Reflections on Haiti

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.