Haiti life…

Well, what a place this truly is! The devastation is immense and yet these people have just picked up whatever pieces left of their former lives and have decided to LIVE. How disconcerting it was for us to first witness the hustle and bustle of live with street traders eking out a living on every available footpath, amidst the rubble of collapsed buildings and the rotting garbage. There are so many incredibly unstable buildings, often with massive concrete slabs hanging precariously over tented camps. Everywhere you look, in parks, lay-byes, empty lots, collapsed buildings, in peoples gardens and compounds… there are spontaneous settlements of people. Most have plastic sheeting pulled crudely around frames of anything from wood to in one instance the shell of a car. The grinding poverty that prevailed before this tragedy is truly pervasive. It is quite astounding the total absence of public infrastructure, and this is not just a new problem Haiti was struggling for so long.

GOAL are doing great work in food distribution, Shelter and Water/ sanitation and hygiene programs.

I am in a new house now. Can hardly believe that I am actually missing the first house, which in actuality had so many problems, from mosquitoes and dreadful hygiene practices to blocked drains and marauding Rottweiler puppies, three in all, that belonged to the compound and were seen to make dawn raids on the house, heading off with socks, flip flops and tins from the garbage!! I had made it home, cleaned the place up to acceptable standards and even had the lads living with me rinsing their dishes at night. I was greeted in the new house by a welcoming party of particularly viscous mosquitoes and a family of rats rummaging through the rotting garbage at the back door!!

I really hardly had the heart for it, but given the conditions of the poor people in the camp, I made one last effort and got the bags packed in a box until it could be taken away today. Got the area de-contaminated and all houses now have outside and inside bins with lids, mops, buckets (you would not want to see the state of the mops used previously) and an assortment of cleaning necessities so that our lovely staff can do their jobs. Now I am settle in am getting in to my own routine.

So much work to do with only a week left. I will visit more of the camps in the next few days and we need to identify community workers to train for the Hygiene Promotion

Off to bed now. It is quite lively where we are living, right in the middle of the community. It is nice.
All the best,

Afric

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