Our third night in Haiti has definitely been really really long. We started at around 8:30 to head towards a school near Carrefour. Along the way we planned to stop by a mechanic's shop so Marvin and Daryl could get feedback and finish building their project on pedal power generation that could be useful for charging batteries. Unlike yesterday when we had cloud cover today was really really hot.
On the way to the mechanic we saw a man on the side of the street using pedal power to sharpen his knives. As we got out to take a couple of pictures and ask a few questions we were swamped by angry people who weren't too happy about us taking pictures.
At the mechanics, Marvin and Daryl explained their project using a mix of French, Creole, and sketches. The mechanic kept repeating the words that "this is easy" "this is easy" over and over again when we asked if they could build our idea. When Marvin asked "if this is so easy why didn't you already come up with it" his response was that he didn't have the idea.
From the mechanics we headed out to the school. Along the path through Carrefour (the most hard hit region by the earthquake) the view resembled something from a action movie set in the Middle East, Bosnia or Africa, with white tank-like trucks with black UN letters posted on them driving through sand and dirt filled roads. Along the way we saw many many completely flattened buildings. One was a three story university that is now what people are referring to as a “pancake” three stacks of concrete. The devastation is unbelievable, and the roads are extremely dusty. Along the sides of these destroyed buildings there are many tent cities that have been set up. We stopped briefly to meet up with a few representatives of the school we were about to visit and a fourteen-yr-old came up to us and asked to listen to music. He really really liked AKON and proceeded to serenade us.
When we reached the school area, we first visited the original site of the school, wehre the building is completely damaged. At the back of the school there is a small clinic where I saw many amputee victims. We held a discussion outside under a tree with a group trying to develop software for One Laptop per Child. We then drove a few meters down the road to the site where the children have relocated to—a tent outside because they are still terrified of stepping into buildings. We had a brief lunch of crackers and Sprite and then started to interact with the children and OLPC’s XO laptops. The children seemed to have a great time showing us what they could do – despite the language barrier. It was really uplifting to see the children from ages 8 to 15 work together on the laptops despite the really poor situation around them. They were asked to write short stories using graphics on their machines. One child wrote about how his mother punished him for being mean to his brother. Another child wrote about picking mangoes with her grandmother and another fruit falling on their heads.
From the school we headed back through the rubble to Carrefore to meet up with the mechanic and see how far he had gotten. Once we got there the main problem was that the mechanic still did not have electricity and couldn’t get any of the welding done because of that. At this point we decided to split the group up. Marvin and Daryl stayed behind with their project for a few more hours and the rest of us went to a university that was turned into a tent city.
At the tent city we had a lot of fun interacting with the children. We also got a chance to meet with the president of the university who is also Haiti’s foremost expert on earthquakes. He mentioned that there are 4,000 families which is approximately 20,000 people at his one camp (and we have seen so many). The numbers are staggering, and to see all these tents, cramped together under the 100 degree weather seems unreal. The only good thing I saw in this cloud of dust is that the children are still able to play around with smiles on their faces.
We then drove back to the mechanic’s place and picked up our team mates before heading back to the hotel. During dinner we met a group of nurses and doctors working in the city’s only trauma hospital. They described gun shots, machete wounds, typhoid, malaria and so many other diseases and health issues. In their words it is the hardest environment that they’ve ever worked in.
After dinner we spoke with Dr. DeGraff and her husband (Prof Michel DeGraff’s brother) about everything from our projects, to healthcare in Haiti, to Haitian politics and how people feel about the help they’ve received after the earthquake. It was a really interesting discussion.
We have an early morning tomorrow because we’re meeting with the WASH cluster and being interviewed by a radio/TV station so I’m going to hit the bed. The power just went out again (although by power I mean generator—since the hotel is constantly run on generator). The last time the power went out I was in the shower.
