One Month Later

I have officially passed the one month mark since I moved to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I celebrated Thanksgiving and was on lockdown due to political violence for over a week with 1 Spaniard, 1 Italian, 2 Scottish, 4 Irish, and nearly a dozen American architects. I have been unable to do any interviews with anyone here in Haiti, one thing among many that has not gone according to plan. However, I have met journalists, artists, and many other aid workers in fields such as family reunification, cholera treatment and prevention, women's safety, agriculture and poultry industry revitalization, as well as temporary housing and schools. The work is slowly becoming less chaotic, but it is rare to be able to say, "I solved that problem once and for all."

Trash

Out of sight, out of mind...

A city run by trash. A city overrun by trash. That's the difference between Kristianstad and Port-au-Prince. The city of Kristianstad was recently profiled in the New York Times for its comprehensive approach to trash management, particularly for using its waste supply to produce biogas, used to fuel cars and warm homes. This centralized system was made possible by significant investment- $144 million- and high levels of political will and coordination. It all seems like quite a pipe dream from here in Port-au-Prince, where there is not even municipal or private trash service for the wealthy.

Rainy Day in Haiti

Security guards in the parking lot of Giant Supermarket, 5 PM on December 13.

Good news is hard work.

At the house earlier today, we were talking about how American news focuses on the negative and the sensational... earthquake, hurricane, cholera, election violence!! There is not a lot of positive energy being sent out about Haiti. There are not a lot of pictures of well-dressed Haitians walking to work or of mothers and fathers who walk their children to school every day (will post myself soon). Among a small group of us, we decided to tweet and facebook message only good news. For instance, today Chance, our guard puppy was finally able to return from the vet after being stranded there for a few days following her spaying.

Run down Kenscoff

Political Tightrope

The election results went out last night, 2 hours late after dark, and all of us expats were glued to our Twitter feeds. Journalists were joking about their states of inebriation from waiting for the CEP spokesman. They reported that he was dripping with sweat and shaking as he nervously read the results. He was right to be scared. The only way I speculate we could have avoided uproar was if Manigat and Martelly were the run-off candidates. Unfortunately Martelly lost to Celestin for 2nd place by less than a percentage point. Not enough of a difference for an election considered corrupt and incomplete. I think people wanted to protest anyways... the streets have been made pedestrian-only.

Eau (Water)

There are some things about living in Haiti that are a bummer when compared to American standards of living, but are positively opulent compared to many Haitians' current state. I say this not only because it is obvious, but because we were all very grumpy recently when the truck delivery of our water was delayed. Water supply is a private industry here.

This isn't our potable water, the water we drink, but the water we use to wash things (hands, bodies, clothes, and dishes) and to flush our toilets. We were without running water for 3 days. We have 2 cisterns, where our water is stored. One is hooked up to our plumbing system and the other is a reserve. We had water remaining in our reserve that Tibob, our man about the house, lugs up in big buckets to the bathrooms. It takes a whole bucket to flush the toilet, and when you have to transfer it with a tupperware cup by cup, you really appreciate how wasteful of water older toilets are! In comparison, it took me 2 cups of water to wash my hair. We ran out of water unexpectedly early because 19+ people spent 5 days confined to the house for the recent elections. Additional delays in our water delivery came from police blockades forcing the water truck to turn around. It finally arrived at 10:30 PM of Day 3.

In comparison, I regularly see people lug around potable water jugs balanced on their heads, fill buckets or bottles from broken water pipes in the gutter, or take sponge baths in the street. The tent city in one of Petionville's public squares has 3-6 port-a-pots for hundreds upon hundreds of people. Their doors are jerry-rigged out of wood scraps and people hold fabric to their faces way before and after they pass them. They are certainly dark and miserable places. I have heard there has been only one cholera case in this small camp, but no one really can be sure. The largest camp is run by JPHRO (Jenkins Penn Haitian Relief Organization) on the grounds of the Petionville golf club with 55,000 people. I believe the number of bathrooms they have is 1 per 1000 people, and this is one of the very best run camps. Various relief organizations deliver drinking water to the people in the camps. There have been two studies on access to water and toilets in the camps and the numbers were not good. 40 to 45 percent drink untreated water and 27 to 30 percent have no toilet.

Rural Haitians are even lower on the totem pole of clean water access. They often do not have latrines and drink water from unprotected, unchlorinated sources such as rivers or wells.

In 2008, over 50 percent of all Haitians, rural and urban, did not have regular access to safe water. I'm sure that number is much lower today. Unfortunately, this is not a problem to be solved by donating to any NGO, or to be completely clear, by any aspect of the privatized aid system. Drinking water and sanitation are the responsibility of the government and the need can only be met by an tremendous investment into infrastructure. No matter who wins the election, it is important that the international community provide support to the new government in this endeavor. Could the possibility of corruption ever be more important than this basic human right?

UPDATE Feb 14, 2011: Beatrice Lindstrom, a human rights lawyer who works with the IDP camp population has written a great article on water rights.

A day of waiting.

Today is Haiti's elections. We have stayed inside the house since Thanksgiving. This weekend has been significantly quieter than usual, due to the temporary ban on motorcycles. Campaigning ended on Friday, so the trucks blaring campaign songs and slogans are no longer strolling down on the road below our neighborhood. We have been getting our news from snippets of radio translated for us, embassy warden emails, and Twitter. Which is not much!

I am waiting to hear about an internship opportunity that would bring me much closer to the street-life and people of Haiti. It is easy to become isolated in the republic of NGOs, in the mansion on the hill. Should learn this week! I will also be finishing up my graduate applications this week so I will be able to devote my energy to the present.

Sophinia sees a photograph of her adoptive parents for the first time. She's a little suspicious, I think! She carried it around and refused to share the whole rest of our visit there!

An Orphanage

Today I visited a small orphanage in Port-au-Prince to meet Sophna and Sophinia, sisters who are being adopted by Donna and Jim Varda in the United States. The orphanage is currently full but even with the sped up adoption process (from 2 years down to ~1 year) it will be a while before they can accept more children. As you can imagine, it is hard on the staff to have to turn away babies. Here, the children are taught in English to prepare them for adoption into American homes. We washed our hands with a bleach solution before meeting any children as to not bring in sickness.

I don't know the names of most of these babies. Samy is peering at us through his crib. Sophna and Sophinia are standing and smiling in the last picture. They are 18 month old twins. Sophna is the taller one with a big belly.

Political Parade

I could not tell who the parade was in support of though!

Visual Campaign of Jude Celestin

One presidential candidate in particular has a small army of people slapping up his posters on every available surface. We had some volunteers return from a trip to Leogane and they reported political rallies in every small village between there and Port-au-Prince. The village squares were packed with green and yellow, as these rallies were all for presidential candidate Jude Celestin. As well, his campaign is paying many dozens of women to wear his image, hold large posters on the side of the road, and don bright yellow and white construction hats. I will not be surprised if he wins on sheer visibility alone.

From May to November

I arrived on Friday at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport. On my flight there were two women returning for their father's funeral that had not been back to Haiti for 3 and 9 years respectively. They were glad that they were not to spend much time in Port-au-Prince before their secondary flight to the north coast city Cap Haitien, near their destination of Limbe. Right before the plane lands on the runway, you have a very good view of the acres of tarps that constitute shelter for thousands of Haitians. There is silence while people peer out their windows, but as we touch ground, the plane erupts in cheers and applause.

When I first saw this sight in May, I remember feeling a sharp spike of fear and incredulity. At that point it had been 4 months since the earthquake and only a small percentage of people had been relocated to less concentrated camps on the outskirts of town. These new "settlements" were lauded by aid agencies as model camps, but their isolation is one of their greatest flaws. They provide shelter, but not access to jobs or food aid. This month, I see the vast sea of plastic, now and then supplemented with tin sheeting or 2x4s, with a better understanding of why people might "choose" to stay in a crowded tent settlement instead of moving out to the rural, empty countryside.

Another difference since May is the temperature. It is cool, a phrase I joked I did not need to know. In May, I was hot, so much my pants sagged with the weight of my sweat. Then, the fact that the water comes out of the shower in only a cold trickle was just dandy. Now, I think on special occasions I will heat up some water in the teapot and give myself a nice, warm wash-cloth bath out of a bucket.

In a few weeks the elections will take place and the walls, poles, and abandoned cars lining the streets are plastered with campaign posters. There are 18 or 19 presidential candidates, but if you measure popularity by their number of posters, Jude Celestin (#10) and Martelly (#8) are the leading candidates, at least in the streets of Petionville. These posters contain little more information than the smiling visage of the presidential hopeful, their name, and their candidacy number. Their graphic impact primarily relies on color. Celestin's posters are green and yellow, while Martelly's are a bright fuschia. These posters are slapped up in multiples, creating walls where the candidates fight for dominance with wordless optimism. There is also new graffiti by the artist Jerry Rosembert Moise, commemorating Michael Jackson and depicting an old man soliciting a young woman with a wad of cash.

I am still settling in so my posts may be sporadic for the first few weeks. Wish me luck on my first week in Haiti!

The Goal of The Invisible Architecture

I had written a more complicated introduction, full of my theories and poetics. But let me be honest.

I am moving to Haiti and I know almost no one. This blog will be my way of cataloging who I meet and what they do. With some people, I will be able to follow them and see how they do what they do and how well they are able to do it.

Who am I? I am a 24 year old with a degree in architecture. My professional experiences lie at the nexus of urban planning, social work, public health, and documentary film in St. Louis, Missouri. I have made films comparing redevelopment strategies of communities within St. Louis and affordable housing strategies of design-build studios in rural Alabama, Biloxi, and New Orleans, with special focus on community engagement. I hesitate to call myself a documentary film-maker but since I have gotten paid for my work, I cautiously accept the title. I really see film as the most egalitarian way to share knowledge and to record history.

Can you see where I am going with this? I am especially interested in how organizations seek to rebuild communities. Haiti has probably the highest concentration of such organizations in the world today. If one of them had THE answer, there probably would not be so many. What I want to learn is the difference between their strategies and the challenges they face. While their organizations will gleefully report the tangible results of their work by the number of buildings they construct or people they house, I am more interested in the intangible, the invisible hands that shape their work.

The usual suspects from what I know so far? Politics. Resources. Politics within organizations, between organizations, and acting upon them. Resources are monetary, natural, and human. The struggles for funding, the machinations of political candidates, the results by which organizations measure their success. I'm sure I will find many more.

I arrive November 12 and will rejoin my family of 2: my partner, Eric Cesal (Regional Manager of Architecture for Humanity-Haiti) and my beautiful chow-labrador mutt, Lady Dulcinea.