Port a Piment

Last weekend I ventured briefly down to the South Western area of Haiti.

Apart from working and doing some relaxing as well, we walked up to the fascinating Grotte Marie-Jeanne, a complex system of caves nearby which have some interesting artefacts from early days of Haitian life, some Taino pottery having been found here also. Although not fully mapped yet, it is thought to be probably the longest cave system in the Caribbean at over 1km.

 

 

 

 

 

This huoses all sorts of interesting animals, bats, birds and insects of differing classes. There’s just a very few images here but it’s a really fascinating place and it seems there may be some species amongst them which are either not yet recognised by science or not yet fully understood. Apart from several very large & hairy spiders…

  most intriguing for me was this blue earthworm. Not sure if this is an unusual variant (perhaps caused by diet?) but it certainly is not something I have ever seen before. Anyone out there who is able to shed light on this, I’d really appreciate the answer!

Floods in refugee camps

A series of brief rain storms have flooded Haiti's earthquake camps  in the past few days, with worrying portents of what promises to be a more-active-than-usual hurricane season.

A 30-minute downpour left 15cm of water inside makeshift tents on the sloping golf course of the Petionville Club, now a tented city of about 45,000 people.

People ran for cover in viscous mud wearing plastic shower caps and towels over their heads. Leaks sprung in emergency tarpaulins given by aid groups after the January 12th earthquake destroyed their homes.

"Of course I am worried about the rain. I have my mother here with high blood pressure and my family lives here," said a 37-year-old woman who gave her name as Ammeni.

Earlier in the week Haitian radio broadcast a forecast from Colorado State University researchers that the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season will be more active than usual because of warm sea temperatures. They said that moderating El Nino conditions in the Pacific were likely to dissipate by summer, creating a likelihood of 15 named storms between June 1 and Nov. 30 — four of those major hurricanes.

That could cause havoc if any strike near the quake-ravaged capital, where NGOs and government officials are racing to improve shelter for over a million people made homeless by the earthquake. Some will be relocated to camps outside the city; others are being encouraged to return to their own neighbourhoods; others still will move out into the countryside; and others will stay put. It is not yet clear how much of the $9.9 billion pledged to Haiti by donors will go toward improving shelter, or how soon the money will materialise. Individuals and governments have been incredibly generous so far, but the scale of the disaster is immense. And of course money being made available is only the start of the gigantic task of clearing land, laying proper drainage & foundations and rebuilding.

Rains are expected to grow more intense as hurricane season approaches. In 2008, nearly 800 people were killed as Haiti was wracked by four named storms in the space of a month.

Dignity not digits

Haiti is a major challenge for aid workers: vast numbers of people requiring urgent help, a country so damaged even before the earthquake that its people require both emergency relief (food, water, shelter, WASH, medical aid) but also very significant long term economic development to rebuild itself. In this complex context, safeguarding the dignity of those affected by the earthquake requires us all to think beyond mere numerical benchmarks.

Most commonly cited standards are enshrined in the Sphere Project, a collaboration of hundreds of NGOs, UN agencies and academics, which produced a set of guidelines for humanitarian response. Aid agencies measure performance against these guidelines as as they provide water, food, shelter and sanitation facilities to around 1.5m people in the wake of what was described by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) as “the biggest natural disaster in history”.

While aid workers sometimes use the words “standards” and “indicators” interchangeably, in the context of Sphere they have distinct meanings.  Standards are qualitative. Of latrines, for example, the handbook says: “People should have adequate numbers of toilets, sufficiently close to their dwellings, to allow them rapid, safe and acceptable access at all times of the day and night.” In principle this sounds like something we could ascribe to – but what does it really mean on the ground, when you’re an NGO worker trying to help a camp of 20,000 homeless people? How many latrines are needed? Where must they be sited? So indicators are more concrete and in many cases purely quantitative. “A maximum of 20 people use each toilet,” for example.

Early in my time here in Haiti, one thing I noticed was that a lot of people were throwing up their hands and saying: ‘We can’t meet Sphere here’. But rather than just thinking of Sphere as numbers and saying ‘we can’t meet these here, full stop’, the approach has to be to look at Sphere overall and at how we can achieve these and what happens if we can’t achieve them.

Conditions here in Port au Prince are difficult. There’s not a lot of space: this is primarily an urban area which was very overcrowded in the first place and suddenly people are all tumbled out of their houses and crammed into tiny squares in city centres. This makes it incredibly difficult to follow Sphere standards and indicators in such an environment. However, we can’t throw it out completely. What is Sphere about? Sphere is about people having rights to a life with dignity, and effective disaster response requires paying attention to Sphere’s common standards  which cover such aspects as beneficiary participation, monitoring of response actions and aid worker responsibilities.

People at a water distribution point in a Port-au-Prince neighbourhood

The problem with Sphere as with any standards is that they are not adapted to the particular situation in Haiti. And NGOs can find it difficult to move away from these to adapt their responses to the specific needs at hand. To gauge effectiveness the local context is integral to aid activities in Haiti and the evaluation in terms of adherence to Sphere.

For example, we measure our WASH (water, sanitation, hygiene)achievements not only through records of litres of water supplied to camps and numbers of latrines, but also through water use surveys and sanitation monitoring, which frequently indicate practices of returning to original homes to access alternative water supplies and more familiar toilet facilities. The WASH cluster (comprised of NGOs working together in this sector) here in Haiti has a strategy for gradually improving sanitation by reducing the ratio of people per latrine from 100:1 for the first three months of the crisis to 50:1 for the next three months, and to 20:1 after a year. Obviously we’d like to do this faster if we can.

Whilst NGOs are not yet fully reaching Sphere’s water and sanitation indicators due to the scale of the disaster, the situation is improving. In the beginning of the emergency humanitarian organizations provided five litres of water per person per day. That has now increased to approximately 10 litres.

Reflections from my diary the past few days in Port au Prince

The last few days I was both ill and then desperately busy, and had little time to update this blog: I did however keep a record in my notebook, and these are a summary of my comments & musings in that time.

Petionville -- Mud invades every inch of the saggy handmade tent Mimose Pierre-Louis now calls home. It spatters the pink bedsheet that serves as her wall, crawls up the acacia branch that plays the role of wobbly tent pole and it forms the floor she lies on. At one end of the tent a steep slope leads several hundred yards up to the Petionville Club, where the Haitian elite once played tennis and drank cocktails by the pool. Immediately at the other, the earth drops 15 feet into a stinking open sewer. This is Port au Prince’s largest encampment, home to 70,000 people jumbled amongst trees and rocks on barren slopes. Now they all live in fear as the ferocious storms Haiti's April-May rainy season approach. To save people from this challenge of destructive rains and floods, NGOs here have launched an ambitious logistical operation aimed at protecting the Mimose’s of this wrecked city. They plan to carve new drainage channels in the most vulnerable of the hundreds of camps in this city by mid-April and to relocate people living in the most precariously perched tents. The consequences of failure would be devastating, Haitian and international officials estimate: another catastrophe – potentially as many as 37,000 dead in floods and mudslides -- in a country still reeling from more than 200,000 earthquake deaths.

So in the next weeks leading up to 15th April when storms are expected to start, relief crews will dredge the sewage & drainage channels and build retaining walls. They will also attempt to find new refuge for the thousands of people whose tents are so imperiled by flash floods that they cannot be saved by the engineering work.

But that's just the beginning. Over the next few months we need to relocate at least 150,000 people living in unacceptably muddy camps wedged into ravines and on steep hillsides that could become breeding grounds for disease. Several hundred thousand more are expected to find shelter on their own outside the camps, in the homes of friends and relatives or in semi-permanent structures near their homes.

Even calculating how many people in the camps legitimately need to be relocated has become a complex exercise. Thousands have set up tents in camps to collect food and water during the day, even though their homes are habitable. And some quake victims have set up multiple tents - a husband in one, a wife in another, and their children in a third - in order to collect more supplies: we’ve seen it and so have other agencies.

Hillsides made bald by years of deforestation in Port-au-Prince and other parts of the country act as giant sluices, funneling torrents of water in even the smallest storms. On the steep hillsides yesterday's mud becomes today's hard-packed claylike surface, perfect to channel water next time it tains.

In post-earthquake Port-au-Prince, rainstorms - including several brief ones over the past week - lift refuse from the ordered piles workers have carefully brought together to await collection and spread it across streets and camps. With this ooze -- an awful melange of rotting fruit, rotting animal flesh and human waste -- comes a smell that brings to mind spoiled milk and gangrenous wounds. Yesterday a child slipped and drowned in this mire, one more victim of the January 12th earthquake.

On Tuesday we got a preview of what's to come when a short downpour collapsed a school tent, streets became rivers with floating garbage islands, and water rose to knee-level in many camps. Mimose managed to save her tent, but the coursing water swept away everything else: her charcoal stove, 12 spoons, two pots, a couple of buckets and a bag of clothes. She sank to her knees and "asked God to change my life."

Before the quake Mimose earned the equivalent of $1.50 a day making shirts but is jobless now: but she has come emotional comfort despite the grim conditions. Her friend Carline Calipso - whose 2-year-old daughter died in the quake - occupies the next tent, and two tents along lives another friend from her Delmas home district, Louidie Desauguste along with his his wife and 10 children.

The three friends reflect the conflicting emotions of the moment. Desauguste would move if offered a safe place, he said, but "I survived the earthquake; I'm not going to some new place to die." Calipso dreams of escaping the camp before the water "takes me away," but worries that she would struggle to restart her street market business in a place where she doesn't know anyone. In one breath, Mimose said she wants to leave, and soon; in the next, she said she doesn't want to leave her family and friends.

And therein lies the problem: The main new settlement being built is several miles from the city centre in a neighborhood called Tabarre.

Many of the camps are situated on private land - tolerated for now by the owners - or on symbolically important public spaces. Haitian officials want to clear a camp in front of the prime minister's office and another in the city centre along the Champ de Mars, a teeming avenue across from the once-graceful National Palace, which collapsed during the quake. Now semi-permanent structures crafted from scavenged wood line the street, and their owners show little inclination to move. NGO workers are less concerned about this camp because it sits on paved ground, and the U.N. troops have said "no one will be forced out at the point of a gun." But Haitians have begun to issue veiled threats.

"We abide by the law," Charles Clermont, head of the Haitian presidential relocation task force, said in a radio interview. "We know the concept is, you can't force someone to go somewhere. But you can force someone to leave a place."  If people refuse to leave the Champ de Mars, Clermont envisions Haitian government officials eventually going in and announcing: "Ladies and gentlemen, in three days we are going to stop providing for you."

In the rush to save lives, it will be almost impossible to achieve international standards of 36 square metres per person for the first group of people targeted for relocation. There is ongoing & furious debate between NGO officials and Haitian government workers. Some advocate building at least one large solid structure of wood or metal in each of the new settlements, where people could cluster if their tents are ripped apart by winds and rain – almost like a medieval fortress. Earth movers now parade across the tract of land on the city's edge where one such edifice will be erected. Two inhabitants were injured there recently during a shootout after someone opened fire at work crews, underlying the tensions associated with almost any major initiative here.

Amongst such chaos there is a real fear that the temporary settlements will become permanent slums and that, in solving one crisis, others will be created. It calls to mind a Haitian saying: "Don't escape from the river and fall into the bottom of the sea."

Diaspora

The very slow internet link here outside Port au Prince makes it very hard to upload images from the coast, so I will add some more in the next days when I return.

However, I was struck by the way the local villages have taken in so many of the diaspora fleeing their ruined lives in Port au Prince since the earthquake.

Two years ago Port au Piment had an estimated population of around 13,750 people. They had a small medical centre, several churchs and a couple of vodoun shrines, which peacefully coexisted. They also had schools, although these were woefully underfunded so that class sizes were often well over 50 and text books were scarce. Today their population has grown temporarily at least to around 22,000 – and the government is doing all it can to discourage return to Port au Prince, following a strategy to reduce pressure in the capital by encouraging people to stay in the provinces. The people here are warm and generous – they have shared the little they have with the newly arrived, many of whom are relatives or friends of those who remained here. So far however, little additional support has reached places like Port au Piment: a little food for refugees, some water. But what these people want and need is jobs to earn money, land to farm so they do not have to rely on their already impoverished families for support, and the education for their children which they themselves were mostly denied. The medical centre is overburdened and lacks most basic drugs for treating everyday diseases (I have already spoken with an aid organisation to arrange a truckload of essential items to come up in the next few days), the schools cannot cope with the numbers of pupils – it’s mostly the young who went to the city, so mostly the young who have returned home with their children – so school enrollment is doubled: how can they cope? Jobs are few and far between. When I’m back in Port au Prince I will ensure I speak with the NGOs working in this area, because I am sure they will be wanting to help and trying desperately to do so: in the areas we operate we are following Cash for Work programmes to create short term employment, allowing people to earn money to spend on their needs in addition to food & water distribution, and help with shelter & sanitation. We are also developing longer term programmes to help people transition into permanent industries, and giving them the skills to remain employed into the future. We are working across several industries to make this happen, but such profound change takes time. Right now these children need an education, their parents need jobs.

And one small Haitian town needs help to cope with its new residents.

Easter weekend at the beach

A real change from the images of a broken city, filled with desperate people. This weekend is Easter and in a society which takes the Easter festivities seriously this means a long weekend. Although I have much to do, I’ve taken this opportunity to escape to the southern coast of Haiti, near to Port a Piment, where one of my colleagues has a home. One of the purposes of the trip is to look at local farming and mango production – Haitian mangos are excellent and with proper farming & marketing they could play a role in the economic recovery of the country. But when I saw how beautiful the area is, it seems very plain to me that with stable government and a modest investment in infrastructure, Haiti could have a great future as a tourist destination. And this picture shows why – taken from the terrace of a very run down hotel / restaurant dating from the 1920s, it possesses a faded elegance, but the views, the beaches and the seafood are spectacular………….

Only problem is I have to do some work whilst I’m here as well!

Donors money & Haiti’s future

Last week in New York, donors were asked to provide $11.5 billion to help Haiti recover from the devastating earthquake which hit on January 12th. Given the huge generosity of governments & individuals to date (the U.S. government has already provided more than $700 million in assistance — a number that continues to rise) — some might ask: why should we give more?

To these people, I have two answers: first, more is getting done than you may think; and second, more needs to be done than you can possibly imagine.

I’ve been Haiti for several very intense weeks now, and compared even to the other emergencies I’ve worked in (Afghanistan, Darfur & Gaza most recently) it is very plain that  even with its charming idiosyncracies, Haiti is an extremely challenging place to work. The situation here was disastrous before this disaster ever occurred; the people of Haiti have been exploited and impoverished for the better part of 200 years.

What do you get when you combine that dreadful reality with a powerful earthquake in the country's overcrowded, under-resourced urban core? Logistical chaos. Relief efforts may not have been perfect – despite the genuine efforts of many agencies to coordinate aid effectively to reach the most stricken, it is clear that some have slipped through the cracks - but the obstacles such as a collapsed port, the serious loss of scarce qualified human resources, collapsed centres of government and response, a scattered population still suffering the effects of shock — have been extreme.

Still, great strides have been made. The United Nations and international aid groups are providing more than 1.2 million people in Port-au-Prince with clean water each day. Food is being distributed in massive quantities; the World Food Program estimates it has reached more than 4 million people since Jan. 12. The Haitian government announced that schools will reopen this week.

The donors who met in New York are grappling with how to help Haiti use this very tragic but pivotal moment in history to become something better — a viable state with a viable economy. I would encourage these donors to read the analysis of the quake's impact prepared by the Haitian government, the U.N. and other international organizations, and prepare to act boldly. Haitians know what they need, and I hope we will keep the faith and listen to them, working with them to build a future Haiti they can take pride in being a part of and we can take pride in helping into existence.

Large swaths of the population seek out a subsistence living in the country's vast, informal economy, selling anything they can get their hands on. But almost every Haitian would abandon that hand-to-mouth existence for a real job with a future. They need skills training, jobs and private-sector investment. Their children need education. All of them need affordable healthcare.

Today, Haiti must resurrect a middle economy that was lost many years ago. This would offer hundreds of thousands of decent-paying jobs — transforming a largely unskilled work force stuck at the bottom of the economic pyramid into a skilled work force. But Haitians need international assistance to make this possible. Industries such as clothing production, agriculture and tourism could be  nurtured in both the provinces and Port au Prince so that Haitians can participate formally in a growing, vibrant grass-roots economy.

Perhaps the most difficult proposal to donors will be to bolster the Haitian government. Throughout Haitian governance during the last 50 years, many things have gone very wrong. But no country can make meaningful progress without well-resourced and functional government institutions. Next year sees a general election in Haiti, and the recovery effort looks likely to be a significant issue for debate, with competing visions from all sides of the political spectrum. Whoever the people of Haiti choose to lead them forward, it is important that foreign donors maintain faith and not seek to impose their own vision on Haiti. They should only stipulate that continued aid for recovery is dependent on a truly democratic and transparent election process, and on recovery plans delivering benefits accessibly to all Haitians, urban & rural, skilled & unskilled.

Haiti faces huge obstacles and a troubled history, but that should not make the international community shy away. If mold-breaking change is ever going to happen in Haiti, it will happen now, with all of us — Haitians, donors, the business sector, aid groups — focused on the end game of building the future that Haitians envision for themselves and deserve.