seconds for it to register, but once it did I yelled for Chris.  The yellow light indicates that EDH was on.  That means that city power was actually working....that is the first time in almost three months.  It was only on for a few hours, but to see any power being supplied at all was a complete shock.  

Thursday after work, Owen, Ricardo, Evens and I went on a hike near Ricardo's house.  Owen and I have been practicing Creole with Ricardo and Evens after work some days.  Evens works for Clean Water for Haiti and Ricardo is Even's good friend and I also met him one time at Kapiat.  It was good to get out and see where Ricardo lives and actually do something outside of work and outside our mission with local people.  It was a fun hike and we got a lot of good practice in language wise.

Evens, Me, and Ricardo

Alright, I think that sums up most of what happened this week...at least the exciting parts.  I'm off to bed to get a good nights rest before another adventure starts tomorrow.  Take care.

Did I Mention...?

A lot has been happening lately and I have been a little lazy and not updating the blog...but we have a three day weekend now since Friday is a holiday and I'm going to take some time and try to write down some of the things going on here.

Last Tuesday (Oct 7th), I went with the workers as we delivered 34 filters to the Artibonite Valley, north of Pierre Payen.  It always ends up being a long day when we do filter deliveries or installations, but when we go to the Artibonite area we do both the deliveries and installations on the same day since it takes around two hours to get to the filter recipients. We headed out at 5:30 am and ended up getting home around 5:00 pm.  We really like to get our filters in this area since people are so poor there and drink the very dirty canal water.  We took a cooler that Chris had packed with bread, peanut butter, jelly, and pop.  He forgot to put in the bottle opener though and Thony ended up opening everyone's bottle with his teach.  It made me cringe thinking that part of his tooth might chipping off as he bit down on every bottle cap.  I tried to discretely open mine with a knife, but Thony saw me,grabbed the bottle and tore the cap off with his teeth.  Apparently some of the workers had never seen a cold pack before, because after we were done eating they noticed the blue cold packs in the bottom of the cooler and asked if they could drink the juice.  I explained what they were for and said that was probably not a good idea to drink them.

While I was out for the day doing filters, Chris headed to Port-au-Prince to pick up Owen.  Owen  is another volunteer that is checking Clean Water for Haiti out will be here for about a month.  While he is here, him and I are planning to drive up to Milot (near Cap Hatitan) and meet up with the Engineers Without Borders chapter from his alma mater, NJIT.  They are doing a water project and using the biosand filter so we are hoping to be a good resource for them.  Owen is staying out in my side of the dorm and it has been great having him here to get to know and work with.  He has been keeping a record of life in Haiti since his arrival and you can check it out at: http://owenfitz.blogspot.com/

So the rest of the week after Owen arrived was spent getting him acclimated to the work we do here at the mission.  We introduced him to all the workers, gave the typical property tour, and then started making filters.  Another project we worked on was trying to optimize the steal cut-outs for the filter molds.  We used to cut the pieces we needed for the mold and then make one mold.  However, we end up with a lot of scrap metal and Owen and I determined that there should be a better way.  We ended up make some drawings in AutoCAD and finding a good layout to help reduce the waste (when I say "we" I mean Owen did the work and I just offered support whenever I could).  Chris also wanted to get a layout that would work if we ever ended up getting the engineering company in Port to stamp the parts for us.

Over the weekend we had Canadian Thanksgiving.  My U.S. readers may be asking, "What is Canadian Thanksgiving?"  Well, I had never heard of it either until a few weeks ago. It is exactly like normal Thanksgiving, except that Canada wanted to be different so they decided to celebrate it in October (I hope America started celebrating first or I am going to get some angry comments from Canadians).  It was fun though and I was able to meet a lot of the Canadian missionaries in Haiti.  You may also be saying, "Matt, why did you go? You aren't Canadian."  Well, that is true, but Owen and I got to go since we live with Canadians and they would have felt bad leaving us out....see, Canadians are nice people too.

Everyone enjoying the meal.

 © Photo Taken by Owen Fitzgerald

On Monday Leslie's new computer had coffee spilled on it and ended up having quite a few problems with the keyboard and the mouse pad.  I don't like to take computers apart, especially when they are only a month old, but we ended up dismantling the whole thing and trying to clean it out.  It ended up not doing a whole lot and now she has to always use an external keyboard and mouse until some new parts come in.  The other big event on Monday was this:

The VW doesn't look so pretty anymore.

 © Photo Taken by Owen Fitzgerald

After work, Jean was driving the truck to get the filter lids we needed for Tuesday's filter deliveries and on the way the brakes went out.  He was in first gear trying to crawl home when a large truck turned in front of him and he ended up hitting the truck's tire.  He injured is wrist a little and Thony smacked his head against the window....hence the broken window on the passengers side.  Everyone was alright, but it was a little scary for everyone involved.

This past Tuesday we went out to do filter deliveries and installations in the Artibonite Valley again, except this time we had 36 filters and Owen came along.  It was another great experience and we ended up getting orders for two more truck loads while we were out.  

Getting ready to unload some more filter.

 © Photo Taken by Owen Fitzgerald

On Wednesday, Chris and I went to Port.  On the way we delivered a filter to a family running an orphanage that we met at Canadian Thanksgiving.  From there we dropped off five more filters at another missionaries home and then headed to the engineering place to discuss getting our steel molds cut for us...this is probably the fourth of fifth time we have stopped by and talked to them....however, this time we met with the owner and showed him the drawings we made for how he could cut out the pieces on the sheet of steel.  This helped a lot and he said he could make it work.  Having the pieces cut for us will save us money, time, and help us have a more precise mold.  We are pretty excited to see if this first batch of pieces is going to work.  After that stop we headed to Top Tires to get new rear tires on the blue truck.  They were pretty worn down and you tend to get more flats when your are like that.  A couple stops later we ended up at the Toyota dealer near Port.  Chris and Leslie ordered a van back in February and have been waiting for it to get to Haiti ever since.  We received a call that it was ready to be picked up so our last and most exciting stop of the day was to pick up the new van.  It is a Toyota Hiace, seats 15, and has air-conditioning.  To celebrate, Owen took us all out to dinner and we all got to experience the comfort of the new vehicle.

Chris getting introduced to the van before we took it on the maiden voyage.

 © I Actually took this one.

Today we woke up and realized that we had a flat tire.  One of the new tires on the back of the blue truck had deflated overnight because the tube had a leak. That is exactly why we saved the tubes from the old tires we just replaced.  So, you probably thought I was going to say the flat tire happened on the new van...didn't you.  Well, you are half right.  While none of the tires on the van had gone flat, we did find nail inside one of the back tires and if we pulled it out the tire would have gone flat.  Chris took the tire from the truck and the van and went to get them repaired while Owen and I worked on making an underplate for the front of the van to protect all the important components.  We cut it out of steal, but we haven't put it on yet, so I guess Chris will just have to drive extra slow and careful until we can put it on....yeah, right.

What Does Your Church Look Like?

Well, I meant to write about the excursion to La Gonâve a while ago....closer to when it happened.  Now that I am sitting down and starting to think through what happened and what to write, I'm realizing that I don't remember everything.  Sure I remember the main things and I have the pictures to remind me, but some of the details have become fuzzy in the last month and a half.  Due to my memory, or lack there of, it is probably best to document things as close to their happening as possible.  But, since I didn't do that this time, I'll have to rely on what I can piece together in my head.

At the end of August Chris, Leslie, Olivia, and I went to visit the Hopps.  We stayed the night and in the morning Ben and I got dropped of at the wharf nearby.  We walked down the broken concrete road to the end of the pier where people were selling food and drinks and bought our tickets for the boat ride over.  We had two options for what to board.....the first one:

The second one:

We chose the second since it was only five Haitian dollars more ($0.65 US) and the trip would be faster.  Instead of trying to cram ourselves below, we decided to sit on top where there was more room but also no shade.  Instead of the boat leaving at a specific time, it usually just leaves when it's full.  That could be 10 minutes after you arrive or an hour and a half like it was in our case.  Instead of having your ticket taken prior to getting on the boat, they collected tickets during the journey.  However, some people hadn't bought tickets and somehow the ticket collector got really confused and ended up not collecting enough tickets and money for the number of people on board.  So he proceeded to yell at everyone. Apparently he had to pay for the missing money and wanted us to know how upset he was that someone had cheated him.

As we approached La Gonâve, everyone noticed that we had caught up with the "sail boat" that left before us.  Well, there was no way our captain was going to let the other ship beat him to the dock, so we ended up in a race.  The outcome:  our boat had to swing out wide and we ended up hitting the dock...not too hard, but hard enough that it jolted everyone on board and everyone on the shore started cheering...I guess we won??  After we unloaded our bags, we were swamped by everyone who wanted to give us a ride to wherever we were going.  We grabbed two mopeds, loaded ourselves and belongings on board, and took off for their mission's house.  I wanted to take a picture during our ride, but I figured it wasn't worth falling off since I was trying to keep my balance and hold onto anything I could find on the bike.

After that we unpacked some things and I met one of the pastors that we would be traveling with the next day.  Before dinner we went for a walk so I could see the neighborhood.  The mission's home is huge...I think over 3,000 square feet.  There is almost no furniture and the wall around the property does not allow any breeze to flow through the building.  Instead of trying to sleep inside and sweating uncontrollably, we decided to haul two bed mats onto the roof and try out our luck there.

Roof Access Point

Our Bedroom

It ended up being nice and cool with the breeze that swept over the roof.  It was also relaxing to lie down and see the thousands of stars overhead since the sky was so clear.  At one point Ben and I both saw an extremely close shooting star that burnt green.  It was the first time I had seen one...I was impressed.  The next morning we woke up and started what would be one of the most painful drives I have experienced in Haiti.

Our Transportation

As you can see this is a tap-tap lacking the enclosure over the bed.  We rented it for the day and I estimate we were riding in it for over six hours during the day.  The roads are even worse on La Gonâve and to get to the two churches we wanted to visit, it was necessary to have a vehicle with 4-wheel drive.  In the bed there are wooden benches to sit on...being thrown around on a wooden plank in the back of a truck is fun for about the first 5 minutes, but after that things start to get soar.  After a two and a half our drive we got to the first church.  Ben was going to be preaching and then checking up with the pastor and congregation to make sure everything was going ok.  I wasn't sure what the churches would look like on La Gonâve.  On the main island most churches are typically made of cinder blocks and never look completely finished since they leave the walls unfinished and rebar sticking out of everything.  However, since everything on La Gonâve usually comes over from the mainland on boats like the ones we took, there is never really an abundance of materials.  That coupled with the fact that we were up in the mountains where materials are hard to get, meant that buildings were made out of whatever was close by.  Hence:

The Church

Ben talking with the community leaders

I was pretty surprised to see this, but to everyone there, it was normal.  They didn't know that they were "supposed" to have something different.  It was a reminder to me about how often we think we need a large building, a huge band, or something else for the building/activity to be called church.  The people here didn't have a single instrument.  I will admit that it is harder to hide your voice when you don't have any instruments to drown it out....but no one seemed to mind around me.  After visiting for a while we headed off to the next church that was similar to this one.  On the drive back to the mission's house, we were stopped every so often by people that new the pastor we were with.  They wanted to say hello and give us some fruit for our drive.

The next day we woke up pretty early and boarded the boat to get back to the mainland.  The distance between the two islands is about 14 miles and it seemed like the trip took forever, but that could have been because we got stuck below and had five people in a three person row.  After arriving everyone bolted for the door and we made our way back up to the national highway to meet Ben's wife.  We got back to their house and had a pancake breakfast...that was nice since Ben and I had been eating bachelor style the past few days.

The Usual

Last Sunday Chris, Leslie, Olivia, Erik, Susie and I went to church at Canaan.  It is unique there because the service is in Creole but one of the children will translate to English.  It was kinda warm though since the service doesn't start until about 10 am.  There are no fans and no wind passes through the building so it is typical to be drenched in sweat very quickly.  EDH (Haiti's electricity company) has not given power for a couple months now and Canaan only runs their generator a few hours at night.  We have heard rumors, which are the common way information is passed here, that EDH won't be turning on power until the national highway is finished.  That looks to be around another five or six months.  Kinda inconvenient, but there isn't a whole lot you can do.  After church we went back home, changed into shorts, and everyone came over for the missionary meeting.

On Monday we went for an early morning hike to the fort in Saint-marc with Erik and Susie.  On the way back we stopped to buy more cinder blocks so work could continue on the apartment construction.  After work we headed to the light house beach.  This is the one Mark and I tried to get to a few weeks ago and had a terrible time with the road.  There are two ways to get there and we tried the route that Mark and I hadn't.  It was passable but there was one spot where a 40 foot section of the road had been washed away and dropped 10 feet until solid ground.  We found a path that had been made to get around, but it was amazing to see what the water had done.  Once we made it to the beach we noticed how far the water had come up and how much sand had been washed away during the hurricanes.  Erik and I ventured out into the water and did  some snorkeling since the water is so clear in this area.  It was the first time I had gone snorkeling and I really enjoyed it.  There were some small reefs off the coast that we could see fish and conk near.  

This is a picture from our hike to the fort. 

There were a lot of goats roaming around there. 

This one seemed a little mischievous and was starring me down.

 

On Tuesday Erik and Susie left to go back home.  That night, Pastor Henry, Sister Gladys, Mark, Bobi, and Elsie stopped by after they ate at Club Indigo.  It was Elsie's birthday and they had taken here out for a special dinner.  They came over to have cake and ice cream...since we are one of the only places to get ice cream.  Chris has an ice cream maker and it seems to make us a very popular spot to have celebrations....for any reason.

The rest of the week I worked on the drawings for the new biosand filter mold.  Since my computer died, that work had come to a haul, but we wanted to get them finished so we could start using the new design.  I finished them up on Friday and we are currently building the first mold using this design....hope it works.  

Yesterday, I went with Mark, Bobbi and some others from Canaan on a hike.  It was fun because we had about 15 of the kids at the orphanage come with us.  I think they enjoyed getting out and being "free" for a couple of hours.  It was a pretty intense hike and with the heat and sun, we all got tired quickly.