Reflections on Haiti

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On February 3, 2019, Jerry Ritzman (HHN, VP) and myself joined Pastor Eddy for a three-day fact finding trip to Haiti.  We were met there by Peter Montgomery, an agricultural expert contracted by our Canadian partners, Spring Rains Development, to assess the feasibility of undertaking an agricultural initiative in our Haitian village of Puit Chacha, Fond des Blanc.

 

General Observations on Haiti

Haiti continues to be a brutally difficult place to live, navigate, and understand.  Port-au-Prince (PaP) is a sprawling collection of overly crowded streets teaming with garbage, traffic, and chaos.  Roads are exceedingly congested without any rules of the road. Everyone is out along the streets at all hours of day or night.  All commerce is conducted outside along the streets. The electric grid is sketchy at best.  This is especially noticeable at night where makeshift fires line the otherwise dark streets.  Gas stations are generally well illuminated by generators and are manned by shotgun wielding guards.

 

Our travels took us through many other towns of varying sizes that were essentially carbon copies of PaP. Running water and sanitation is also in very small supply. I would not describe Haiti as exactly dangerous but definitely intimidating and unsettling.  In our three days of driving we encountered the following stressful encounters while navigating the country:

  • A blockade along the major road artery outside Les Cayes. Several males had blocked the road with signs basically complaining about the difficulty of life in Haiti and demanding money if we wanted to continue.  While we did not visibly see any guns, Eddy’s “street smarts” dictated that we pay them some small amount.  The men then scribbled some message on paper and taped it our windshield as a form of “safe” passage.
  • On the main northern road returning to PaP through Petit-Goave and Leogane, all traffic was stopped due to large rocks being strewn across the road.  After negotiating these for a short distance, all traffic stopped as young men had completely built a short wall of rocks across the road as a form of government protest. They also brandished these rocks and kept adding them to the wall if anyone tried to remove the rocks to proceed. Police eventually showed up and restored some semblance of order
  • We were further stopped for over an hour when a bridge was completely taken over by students protesting the nonpayment of teachers, some of whom have not been paid by the government for several years. The students formed a solid shield covering the only east-west road and the police were reluctant and/or fearful to intervene.  This formed complete gridlock for miles in both directions that took a very long time to clear once the students eventually ended their protest.

 

Puit Chacha Foundation Visit

The Puit Chacha cistern is showing some signs of wear around the exterior walls but the core cistern continues to function well.  While we were there several people came and filled their water containers.  Eddy’s school and dormitories are likewise doing well.  Eddy is now making full use of the finished dormitory expansion, giving the children a much less crowed place for their cots.  We also got to see one of his classes of young children.

 

Our agricultural expert, Peter, examined three areas for possible use as gardening sites.  Two were located on or adjacent to Eddy’s foundation and the other was about a mile further down the road on land owned by Eddy’s uncle but essentially seen as community land. At all three sites, we dug two-foot holes to see whether there was any moisture and to ascertain the quality of the soil.  We were also concerned that we would hit bedrock. We were able to dig the requisite two-foot holes but all soil was very dry and lacking in any type of nutrients or animal matter such as worms, grubs, etc. The area also lacked much green plant material that would be necessary to promote composting of the soil.

 

There is no real accessible water at Eddy’s foundation other than the cistern about a mile away (too far for agricultural use).  There was a viable hand pump well located near the third site.  Different forms of rain harvesting were discussed with Peter but would require significant study.  An agricultural (non-potable) well on or near Eddy’s foundation would be optimal.

 

Final Thoughts

Our group proceeded to Le Caye in far southwest Haiti where we were hosted at a small orphanage/school.  Oasis is a foundation very similar to Pastor Eddy’s and I believe it was beneficial for Eddy and their staff to share common concerns.

 

Despite the hardships, I believe that our visit largely accomplished its goal with respect to the site visit in Puit Chacha. Considering the immense logistical challenges, we were able to fit all of our stops into the schedule. Pastor Eddy continues to be a thoughtful and attentive host while on these stressful visits.  Without his participation, these visits would be virtually impossible for us Americans. It was nice that we also got to say a very brief hello to Pastor Eddy’s wife and children.  Eddy has done a really great job of making his home in Port-au-Prince more livable under extreme hardship of no running water or electricity.

 

By and large, the people of Haiti can be a difficult people to embrace. Their daily life is very challenging.  As such, they have a very ingrained sense of dependency coupled with an underlying frustration bordering in some to anger. I am of course generalizing here but the pattern is evident. Our travel partner Peter has done mission work all over the world, especially in Africa and Southeast Asia.  He stated on numerous occasions that this trip to Haiti was one of the most depressing and logistically challenging he has encountered.  Haiti is truly the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and one of the poorest in the world. None of this makes their people any less worthy of our love and attention. As a Board, Helping Haitians in Need will continue to assess ways to help Eddy’s small area of this troubled country.

2017

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On February 29th, Mary Ellen and I, along with fellow Helping Haitians in Need Board members Jerry Ritzman and Steve Hancock, travelled to Haiti for a four-day trip with our friend and partner Pastor Eddy Buissereth. Upon arrival, we immediately left Port-au-Prince for the one-hour drive west to Leogane. Port-au-Prince is a truly bazaar and difficult city. Virtually all activity occurs along the congested streets. Due to the lack of consistent electricity, there does not appear to be any traffic signals and the “rules of the road” are pretty nonexistent. The streets of Port-au-Prince are strewn with mounds of garbage and a general haze of dust permeates the air.

We spent Sunday night at a guesthouse run by Family Health Ministries; a US based nonprofit which runs a clinic catering primarily to women’s health and obstetrics. An armed guard let us onto this very nice property. Running entirely on generators and batteries, we had lights, running hot and cold water, Wi-Fi, and even air conditioning during the night hours. We were also treated to a very nice dinner and breakfast.

On Monday morning we drove about 30 minutes south to visit with people from the Haiti Reforestation Partnership, an initiative run by the nonprofit CODEP. Deforestation is a major problem in Haiti due to the locals cutting down trees for producing charcoal, one of the few marketable commodities. CODEP administrator John Winings and his Haitian staff graciously gave us 4-5 hours of their time where we saw the process of planting and fostering seedlings, tiered planting of trees, their local school, and also a visit with a local cooperative loan agent. This model of helping people towards some form of commerce and self-sufficiency is a paramount goal of HHN in working with our small rural community.

We left this area around 2:00pm for the three plus hour drive to the south coast of Haiti. While this distance was only about 75 miles, infrastructure and road conditions are unbelievably challenging in places. Rutted, rock-strewn roads are often the norm. Our destination was a small “resort” near Cote de Fer, which is located only about 20 minutes from Pastor Eddy’s rural community of Puit Chacha. Access to this part of Haiti is truly challenging and upon arrival it was obvious that this resort hadn’t seen too many guests lately. We were ushered through a locked gate by an armed guard to a resort that at one time was probably very beautiful as it is located on a nice beach with palm trees, a beautiful pool, etc. Unfortunately the conditions were fairly rundown…lack of recent landscaping and grass growing through the concrete. We were literally the only guests. It was an interesting evening, as we had no hot water, limited electricity, and few services. We should have known we were in for an adventure when we saw wild goats drinking from the hotel pool.

On Tuesday morning, after a delay due to Eddy having to take the car to Cote de Fer for a major muffler/tailpipe repair, we drove the 20 minutes north to Eddy’s foundation. The improvements to Eddy’s foundation, due largely to his perseverance and the financial help of HHN, were very evident. The dirt floor, tarp walled classroom has been replaced with a solid block and cement floored three classroom building. They now also have a three “toilet” bathroom facility when they previously had none. On the day we were there, the engineer was busy completing the interior ceiling for an expanded dormitory. We also got to interact with the approximately 50 students as school was in session. Compared with our visit in 2015, I was greatly encouraged by the improved conditions. That said, the conditions are still very harsh by nearly any standard. At some point it would be very beneficial to establish some type of solar power to give the school and dormitory at least some additional functionality. Also, the local people still appear to have little, if anything, productive to do.

We left the Puit Chacha around 2:00 for the long drive to Port-au-Prince and our evening stay at the Marriott. After a couple of pretty tough days on the road, Tuesday evening was a most welcome respite. On Wednesday morning, we had a two-hour meeting at the Marriott with Pastor Eddy and his associate Pastor Marcellus. Pastor Marcellus handles much of Eddy’s business in Haiti while he is away working in the Turks. The Board of HHN has much to consider in terms of how best to manage our funds such that we are having the most long-term effective impact on our target community. Pastor Eddy’s thoughts and ideas on how best to serve the people of Haiti, is central to these discussions. All four Board members definitely felt that the time spent on putting together and executing this trip will be most beneficial in helping HHN chart it’s future path.

Paul Huber, President

Helping Haitians in Need

February 6, 2017