Haiti's Latest Problem: Clearing Away the Rubble - Yahoo! News

Haiti's Latest Problem: Clearing Away the Rubble - Yahoo! News:

"Eric Overvest, Country Director for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) says the lack of multiple sites slows down the already slow debris removal process. 'There's been very little rubble removal,' says Overst, 'The whole undertaking and the plan requires government leadership. It requires a government that designs a plan and a strategy of how we want to go about this.'

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Haitian Gingerbread

One of my favorite foods (along with vegetable mash) was the gingerbread. Here is a recipe I found online. I will have to try it soon.

Missions of Love » Haitian Recipes: "Haitian Gingerbread – Bonbon Jenjanm




Here is a picture of the salesman who came every day at lunch.

Back from Haiti

I have several blog posts from Haiti to still upload (and in two cases even enter into the computer), but just wanted everyone to know we made it back safe and sound.

Matt Lundgren from SBU will be getting there today for about 10 days to keep the SBU presence alive.  He took with him snips (to help disentangle rebar), fly paper, liquid hand soap, green scrubbies, and sponges from the Allegany Park and Shop.  

Plus some more notebooks for the kids at the "Gutter bar"  to continue their art work.

I went to an art show...and liked it!

I am not a big fan of art shows. I am sure they are great. I am sure that many people enjoy them immensely and that they convey a side of human nature that I am missing. (Indeed maybe it is why I get people upset so much).

I think it is because I always have something that is in my mind more productive to do. Sitting and listening to music, or wandering around looking at pictures is a form of relaxation that I generally do not allow myself.

But today I went to a free art show that probably made the whole trip in and of itself.

It happened after a brutally hot day of rubble removal (the AM was possibly hottest it has been since we got here) in which we now have filled more than 4 large dump trucks of concrete rubble that has been painstakingly removed from the remnants of a house in which three people died in downtown Leogone.

The truth be told, in spite of the fact that it is somewhat fun to swing a sledge hammer, I am not a huge fan of doing rubble removal. Essentially it involves going to a site that previously had been someone's home or place of employment but is now a pile of large cement blocks and, by hand (remember there is no power and VERY little heavy equipment) systematically break the large chunks of cement into smaller cement chunks which can then be hauled off the site into a large pile to await removal by the UN or other contracted group.

In Haiti, you get all of that plus rubbling has the additional charms of being “one hundred and Haiti degrees”, dirty, dusty, and with an audience of interested bystanders, many of whom are all too glad to jump in and help in bare feet or sandals.

Consequentially we were all hot, tired, and looking for any solitude one can find in a small camp of 110 people as we loaded up the tap-tap and headed back to camp through the narrow (and exceedingly bumpy) streets of Leogone.

About a quarter mile from camp we pass what is affectionately known as the “Gutter Bar”. Typically there are a handful of volunteers whose jobs finisher up early at the bar as the tap-taps second trips are completed. Good-natured yelling typically occurs between those on the tap-tap and those on the two outside benches.

Today was different. Maybe it was because we were earlier than normal but in place of volunteers (I have never seen a local resident there), were the children of the bar owners-the very children we had played with and given notebooks, pencils, and crayons yesterday. I am not sure who saw whom first, but quickly they jumped up and down and held up their notebooks for the world (or at least one v ery small corner of it) to see.

After unpacking the tap-tap we headed down to see them. It was great. In addition to a cold bottle of “Limonade” the kids gave an art show of all of the many drawings they had done (interspersed with few repetitions of multiplication tables for good measure).

The show went on through each of their notebooks.  Some of the drawings were in pencil, others in crayon.  They showed pictures of flowers, cars, and even James Bond—OO7 himself and as they did they were each carefully say what it was in Creole to help teach some of their language to us.

Then suddenly the page turned and instead of saying anything, they just pointed and giggled. On the page was a colored picture of ….me. Adorned in my long blue pants and long sleeve yellow shirt that have become almost my trademark. Oh and they also gave me the honor of having a full head of hair.

After that the budding artists used my camera to take pictures (“foto foto” of each other) as well as of the volunteers who were by now coming in for anything cold (the camp has no refrigeration) prior to dinner. Additionally the artists' mom, dad, and grandmother came out and spoke for a bit thanking us for the supplies and getting into various photos.

It was one art show I would definitely not want to miss!

Sayings

I usually like cliches and trite sayings. They are a fast way to sum up much knowledge and understanding in a few short words or story.

I use them in class regularly. For instance when firms have less debt than financial models would suggest as optimal we often say they are saving for a rainy day.

There is one saying you hear regularly in the volunteer disaster response business that I am not particularly fond of: Paying it forward. It is particularly popular after disasters that occur in the Southeastern US is “Paying forward it.” I have never been fond of the saying as it implies one is doing good only so that if something bad happens to you in the future, you will receive help in return for helping others. (Sort of the reverse of an “eye for an eye.”)

That said there is undoubtedly truth to it, some volunteers, especially after a disaster but most likely even in everyday service do their good works more as a down payment for future help in the event of a disaster in their area or payoff (Karma, Heaven, etc).

This return on investment may very well be true, but it just strikes me as too much a tit for tat transaction.

I got thinking about it today when I heard the phrase mentioned. And realized that service also more earthly rewards too. And from that perspective, paying it forward is really just the “saving for a rainy day”.

For instance, much of my time on earth apparently results in making people upset. I often think that if I am good at anything, it is making people upset; from family and friends, to students and University administration my daily day is most generally equal parts apologizing (which are all true, I do not mean to upset people) and reangering.

This really is not a good character trait to have. It is time consuming and stressful. When in the regular daily grind I am convinced the single word I type or say more than any other word is “sorry”. From sorry I cannot make such and such event (family/friends), to sorry I am not able to help you (BonaResponds), to sorry I put the display where you did not want it (family/the stores).

Yoga and workouts are my drugs of choice to escape from this continual cycle. But often a more effective treatment is to mentally escape to a highpoint from a past event or trip where I made a positive difference and things seem much better.

So in this way of thinking, 'saving for a rainy day' and 'paying it forward' have a lot more in common than is apparent at first glance. And I may have to reconsider my prior aversion to the saying.

Today I made a deposit in that mental savings account that should help me get though
First with the work. That was good in and of itself, although by now rubble is rubble and the incremental impact of a single day of hauling may not be enough to get through oh say a faculty meeting.

Good and Bad

It is hard to describe Haiti in a few paragraphs. Indeed I think it is impossible to describe it. On one hand, Haiti is so poor that they do not have enough money to buy shoes or in many cases food, but at the same time, these are these same people will give you food or the shirts off their back to one in need.

It is a country of beautiful beaches and mountains that could rival Hawaii, but also of cities so dirty and grimey that they make the slums in many nations look like vacation get-aways.

We saw some of the worst and some of the best of Haiti today.

In the morning Lisa (a nurse from Iowa who is working at one of the many small hospitals that are trying to cope with the immense need for medical assistance that Haiti faces ), Carrie, and I ran out to the “beach” that is down some dirt “roads”. The beach was littered and dirty, the roads muddy, full of pot holes, motor cycles, wandering goats, pigs, and people busy fetching their daily water supply or headed into town. And yet the views from these roads would make into any travel magazine of fog at the bases of mountains after miles of green fields full of sugar cane.

The binary trend of good and bad continued during our workday. It was a new site and none of us, save for the team leader April, had any idea where it was. So when the tap-tap stopped in front of a huge pile that partially blocked the road we just assumed it was to let a motorcycle pass, but when the truck did not start moving again we were struck with the intimidating realization that we were in front of the job. “Uh, yikes” was the most proper response I can put on a family-rated blog.

The road was narrow and crowded with traffic of all manners of movement from animal carrying bananas to market, to gigantic UN dump trucks hauling away some of the massive debris piles that litter Haitian streets. In addition street vendors hawked their wares and long lines of school children walked to and from schools.

The building had been either two or three stories but it was flattened so completely that I am still not sure after spending all day working at it. Regardless of its number of stories, debris pile a thing of pure dread. From the front it sported a pointed roof that had previously adorned the front of the building. This peak held fallen and hung suspended over a three foot open sewer and jutted out at least a third of the way into the already tightly confined street. Under the pile were layers of thick concrete, cleeche, metal, remnants of its pre quake existence, and twisted metal with pointed edges to either cut or trip up the less than careful volunteer. Oh and to make matters worse there was no where that we could easily pile the debris. It was a nightmare job.

After taking stock of the enormity of the job and reminding each other of the dangers of the location (traffic and theft to say nothing of the fact that we would be swinging sledge hammers, pick forks, in close proximity and climbing over rubble with rebar),

But we jumped in. April correctly decided we had to clear the street before anything else could be done, so four of use took turns whacking away at the roof which proved much thicker and stronger than most. Others began to remove any loose rebar, some put plastic soda bottles over the exposed metal for safety, while others were on traffic detail.


So what was the good part? The family we were helping as well as neighbors, and sometimes just passers by often jumped into help. Robinson (a HODR volunteer from Haiti itself) arranged coconuts for us, we bought bananas, and many many people said hi and stood and watched for a time.

And slowly, inch by inch we began to make progress. It took much of the morning, but we eventually had the pile off the street and a new mountain of debris taking shape on a side street..

As the day wore on (and days of nearly constant sledge hammering and hauling do wear on), a glimmer of hope rose in all of the volunteers--”Maybe, just maybe, this can be surmounted”. “maybe we can do it.”

I hope the owners, neighbors, and passer-byes took home the same hope as they continued on their road of survival and recovery.

One more slab cleared

Mission accomplished and great job by all as Rubbling at Desiree was completed two days ahead of original estimates. This was accomplished under the wonderful leadership of Weston and a solid hard working team whose nucleaus was Westin, Sam, Flynn, and Jerry.

“So what?” some might say, “so what...it is one house. Hundreds of thousands of buildings were destroyed and you cleared the rubble from one relatively small house. Big deal.”

And you know what? They would be right.

Oh sure, the strict pragmatist would likely note that physically we moved tons of rubble. That for about six days crews of about 12 people moved wheel barrels of cement at a rate of about a wheel barrel a minute for six hours a day. That each barrel load had between 23-30 shovels of debris (Sam-who undoubtedly made the most trips to and from the pile was on the high end of the range). Or that in the end we left a pile of rubble that was 84 feet long and 8 feet high at its peak. Based on these estimates we probably moved somewhere in the vicinity of 160 tons of rubble to the street and pushed several additional tons aside. Which is alot but the family now has a lot, and not a pile of debris on their lot.

But who cares? There are 280,000+ buildings you did one. It is like killing mosquitoes by hand. You work and work to solve one problem mosquito and there are thousands of others out there. But that does not stop anyone from killing the mosquito that is about to bite him/her.

I can tell you who cares that this job was accomplished: Wesley and his family care. They were so happy that they could barely speak when we finished clearing the slab and after Jerry and I gave them two tents to start them on their road to recovery. They cared so much that they (who had lost everything and could not afford shoes, invited the whole team to eat with them.

Of course we said no. We could not possibly take their food, but after many requests we yeilded only to have our ride arrive and we had to get to another job. This was when Wesley immediately insisted on bringing it to the base after we were done. And sure enough about 3 hours later he arrived with food for us all.

In the big picture we finished one lot today, but to Welsey and his mom, we finished the most important lot, their lot. And they can not start their comeback!