Ti chen gen fos devan kay met li.

The little dog is brave in front of its master's house.

We are at that weird time between projects right now. We are finished with the first round of projects for now, the fountain upgrades and the sand filters, and I am working out budgets/timelines for our next set of projects: renovating a school at Morne Michel, a remote village about a 10 mile hike away.

After speaking with some of the leaders in that village, we have identified several potential projects. They want to improve the drainage and their roof so that they don’t have leaks in the classroom. They also said that the area around the school is rocky and the students fall and hurt themselves all the time. Consequently, they want to pour concrete around the school to create a safe(r) schoolyard for students to play. Finally, Morne Michel is way off the grid and has no electricity so the students struggle to find light to study and read at night. Ideally, we would be able to install a solar panel with a few LED lights to illuminate this new schoolyard.

The hardest part of this will be carrying everything up to the school. It literally sits on top of a mountain but the Haitians aren't intimidated. We just need “an army of beasts” to carry all the materials up (a beast is anything from a goat to a horse). When they first built the school a few years ago, “many beasts died on the way up the mountain” as a result of the immense weight of the materials.

This project has many unique challenges but I think we are up to the task. In a perfect world, no animals would be harmed in the execution of this project.

Beyond projects, my Creole language skills are still a work in progress. I am doing flash cards now to help memorize some of the trickier vocabulary but I am getting more confident everyday. By this summer, I hope to be able to, as the Haitians say, speak Creole like a rat.

Sa ka rive koukouloulou a, ka rive kakalanga tou

What happens to the turkey can happen to the rooster too.

After a short, busy, and food-filled trip Stateside, I am now happily back in Haiti ready to keep pushing our projects forward. I really enjoyed seeing my family and the presentation I gave for the budding Grand Challenge Scholar program at Clemson went so much better than expected. Please read about it here in the Greenville News.

This is a photo from setting up the sand filters with the Clemson Spring Break crew last week. The installation went well but, as mentioned in the last post, the plastic valves could not handle the stress. We are working on getting metal valves now. Please appreciate the look on my face as I try to explain a concept I know almost nothing about in two languages at the same time.

We also had a meeting with DINEPA last week to talk about future partnerships. I got to show off our newly renovated water system and they were quite impressed. The three representatives took pictures of our new taps and said that they hope to make them standard throughout the country.

I really enjoyed everyone who came on the Spring Break trip last week. They did an amazing job assimilating themselves into the community and establishing connections despite their short visit. It makes my job a lot easier when we have motivated students working in the classroom.

Yesterday, I went to the Hotel Oloffson in Port-au-Prince, a historical mansion that a few Haitian presidents have lived in and that now serves as the venue for the ra-ra band RAM. It was an awesome hotel with a lot of interesting guests and a disgusting pool. The only people who would get near it were a few dogs and a German family.

RAM is a ra-ra band that has been around for decades now. Ra-ra is a distinctly Haitian music genre with a lot of ties to voodoo rituals. In fact, the concert started with a voodoo ceremony. They were a blast and everyone there was going crazy. The man in white on the right is the leader and founder of the band, Richard Morse. His cousin is Michel Martelly who is also a famous Haitian musician known as "Sweet Mickey." Currently Sweet Mickey is serving as Haiti's president.

Na tan grangou, patat pa gen po.

In times of famine, potatoes have no skin.

As mentioned in my last post, we spent some of this week with the Clemson students working on installing the sand filters for a water system. As shown above, they aren't perfect but they worked. The goal was that these sand filters would reduce the sediment loads on our cartridge filters and better clean the water.

Unfortunately, the valves on the sand filters failed last night. The weight of the pipes, the tight connections, and the powerful pump on the other side were too much for the plastic. I knew we needed to get supports for the piping but I was too busy doing other projects to make it a priority. That was my mistake but I don't know how much tit really mattered. As you can see, I still have a lot to learn.

I spent the rest of the week doing site assessments with students and going to Morne Michel. I expect to start repairing their school (pictured here) in April. Ideally, we will also have the funds to install a solar panel and light so students can study in the morning and evening. This is one of the most impoverished villages I have seen so I am eager to get started. 

I am flying back to Clemson tomorrow for a few meetings and presentations so there will be another longer delay between posts. 

Kreyol pale, kreyol comprann.

Creole spoken is Creole understood.

Twenty-three students from another southern university arrived here last Thursday and fifteen students from Clemson arrived here the next day. As you can imagine, college students have taken over the compound for Spring Break.

Talking to people here for the first time gives me the opportunity to see how far I’ve come since I first came to Haiti. Not only can I communicate with Haitians so much better but also I am visibly more comfortable and aware of what’s going on. It’s easy for me to take everything for granted here, to keep seeing my environment without considering the spectacle of it all. With visitors, I get to see everything anew through their eyes and experiences.

We got right to work as soon as the Clemson students arrived. Yesterday, we installed sand filters into a water system to reduce sediment loads and clean up the water. It was an extremely difficult project to manage for a number of reasons, the least of which was my poor plumbing skills. I was managing both Clemson students in English and Haitian workers in Creole and both parties had even less experience with piping than myself.

Despite these obstacles, we managed to come together and make some real progress. It’s far from perfect—we’re not professionals—but it will work. In Haiti, where budgets are tight and materials are always low, that’s all we need. Expect pictures of our finished product later this week.

The rest of the week will consist of meetings, tours, and more work on the filters. We are hoping to sit down with DINEPA and the Partners in Health Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) team at some point this week and talk about partnerships. As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts (Sonje lapli sa ki leve mayi ou), public-private partnerships are the only way to really establish any sort of sustainability to our work. I hope it goes well.

Ayisyen swiv kouran.

Haitians follow the flow.

Last Sunday was International Women’s Day. To celebrate, the local women empowerment organization here held a show and party to honor Haiti’s women and the strides they have made in the past few decades. They had all sorts of performers including singers (see photo), dancers, rappers and even stand-up comics. It was really enjoyable to watch although Haiti is still plagued by gender inequality.

In preparation for the Clemson team coming to stay for Spring Break, we were cleaning our filter and storage building (in which our water treatment is housed) when the static mixer cracked, making everyone jump and getting everyone soaked. The static mixer, shown above, mixes the water as it comes out of the chlorinator and is an item not sold in Haiti. We managed to open the bypass line so we stopped wasting water but at the cost of forgoing the most important stage of our treatment: chlorination. This was a little bit of a crisis because the local hospital depends on the chlorine in the water for its patients.

As soon as the water stopped spraying everywhere, we removed the broken section and started desperately looking for a pipe we could insert until the new static mixer can arrive. We found a nice thick PVC pipe and two adapters, much faster than I expected, and immediately got to work fitting it into the system. Time was of the essence; every second we wasted was a second that potentially contaminated water was being provided to the villagers and the hospital here. As the picture displays (look for the white pipe), we were successful.

In other news, we finished the renovation of the water system and fountains in the village. I can officially say that our first project is complete. Our funding source is coming to check it out tomorrow. Next, we are looking at rebuilding parts of a school in a remote village. It’s the same one featured in a previous blog post (Deye mon, gen mon) and the same one we are trying to bring water to as well at some point.

Nanpwen lapriye ki pa gen amen.

There is no prayer that does not have an "Amen."

We should be wrapping up this first project today. I wanted to finish it last week but, as I mentioned in my last brief post, one of the fathers of our workers passed away on Thursday. While this robbed me of the chance to complete my first project as a manager here, it did grant me the opportunity to attend a typical Haitian funeral. It was quite the adventure.

Death in Haiti is treated almost in a light and dismissive manner. I did not see a single person crying other than the immediate family who were wailing, literally. Everyone else just kept repeating “Se lavi” or “It’s life.”

The night before the funeral service, the family holds a “vey” (don’t quote me on the spelling) at their home, a massive party that lasts the entire evening. The next morning everyone goes to the service where there is a lot of singing and mourning as people finally give in to the grief. All these events must be held as soon as the person dies; morgues aren’t exactly commonplace around here.

Last Thursday afternoon, when we found out about the death, we immediately dropped everything we were doing and started to help our friend prepare for the vey and service. We went to three different markets in three different villages to buy everything from gasoline for a generator to 7-Up soda. Finishing up around 7:00pm, I then had about an hour to shower and get dressed before leaving for the vey.

The vey was wild; there were over 200 people there. As one of the handful of white people there, I became the life of the party for no reason other than the color of my skin. I got to bed around 4am that night.

Most our employees were still helping our friend construct his father’s tomb over the weekend. I expect that we can resume work again today. In the meantime, I’ve had time to do some more administrative and finance work. I am exhausted but we need to finish everything and prepare for several more projects before a large group from Clemson comes over Spring Break next week.

Neg di san fe

People talk and don't act.

Here we are putting up the boxes on the fountains. We should be finished up with this first project soon. Unfortunately, the father of one of our most loyal employees passed away yesterday afternoon so everyone is going to the funeral today. I expect us to finish up on Saturday and then tie up loose ends next week.

Threading pipe by hand, or really just plumbing in general, can get pretty dirty. Light colors are not the best choice. I've had several Haitians just look at me and tell me that I need to shower. I am looking forward to finishing this project so I don't have to get so grimy day in and day out.

Kay koule twompe soley men li pa twompe lapil.

A leaky house can fool the sun but it can't fool the rain.

In my previous post, I wrote some about DINEPA, the Haitian government’s water and sanitation department, and our complicated relationship and history with them.

Shopping for water system supplies a week or two ago, I actually encountered the DINEPA representative for Central Haiti where I am living. It was tense. He was not exactly pleased to see another Clemson engineer from a village where they give out clean water for free.

He knows, as well as I, that in order to build and maintain sustainable water systems, the community must take responsibility for it. If Haiti is ever going to free itself from its dependence on foreign aid, it must start paying for this basic amenity internally through taxes or some other form of fund collection from the people.

The water system in my village was constructed and is maintained by funds from the United States. The people have never had to pay for water. Asking them to pay for water now, after receiving it for free for so long now, would incite protests and riots and hundreds of people would once again be exposed to the dangers of contaminated water.

When the DINEPA agent recognized me, he saw a person who is almost actively undermining his goals, a person handing out free water courtesy of American donors. How can he ask another village to fund their own system when they could point to my village and its free water? How can I ask another village to fund their own system when they could point to another village and its free water?

Of course if DINEPA was efficient and successful then I wouldn’t be here in the first place. They have a history of constructing poorly designed water systems and the people know it. All the villages I have visited so far do not trust their own government to provide for them and for a good reason.

For example, here is a picture of a cistern and treatment system they have built. The treatment is inside the little building on top.

Here is a picture of the treatment they have inside right now:

As you can see, it’s missing a few vital components. Maybe all components.

DINEPA and Clemson Engineers for Developing Countries each have their strengths and weaknesses. They each have constructed water systems that are unsustainable due to poor treatment or poor community development. They each have a lot to learn. They each want to keep striving for sustainable water systems but these is where their goals diverge.

CEDC earnestly hopes that that DINEPA will one day surpass it in quality and efficiency. Personally, nothing would make me happier than for my job, as an expatriate engineer in Haiti, not to exist in 10 years.